Oregon’s State Senate is debating a new bill designed to reduce the amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. But if you listen to truck drivers from Salem, the bill could be bad for business.

Senate Bill 1530 proposes capping carbon emissions, particularly from the transportation, manufacturing, and utility industries. In response,truckers protested earlier this month by drove a convoy between Salem and Portland Oregon.

Repeated horn honks from big rigs and citizens armed with signs crowded the steps of the Capitol to ensure their opinions were heard.

So what are the finer details of Senate Bill 1530, also known as the Cap-and-Trade bill, and are there any viable alternatives?

Details of the Cap-and-Trade Bill

The reason for the cap-and trade bill is to mitigate the human-driven effects of climate change.Specifically, releasing carbon emissions.

There are many exciting alternatives on horizon. For example, the new Air-gen uses protein nano wires to literally create electricity out of thin air, which could provide a lot of energy after it is developed on a larger scale.

However, these solutions tend to take along time to implement. To help speed up the process, legislators are stepping in by imposing various rules and taxes on different industries.

This results in major carbon-emitting companies, such as those involved in transportation and trucking,facing the carbon tax to be imposed by the cap-and-trade bill. If it passes, an extra tax will be added to gasoline prices to encourage the populace to seek alternative forms of fuel.

In addition, SB 1530 will initialize a system of carbon credits. Companies subject to the new process will be allocated a certain amount of credits equal to their production of carbon. Once this limit is exceeded, a fine is imposed pending on how far over a business goes.

Making Truckers Carry the Burden is Unfair

The fear is that cap-and-trade will directly cut into profits from trucking, which is why drivers were protesting the Cap-and-Trade bill. All citizens benefit from truck drivers, though, so it’s unfair to single out this one industry for added economic stress.

All citizens rely on trucking to get everything from their groceries to their Amazon packages, so the burden of carbon emissions should fall on everyone.

Due to the increased visibility of the climate issue, however, laws proposing rules on industries like trucking will continue to be proposed, even if this one does not pass.

Truck drivers may want to explore other options that we can bring up to legislators. Here are a few options:

• The state can offset carbon emissions by planting trees. For example, to cover about 2,000 miles roughly 8 trees would need to be planted.
• Trucking industry should negotiate with legislators to speed up the transition from gasoline trucks to hybrid or full-on electric powered rigs via incentive and subsidy programs.
• Research and establish an agreeable carbon-trading system that offsets emissions through a shared burden.
• Impose fines on manufacturers to spread the expenses of the Cap-and-Trade bill evenly across all related industry, rather than squarely on the backs of truckers and trucking companies.