Next Tuesday, Sightline’s Kristin Eberhard will join Oregon Bus Project’s Nikki Fisher in Portland to discuss better voting systems and Oregon’s Motor Voter Law. TEDxMtHood will host this speaker salon, followed by an audience discussion and networking session. Salons are small, in-person gatherings, centered around local speakers and TEDx videos. What: Innovations in Democracy When: Tuesday, March 15, 2016, 7:00 … Read more
This is an unusual election year in the United States, both in terms of the breadth of the Republican field and the strength of populist candidates in both parties. But some aspects are unfortunately extremely normal for the US’s two-party, plurality voting system: a candidate can win the party nomination even when most party primary … Read more
In 2016, the debate over Northwest coal exports will heat up again. Of the six projects originally targeted for Oregon and Washington, all but two have died. And these two—terminals that would be the first and second largest in North America—will come up for public review this year when the government agencies reviewing them will … Read more
In the first month of 2016, a pair of fledgling oil-by-rail projects abruptly collapsed in Oregon and Washington. One on the Columbia River, which had been operating since 2012, abruptly laid off more than half its workforce as it pivoted away from crude. The other, a proposal on the Pacific Coast that was still seeking … Read more
About a year-and-a-half ago, when Anna Sewell, a new lawyer for EarthJustice, moved across the country to Seattle from the heart of the Marcellus shale natural gas drilling hub in Pennsylvania, she expected to leave behind the local furor created by the huge numbers of new unconventional gas wells drilled in the area. Instead, as she … Read more
For Immediate Release: February 18, 2016 Contact: Eric de Place, eric@sightline.org, 206-447-1880 x105 SEATTLE, WA—Eight proposals in Oregon and Washington would build new refineries, pipelines, and port facilities to export fracked fuels and petrochemicals in very large quantities. These projects are a previously unexamined third wave in Northwest fossil fuel infrastructure development plans, following on … Read more
And how Portland and Seattle could play some serious catch-up.
Author’s note: Originally, the pie charts in this article included industrial electricity and natural gas use under the industrial sector. I have since updated the emissions and estimated allowance value pie charts to instead categorize emissions (and resulting allowance value) from industrial use of electricity and natural gas under the electricity and natural gas sectors. In the … Read more
Editor’s note: This article is cross-posted with permission from Oil Check Northwest. Across the Pacific Northwest, residents are talking about the growing risks from oil train traffic in their communities. The numerous derailments and fiery disasters since oil-by-rail became the go-to form of transportation for Bakken shale oil has many speaking out about concerns for public safety … Read more
Methanol has been getting a lot of attention in the Pacific Northwest lately, and with good reason. Three methanol plants proposed along the Columbia River and Puget Sound could make our region the country’s top methanol producer and exporter, while heavily taxing our iconic water systems and upping our air and carbon pollution loads. Sightline pulled together a … Read more