To: Oregon Climate Action Commission (OCAC)
From: Rand Schenck for Mobilizing Climate Action Together (MCAT)
Subject: Public Comment Regarding OCAC’s 2025 Work Plan
Date: January 21 2025
I appreciate this opportunity to comment on OCAC’s 2025 Work Plan. I offer you four recommendations:
We were very pleased that OCAC provided funding to four state agencies to implement natural climate solutions. This funding, at a minimum $5million, needs to be continued, annually, so that these four agencies, ODF, ODOE, ODFW, and OWEB, can continue this critical work.
We need to do even more to incentivize climate smart forestry which optimizes carbon sequestration/storage/resilience by growing trees longer, protecting mature and old growth trees, and maintaining a diversity of species, ages, and structures. Research conducted jointly by PSU and The Nature Conservancy has identified that by far the biggest bang for our buck in terms of natural climate solutions is to simply grow trees longer.
We applaud OCAC for establishing earlier carbon sequestration and storage goals for Oregon. We recommend that OCAC seek passage of legislation that ensures that these goals are binding. Aspirational goals are nice to have but insufficient in light of the worsening climate crisis. We need to be accountable to achieving these goals.
We know that without a factual baseline we will be unable to measure progress towards our carbon sequestration and storage goals. We recommend that this inventory distinguish between different land ownerships, e.g., national forests, BLM lands, state forests, and privately owned forests (in addition with these privately owned forests we recommend distinguishing between large land ownerships, >5,000 acres and smaller landowners).
We look forward to supporting the ongoing work of the OCAC to take advantage of this extraordinary capacity of Oregon’s natural and working lands to sequester and store carbon.
Sincerely,
Rand Schenck
MCAT Natural and Working Lands Lead
The OLCV sponsored group, MCAT, Mobilizing Climate Action Together, is a community of volunteers working to ensure that Oregon builds a healthy climate and green-energy economy for future generations. We participate in the Oregon Climate Action Plan coalition and partner with others on coordinated action. We actively organize to elect legislators that will work for strong climate legislation.