SALEM -- Democrats face mounting pressure to water down Oregon's clean fuels program, with opponents filing petitions for the November 2016 ballot and business leaders withdrawing support.
Oil and trucking industry advocates filed three draft proposals Wednesday for the 2016 election. The first would fully repeal the program, which seeks to lower carbon fuel emissions by 10 percent over the next decade.
The other two would scale back the carbon reduction goal to 5 percent, get rid of the program's carbon-credit trading system and prevent the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality from forcing oil distributors to use alternative fuels that are more expensive.
Each proposal would need 88,184 signatures by July 2016 to make it on the ballot.
Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality has estimated the program could increase gas prices between four and 19 cents a gallon by 2025, and enraged Republicans have vowed to block a hoped-for transportation package if Democrats don't repeal the program.
Related: Why environmentalists are divided on clean fuels
Also Wednesday, the Oregon Business Association sent a letter to Gov. Kate Brown and legislative leaders urging them to gut the clean fuels program in exchange for a bipartisan transportation package -- a stark shift from earlier this session, when the group urged lawmakers to pass both.
"The (clean fuels) program has the potential to bring Oregon into the mix with Washington, California, and British Columbia as the West Coast commits to lowering carbon impacts and opening doors to economic development opportunities for renewable fuels industries," the letter reads. "We are aware that you are all working hard to pull a transportation package together this session. We understand this might require compromise language in the Clean Fuels legislation.We support such a compromise."
Brown is still trying to broker a deal with legislative leaders, but so far no compromise has been reached. Kristen Grainger, Brown's communications director, said the governor's office "isn't surprised" by the ballot petitions but declined to comment further.
Other Democrats who supported the clean fuels program said they're not backing down.
"Repealing clean fuels is a terrible idea," said Sen. Chris Edwards, D-Eugene, who chairs the Senate environment committee. "It was a bill we worked on for a long time ... outright repeal is off the table."
Denis C. Theriault contributed.
-- Ian K. Kullgren
ikullgren@oregonian.com
503-294-4006