Advocacy

Overview

LOSN calls our team the Advocacy Team. That’s an awkward term, but it denotes an active group that keeps our message about sustainability before our representatives and city officials through messages, testimony, office visits and any other actions that we think will be effective. We work to get laws, regulations and ordinances passed that support our hope for a livable world for us, our children and their children.

Our team welcomes new members, and everyone who joins us shares our excitement of advancing our goals. We are determined to hold the line against regression of sustainability policies. From lobbying LO city officials as they develop regulations that favor gas-free yard care tools in our city to urging state legislators to extend the subsidies for electric vehicle purchases, we have had an impact – and will continue the work for as long as we’re needed.

How do we advocate?

We advocate in several ways. Each year, we send input to the city goal-setting process because we know that the city staff will focus on the goals set by the council. We also organize testimony at hearings here in Lake Oswego before our City Council, as we did when the Council was considering creating a climate action plan.

We also testify, both in person and via mail, before the legislature in Salem and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), as we did when the House and Senate were debating the 100% clean energy bill and the DEQ was writing rules for the Climate Protection Plan. We arrange visits in person to the offices of our representative and senator every year before the legislative session to promote our priorities and when a bill needs personal support.

We often work with partners in our community to get ideas and input, including the Oswego Lake Watershed Council, Respond to Racism, MCAT (Mobilizing Climate Action Together), Electrify Oregon, the Oregon League of Conservation Voters and more.

Finally, we have galvanized public support by organizing campaigns, which can include action alerts, mailers, letter writing campaigns and more.

We choose our issues carefully after intense vetting. We support issues that will help us meet our mission of promoting an environmentally, socially and economically thriving community. We realize that a piece of legislature may affect the lives of everyone in our community and is part of a greater effort that extends around the earth. In order to support an issue, our Advocacy team discusses and votes. All the issues are considered by the LOSN Board of Directors, and we require a consensus (100% in favor!) before we agree to support a particular issue.

Some of the key issues that we have supported:

State Issues:

• Funding and tax credits for electrification including support for EV’s, heat pumps, induction stoves and solar energy
• Updating the state’s climate goals
• A program to lower electricity rates for residents by creating a special class of users, large data centers, so that they pay more.
• Ways to build more transmission lines to support our transition to clean energy
• Oregon’s Climate Protection Plan (CPP) which set the goal to phase out green house gasses
• Laws that reduce waste by allowing people the “right to repair”
• A law that would have allowed the city to exceed state energy efficiency goals

Lake Oswego Issues:

• A city climate action plan
• Electric school buses
• Affordable housing
• Lake Oswego School District revenue bonds – the district has created some of the greenest schools in the U.S.
• A plan to phase out gas-powered leaf blowers
• Reduced pesticide use so Lake Oswego can become a “Bee City”
• Changes to the urban and community forest plan
• Pilot projects that test out EV charging for multi-family housing
• Use of green electricity by the city
• Ways to reduce carbon emissions and natural gas in the city