Peter DeFazio

Congressman Peter DeFazio has changed the location of several of his town hall meetings this week to accommodate increased interest in these events.

The town halls Tuesday, Aug. 18, will begin at 9 am at Oaklea Middle School gymnasium in Junction City. The Eugene meeting will begin 15 minutes earlier, at 5 pm at the Eugene Hilton. The Springfield meeting will begin at 7 pm at the Springfield High School Auditorium, 875 7th St. Rallies in support of reform are being planned a half hour before the Eugene and Springfield meetings.

At 10 am Wednesday, Aug. 19, DeFazio will be at the Washington School gymnasium in Oakland. Later Wednesday, at 5:15 pm he will be in Roseburg at Umpqua Hall in the Community Conference Building at the Douglas County Fair Grounds.

The Lane Bus Project’s Brewhaha at Cozmic Pizza packed the room with Eugeneans young and old April 7 for an evening of beer, pizza and environmental debate.

The “Clash of the Climate Titans” was really more of a titan sparring match moderated by WELC’s Dan Galpern, with Congressman Peter DeFazio and former Oregon secretary of state Bill Bradbury agreeing on the issue of climate change, but disagreeing only slightly on how to deal with it. Bradbury in a button-down shirt and tie was (sort of) in the pro-cap and trade corner, and DeFazio, all mavericky in jeans and fleece, drinking a beer, denounced cap and trade as putting Wall Street in control of the climate change issue.

Bradbury kicked off the debate with a slideshow on the effects of warming including a video of scientists lighting methane on fire through a hole in the ice over a lake in Alaska and closer to home, debris flows from a melting glacier near Mt. Hood.

via videosift.com

The liberal-leaning audience seemed supportive of both sides of the issue or maybe they were just happy that politicians were acknowledging climate change. As Oregon Wild’s Doug Heiken, who was watching from the back of the room, pointed out, it’s a big change when the politicians aren’t debating whether global warming exists, but instead the argument is over the best way to deal with it.

DeFazio generated the most applause throughout the evening, though it was unclear to me whether that was because people agreed with his stance, or they just liked the laid-back but going against the grain persona he put forth as he denounced Wall Street. He compared a potential unregulated cap-and-trade system to the next subprime mortgage bubble," predicting future concerns about "subprime carbon."

DeFazio's against the political norm stance called to mind his recent interaction with President Barack Obama in which Obama "needled DeFazio for his vote against the stimulus bill, saying, "Don't think we're not keeping score, brother."

Aside from a couple hecklers in the back of room, periodically calling out that the climate change tipping point has already been reached and of course denouncing old-growth logging, the politicians really only lost the crowd towards the end of the evening when both simultaneously advocated for dam removal on some rivers, but also pointed out the clean energy benefits of the dams on the Columbia. While nobody booed, the applause that had been following each of the speakers' remarks was conspicuously muted.

The debate ended with questions from the audience, including an inquiry as to which of the climate titans planned to run for governor. Bradbury announced that he was “seriously considering” a run for governor in 2010.

Lane Bus Project, with help from EW and the Healthy Climate Partnership, is holding a Brewhaha political forum at 7 tonight (April 7) at Cozmic Pizza, 8th and Charnelton. The event is affectionately named "Cap and Trade-aganza — Clash of the Climate Titans" and will feature some of the biggest names in Oregon politics, including Congressman Peter DeFazio and former secretary of state Bill Bradbury. The moderator for the evening is Eugene attorney Dan Galpern of the Western Environmental Law Center.

The question that will be posed tonight is: Should Oregon have a cap and trade system of its own? Arguments for and against are expected, and we should learn a bit more about the bigger picture of climate control systems.

What is cap and trade? According to the Oregon Environmental Council, cap and trade is when a regulating body places a cap on the amount of emissions that a group of polluters is allowed to emit. “The cap is set lower than current emissions and gradually ratcheted down over time. The total amount of emissions permitted under the cap is divided into allowances, say one ton of pollution equals one allowance. These allowances are allocated to polluters who are then free to buy or sell them, while staying within the limits of the cap. Polluters who are able to reduce their emissions at low cost can sell their extra allowances to polluters who face higher costs.”

Currently, Senate Bill 80, sponsored by Gov. Kulongoski, directs the Environmental Quality Commission to set a cap on greenhouse gas pollution in Oregon from electricity generation, transportation, and other activities. “It allows for greenhouse gas emission allowances and offsets to keep greenhouse gas pollution within a state, regional or nationally established cap,” according to the Bus Project. “It would require reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and registration.”

Find more info at www.lanebus.org or www.busproject.org

Vermont progressive Senator Bernie Sanders echoed local Congressman Peter Defazio's opposition to the Wall Street bailout.

Here's his video:

Local Congressman Peter DeFazio is a national leader of the progressive revolt on Capitol Hill against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

He explained why on the House floor: