A clean energy jobs report released this week applauded Oregon’s expansion of a sustainable workforce in all its major metro areas but ended its praise when it began talking about the future, pointing specifically to a stunning legislative failure on implementing a cap-and-trade law this year.
The report, released by national nonpartisan business group Environmental Entrepreneurs, says Oregon is running in about the middle of the pack when it comes to states’ clean energy job numbers, but says those numbers are flagging. Though the statewide workforce includes more than 40,000 energy efficiency jobs and 7,000 renewable energy jobs, the report said the clean energy economy is slowing down, growing by only 1.4 percent in 2018.
“To stay competitive in a rapidly shifting energy market, the Oregon legislature must take decisive action in the 2020 session,” the report said.
The Eugene-Springfield area is home to more than 5,100 clean energy jobs, a sector that includes solar, wind, energy efficiency, clean vehicles and other fields. That total is broken down into 575 renewable energy jobs in the metro area and more than 4,000 energy efficiency jobs, the report said.
The Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton metro area is home to half of the state’s clean energy jobs, according to the report, with more than 28,5000 based there. That metro area has about 4,350 renewable energy jobs and almost 21,500 energy efficiency jobs, according to the report.
Salem, Medford, Bend and Corvallis follow respectively in clean energy jobs, the report said. Another 10,600 such jobs are located in rural areas.
Wheeler County has the fewest clean energy jobs by county statewide, the report said. There are fewer than five such jobs per 1,000 residents there.
The report pointed to this year’s failure to enact a “cap-and-invest” law as one of the state’s critical setbacks. The controversial legislation, which aimed to slash carbon emissions and promote statewide clean energy jobs, was derailed by some statehouse Republicans fleeing Salem before a vote.
It was strongly opposed by sectors such as timber and trucking who argued its implementation would sacrifice their jobs for the bill’s stated goals.
“Moving forward with the cap-and-invest policy now is critical to generating the private-sector market signals needed to attract innovative clean energy companies to Oregon,” the Environmental Entrepreneurs said.
