I just got this update from Mari Anne Gest, campaign director for the Oregon Apollo energy ballot initiative.

Moving Oregon Towards an Energy Independent Future

In this Campaign Update – March 2006:

• Big Oil Challenges Ballot Title – Issue Goes to Oregon Supreme Court
• Moving the Clean Energy Agenda in Oregon – Firing Ahead on all Cylinders
• Community Events

Big Oil Petitions Supreme Court in Challenge to Oregon Apollo Ballot Title
Here is an update on the ballot measure process.   The Attorney General certified a favorable ballot title for the Oregon Apollo Initiative on February 28^th.  On March 14th, Oil distributors appealed the title to the Oregon Supreme Court.

While we face down legal challenges by the petroleum industry, we will be in the field in the next week or so testing the appeal of the ballot title to swing voters and determining which messages work best (e.g., job creation through Centers of Excellence, energy independence through biofuels, “it’s time to send a message to Salem”, Oregon needs a new vision, and so on).

Below is the certified ballot title (#145) we will be testing:

Requires research, development of clean, renewable energy: biofuel use; provides tax credits; expands bonding authority

Result of yes vote:   “Yes” vote creates Board, centers to research and develop clean, renewable energy; creates biofuel requirements; increases tax credits, state bonding authority for existing loan program.

Result of no vote: “No” vote retains current law providing policy of developing permanently sustainable energy resources through tax relief, authorizing loans for small local projects using renewable resources.

On the legal front, two oil industry trade groups requested changes to the ballot title that were rejected by the Attorney General.  Subsequently, Brian Harris, on behalf of oil distributors, appealed the title to the Oregon Supreme Court on the last day appeals could be filed - March 14th. This appears to be a delay tactic to keep us from collecting the valid signatures we need to submit to the Secretary of State by July 7th.  

Here is the problem we now face:  The Oregon Supreme Court is under no specific time line to address this oil industry appeal and we cannot move forward with collecting signatures until the Supreme Court acts. This delay can cripple our efforts to move forward with a clean energy agenda for the November 2006 ballot. We need at least 12 weeks to collect 75,000 plus valid signatures to be viable.  

So stay tuned.

What’s next?
It is important to understand that whether or not we move forward with our 2006 initiative, this ballot measure effort – and your support already — has helped to galvanize the renewable energy issue and unquestionably helped to move it up to the very top of the state’s policy agenda.   You have been critical to that effort – Thank You - and our message moving forward is simple: we need to keep it there!

We were also delighted to see a ringing endorsement of renewable energy policy as a top priority in Governor Kulongoski’s State of the State and we commend him for his leadership. 

This ballot measure – and the larger movement for New Energy for Oregon – will require many new partnerships that cross old political divides: between urban and rural, business and labor, republicans, democrats and independents. 

Therefore, however things play out in the courts, we plan on keeping the momentum alive and to keep our state moving towards energy independence. Your continued interest and support in the months and years ahead will be crucial to reach our goal.

Remember the Apollo moon launch?  Well here is the true story.  Bob Burns, former aerospace engineer that worked on the Apollo project for NASA, said this about the experience. 

“There were several launches before they finally hit the moon. When they launched The Apollo, development and testing wasn’t finished.  But the time was perfect to launch so they fired away.  If we had waited it would have set us back years to find the perfect conditions again and we’d be looking at the moon through a telescope.”

Big Oil is not going to determine our energy future. We the people are taking our energy future into our own hands! 

Community Events.

March 21
Listen to co-petitioner Ben Westlund speak on renewable energy opportunities on March 21 at the BASE Summit 2006 in Bend.  For more info: http://www.coic.org/base/summit/

April 8
Hear from Apollo Alliance co-founder Dan Carol at a special campus event at PSU on April 8^th sponsored by the Power Shift National Tour.  For more details, see: http://www.power-shift.org/

Join the biofuel network
Learn more about the biofuel movement - buying biofuel for personal use or home heating and other facts and ongoing news to help us move forward with renewable energy by visiting http://www.biofuels4oregon.org/    - Sponsored by the Oregon Environmental Council.  

Props to the Lane Bus Project for staging the special “Apollo Hour” in Eugene on February 23, where experts including Ian Hill of Sequential Biofuels and Roger Ebbage of Lane Community College’s Energy Center described their pioneering efforts in renewable energy economics, job training and a more sustainable environment – and their support for the work we are doing around the initiative.  Look for an Apollo Power Hour up North sometime soon.

In the meantime, sign up today to hold a house party by visiting www.oregonapollo.com

So stay tuned - get involved!   Please tell your friends to visit our web site to sign up for email updates.  www.oregonapollo.com  

Thank you,
Mari Anne Gest
Campaign Director
Oregon Apollo
503-851-8845
mgest@OregonApollo.com

This entry was posted on Friday, March 17th, 2006 at 10:34 am and is filed under Energy Future, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.