Environmental Protection

Oregon’s natural environment is no less at risk to drastic climate change then other areas.  We are already seeing the effects.  The Trump Administration’s successful dismantling of environmental protections by appointing fossil fuel executives to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were wrong!  We have to immediately reinstate those protections and then some.

Climate change is an existential crisis, and we need to direct resources to the agency best equipped to mitigate the climate change that is among us.  We need to double-down on environmental research and the science to know what we still can do and give the EPA the legal authority to take down violators and polluters.  

I want to bring research and development funding to Oregon, to find more energy solutions from renewable cleaner energy, especially wind, solar and possible collection of oceanic wave energy. We have the curiosity, innovators and institutions to make that happen. I  also strongly support the Blue Green Alliance.

I will also vote to strengthen incentive programs and grants for Willamette Valley farmers to switch to certified, sustainable organic farming.  As I continue to learn more about the environmental and economic benefits to farmers who practice organic farming, the more I can see Oregon emerging as a leading state on what will surely be our farming methods of the future.

I will work with other like-minded Members of Congress to draft a clean energy package to expedite advancement of environmental projects in and beyond the Green New Deal.