Cascade CounterPoint

The Oregon Legislature has mandated that large utilities deliver 100% emissions-free electricity by 2040. Since coal and natural gas account for more than 45% of Oregon’s electricity generation, replacing those fuels with emission-free alternatives will be difficult. Moreover, the closer Oregon gets to 100% reduction, the more expensive it will get. This challenge stems from the fact that the two...

The modernization of Benson Polytechnic High School is nearing completion. Originally budgeted for $202 million in 2016 and funded by a voter-approved bond in 2017, the scope of the project was subsequently expanded along with the cost. The revised budget, partially paid for through another bond in 2020, was $410 million. Part of the problem is that the school is oversized. Benson enrollment last...

Cities in Oregon are required to have Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs). However, those boundaries are not supposed to be permanent limits to urban expansion. UGBs are required to include enough land to allow for adequate housing over a 20-year period. The Portland regional government, known as Metro, is in the process of analyzing the need for expansion of the Portland UGB. In a draft report release...

Oregon politicians banned the use of coal for electricity generation by 2030 and natural gas by 2040, pushing utilities to rely more on wind and solar energy. These sources often produce less than 10% of Oregon’s electricity needs, forcing utilities to engage in a costly overbuild of wind and solar infrastructure. Given that weather is unpredictable, how much overbuilding will be required to meet...

In 2007, the Oregon Legislature passed House Bill 2620. The law mandates any major infrastructure project over $5 million, or any renovation which exceeds 50% of the current building’s value, to devote 1.5% of its entire budget to “Green Energy Technology” (GET). Since 2014, more than 50 of these statewide projects have been for schools, where solar panels are overwhelmingly the GET of choice. Rep...

When an Electric Vehicle is marketed as “zero-emission,” consumers expect their car does not cause pollution, right? Well, in the case of zero-emission vehicles, the phrase only refers to “tailpipe exhaust emissions of certain pollutants or greenhouse gases,” according to the  U.S. Government Accountability Office . Many miss this fine print and buy EVs, believing they are helping the environment....

The Portland Expo Center has been serving our region through trade shows and local events for nearly 60 years. However, the facility has been under-maintained, and in 2019 upgrades to the Oregon Convention Center made the Expo Center obsolete. The Expo Center is operated by Metro, which is looking for alternative uses for that site. In June, a public meeting was held to unveil Metro’s latest visio...

Children are unique, with different talents, interests, and learning styles. A school that works well for one child doesn’t necessarily meet the needs of another. What if all students could attend schools that helped them learn best? Empowering parents to choose the best educational environments for their children is called school choice.  School choice programs allow education funding to follow s...

Worries about the Cascadia Subduction Zone have persisted for the last 50 years. Oregon school districts have considered the possibility of a major earthquake as they build and renovate existing structures. In line with this approach, the Portland Public School district has embarked on a decades-long modernization project, most recently the proposed $491 million modernization of Jefferson High Sch...

On May 30, Louisiana’s legislature passed SB 313, establishing the LA GATOR Scholarship Program. The nation’s eighth universal Education Savings Account program will be phased in beginning in 2025, with priority given to low-income students, current LA Scholarship Program students, and students enrolled in public schools. Twelve states now have laws that will offer educational choice to all, or ne...

For the past 40 years, the scientific community has been aware that a major earthquake caused by the Cascadia subduction zone could strike the Pacific Northwest. Enter Multnomah County’s $895 million “Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge,” set to open in 2031. County Commissioners decided that replacing the current bridge is necessary to safeguard Portland’s lifeline routes. But how necessary or helpf...

Electric Vehicles are bad business. To boost sales in a market lacking a competitive edge, the government has stepped in with subsidies, tax breaks, and rebates as well as a mandate requiring 35% of all new sales be zero-emission vehicles. The government is replacing competitive prices and market performance with an ideology.  In an attempt to maintain sales and meet the mandate, Ford has been pri...

