Tim Miller From Oregon Business for Climate
Advancing the growth of the clean tech and green building industry requires close collaboration with environmental policy advocates and policymakers. Tim Miller knows this well. Tim is Director of Oregon Business for Climate, a nonpartisan, nonprofit statewide organization focused on mobilizing industry support and business leadership to advance climate policy in Oregon. Founded in 2017 by a group of Oregon Business Leaders, Oregon Business for Climate has been active in mobilizing business community support for climate legislation. This year, Oregon Business for Climate has been part of a team staffing the Governor’s Clean Energy Technology Manufacturing Task Force (known as the ‘Clean Tech Task Force’), along with Oregon Environmental Council, Blue Green Alliance, Oregon Business Council, and Technology Association of Oregon.
Tim Miller | Director of Oregon Business for Climate
We wanted to ask Tim about his experience in advancing climate legislation on behalf of the business community and insights into the Clean Tech Task Force process.
Oregon Business for Climate has helped fill an important gap in our climate community when it comes to advocating for bold climate legislation while bolstering economic development. How would you describe your role within this ecosystem of organizations advancing climate policy and how has mobilizing the business community made a difference in Oregon’s climate policy landscape?
We believe Oregon can and must move faster to address climate change. Every business can play a part, and there’s a compelling business case for doing so. And when these forward-looking businesses come together, we are a powerful force for progress. We all know powerful entrenched business interests that are holding us back – organizing and actively working to prevent and roll back progress – and it often takes a pro-climate business voice to debunk those arguments. As a league of businesses in a range of industries across the state, we bring a collective business voice to help drive ambitious, equitable, effective solutions, and we mobilize businesses to bring their individual perspectives as well.
Policy progress also takes a much broader coalition of interests and experts – environmental and climate groups, environmental justice groups, other progressive business groups, community-based organizations, technical experts, and others, depending on the issue. We work in these coalitions every day, ensuring we’re supporting progress at the nexus of business and climate and justice.
We’ve seen this approach, in partnership with other groups, help several critical policies and programs get across the finish line in recent years. These range from Oregon’s 100% Clean Power legislation that moves us to clean electricity by 2040, to the adoption of rules moving us to clean cars and clean trucks, to a range of state investments and incentives to reduce emissions through solar photovoltaic, energy efficiency and healthy homes, and medium and heavy duty vehicles, to reducing emissions while boosting resilience in our new and existing building, to passing packages of bills that help Oregon leverage tens of millions of dollars in historic federal climate-related funding, to helping establish (and, hopefully, re-instate) Oregon’s Climate Protection Plan.
In parallel with policy work, we also offer programs to help businesses take direct action to reduce their own emissions. For example, as part of the Breaking Barriers Collaborative, we and other leading Northwest groups are helping businesses reduce carbon emissions and co-pollutants from their vehicle fleets.
You have helped to staff the Clean Energy Tech Manufacturing Task Force co-chaired by Governor Kotek and Senator Wyden. What have you learned from this process and what do you hope to see as a result of this process?
Oregon has a history of innovation in clean energy projects and technologies, and we already have an ecosystem of businesses innovating and manufacturing solutions in this space. But we’re not fully capitalizing on today’s huge opportunity – stemming from both the global explosion in demand for clean energy solutions, and the historic federal investments targeting these industries. In fact, when looking at a map of recent federal clean energy manufacturing investments, Oregon is a glaring blank spot.
Through this Task Force process, modelled on a similar process last year that resulted in a package to invest in our semi-conductor industry, we’ve learned that several of the challenges facing clean energy technology manufacturing are the same challenges hampering other industries in Oregon. These include a lack of sites ready for building manufacturing facilities, the long-term need for more clean power, and the support needed to ensure a strong workforce ready for these good jobs. At the same time, some needs are more specific to this industry, such as investments and other incentives to spur research, innovation, and entrepreneurship – and to help scale companies bringing these new solutions to market.
The Inflation Reduction Act includes $60 billion for investments in clean energy manufacturing. If Oregon just landed our per capita share, that would amount to nearly $800 million of investment – not counting the private capital and other benefits this would spur. And Oregon has a history of leadership in these areas – meaning we should gain much more than our share. This leadership opportunity is not just a matter of historical pride. A recently-released tool from RMI, triangulating a number of economic development factors, shows that Oregon is extremely well-positioned in several key clean energy sectors.
Zooming out further, Goldman Sachs estimates that the US is ‘poised for an energy revolution’ valued at $3 trillion. That requires unprecedented levels of hardware manufacturing – and if Oregon makes our share that that gear, we stand to grow our economy by tens of billions of dollars. My hope is that this Task Force is a big leap forward in identifying the barriers, solutions, and investments needed – now and in the coming few years – to help Oregon seize this leadership opportunity.
What other legislative priorities should we be looking out for in the 2025 long session (such as grid innovation or transportation)?
The transportation package and funding solutions will be a central part of the legislature’s work this session, and we’ll be engaging where appropriate to ensure climate, justice, and smart business considerations figure in the mix. Also expect to see proposals to improve grid transmission capacity and siting reform so we’re able to meet the demand for more clean energy. We’ll likely also see proposals to boost energy efficiency and other energy cost savings, including in affordable housing. And we’ll see the need for critical funding of key climate and equity-focused programs that otherwise may be out of money – ranging from community renewable energy grants, to heat pump programs, to EV incentives (cars, and medium and heavy duty vehicles), resilience hubs, worker relief from dangerous climate-driven conditions, healthy homes investments for lower income families, and solar and storage incentives. And again, back to the previous discussion, we’ll be working on proposals to address barriers and make investments to help Oregon regain leadership in clean energy technology manufacturing.
