In early 1995, Oregon was confronted with a problem. The state was committed to stabilizing emissions of greenhouse gasses at 1990 levels. At the same time, powerplant developers were rushing to build new gas-fired combustion turbines in Oregon, and had openly threatened to use their political power to obliterate any state regulatory oversight over power plant siting.
The crux came when three developers simultaneously applied for the single siting permit that the state siting council had decided to offer, with essentially identical plant proposals. The innovative solution was to base the decision on the demonstrated ability of the applicants to mitigate the global warming emissions from their proposed plant. The estimated cost of the winning proposal (from the Klamath Generation project) became the basis of a new compromise on environmental cost monetization which became Oregon law in 1997.
All of the public documents from this precedent-setting proceeding are available here in WordPerfect format.