This month,  Missouri increased educational opportunity  for families by expanding its Education Savings Account program. SB 727 widens eligibility for Missouri’s ESA program to include more students, increases teachers’ salaries, and makes it easier to open charter schools. Different school environments help students learn in the ways that are most beneficial for them. Approximately 20 million Am...

A committee of the Oregon legislature will soon be traveling around the state taking testimony on how to pay for Oregon’s network of highways, bridges and roads. Since 1919, Oregon has relied on gas taxes for road maintenance, but costs are rising faster than tax revenues. One option is to enact mileage-based user fees, also known as tolls. But Gov. Kotek recently shut down ODOT’s plan for highway...

At its May 7th meeting, the Portland Public Schools Board voted to spend nearly $1 billion to build new school buildings and sports facilities for Ida B. Wells and Cleveland High Schools, respectively. One reason the price tag is so high is that the Board has decided to prohibit the use of natural gas within the schools, as part of the District’s campaign against fossil fuels. But making the schoo...

2023 is being called the “Year of Universal Education Choice,” and for good reason. According to the nonprofit organization  EdChoice , policymakers in 40 states debated 111 bills to expand education options for K-12 students. Lawmakers in seven states enacted new choice programs, and ten states expanded already-existing ones. As of March 2024, eleven states now have universal or near-universal sc...

This week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case  Johnson v. City of Grants Pass . The central question is whether local ordinances that prohibit people from camping on public property constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment. Based on prior rulings in the 9th Circuit court of appeals, western states have been limited since 2018 in what they can do to p...

This month, Cascade Policy Institute is releasing a new report explaining why government-mandated “affordable housing” doesn’t actually make housing more affordable. In The Affordable Housing Scam, author Randal O’Toole writes that while “U.S. taxpayers spend tens of billions of dollars a year subsidizing housing for low-income households,” those units cost “about 20 percent more per square foot t...

Last week, Cascade Policy Institute provided  suggestions  to the Board of Portland Public Schools to reduce costs on the Jefferson High School modernization project. The project is paused due to the budget ballooning from $311 million (approved by voters in a 2020 bond issue) to $491 million. Cascade’s primary advice for the PPS Board can be applied to all publicly funded projects: practice commo...

This month, Alabama became the most recent state to increase education options for students through Education Savings Accounts.  Alabama’s CHOOSE Act  gives families access to up to $7,000 per child to use at participating private schools or for other education expenses. Families who homeschool may receive up to $2,000. Low-income students have first priority, with eligibility expanding to all chi...

The Oregonian  recently reported that  “Oregon students as a whole have failed to regain either math or reading skills” lost during the COVID-19 pandemic , unlike students in  29 other states included in an analysis published in January. The article points out that, despite $1.6 billion in federal pandemic aid being spent in Oregon schools, Oregon students are experiencing three to four times the...

On February 22, the Joint Committee on Transportation of the Oregon Legislature unanimously approved SB 1572, which would appropriate $250,000 to ODOT to study the feasibility of extending TriMet’s Westside Express Service (WES) train from Wilsonville to Salem. The committee did this despite the fact that average daily ridership on WES was down to 370 in January. With so few riders, the average op...

Full-text: The 35-day session of the Oregon Legislature opened last week, and a hearing was held on the Governor’s top priority, Senate Bill 1537. Her goal is to increase the supply of housing. Unfortunately, this goal is undercut by Oregon’s Urban Growth Boundaries, which are designed to limit urban growth. Under SB 1537, cities will be allowed to add tiny amounts of new land inside the boundary,...

Full text: The last segment of Oregon’s Interstate Highway system opened in 1982. One would think that since Oregon has a nationally prominent planning system, there would be efforts underway to plan for the next generation of great roads. But that is not the case. Planners almost universally hate highways, so they have made sure that the Interstate system remains stagnant. Even where changes are...

Full-text: The  National School Choice Awareness Foundation  conducted a survey of parents of school-aged children in early January. The results indicate that parents “increasingly see school choice as the ‘new normal’ in a post-pandemic world.” The survey report,  New Year, New Schools: U.S. Parents View K-12 School Choice as the “New Normal” in 2024 , shows 72% of parents said they considered ne...