Examining arguments on both sides of Eugene’s proposed clean energy fee

Inside the city of Eugene’s voter pamphlet are nearly 25 pages of ballot language, endorsements and arguments for and against Measure 20-388: a proposed ordinance that would enact a fee on large corporations to create a city fund for clean energy projects.

Local environmental justice organizers launched a campaign in February to promote their initiative, which qualified for the Nov. 3 election in August with about 14,000 signatures.

Since then, an opposition campaign representing industry groups has emerged to challenge the measure.

To help voters sort through the claims, Lookout Eugene-Springfield reviewed statements from both campaigns using the measure’s text, public records and interviews. But first, here’s what the measure would do and who is behind each campaign. 

What is Measure 20-388? 

Measure 20-388 would place a 2% fee on large retailers, defined as corporations earning more than $1 billion in gross profits annually in the United States and more than $500,000 in gross profits in Eugene. It exempts gross profits on basic groceries, medicine, and garbage and recycling services.

Here’s how it would work:

• The fee would go into a fund designated for energy-efficiency projects and clean jobs that support communities in Eugene experiencing the harshest effects of climate change — for instance, low-income families living through extreme heat without air conditioning.
• The measure would establish a nine-member committee with four-year terms that includes appointees from the City Council, the Eugene Water & Electric Board, and two city commissions, plus five members of the public who must have experience in fields such as renewable energy or workforce development.
• The committee would make funding recommendations to the mayor and City Council for projects typically managed by nonprofit organizations. 

If the measure passes, large retailers would need a license from the city in order to operate starting Jan. 1, 2029. According to the ballot summary, administrative costs are capped at 10% of the fund starting in 2030. 

Read the measure’s official ballot summary.

The proposed ordinance would amend the Eugene code to, beginning January 1, 2029, require large retailers to obtain a license and pay an annual 2% license fee on gross profits from retail sales within the City. The ordinance defines “large retailer” as one engaged in retail sales in Eugene with gross profits exceeding $1,000,000,000 nationally and $500,000 in Eugene, excluding contractors, utilities, cooperatives, and credit unions. Gross profits from retail sales upon which the 2% is calculated would not include sales of most groceries, medicines, residential garbage and recycling services, and health care services. The proposed ordinance would require proceeds from the license fee to be placed in a “Eugene Clean Energy Fund” dedicated to funding renewable energy and energy efficiency programs; clean energy job training, apprenticeships, and contractor support; green infrastructure programs; future innovation; and fund administration (not to exceed 10% starting in 2030). The ordinance would require an expert committee to recommend use of funds, evaluate effectiveness of fund, and ensure work funded is performed by historically disadvantaged groups.

Read the full measure here.

The coalition behind the Eugene Clean Energy Fund, including chief petitioners, wrote the measure and based it on the Portland Clean Energy Fund. The Portland fund was enacted in 2019. Its revenue had reached $1 billion by June of this year.

Who’s involved in the campaigns? 

Proponents

The local coalition supporting Measure 20-388 includes environmental groups such as Beyond Toxics, Breach Collective, Oregon Just Transition Alliance and Sierra Club of Oregon. The campaign filing name is listed as “Yes for Clean Energy Fund Eugene.”

Spokespeople and advisers include:

• Aya Cockram, a chief petitioner, who is raising her family in Eugene and was a teacher before she started working for nonprofit organizations. She works as the Oregon energy transition organizer with the Breach Collective.
• Joel Iboa, another chief petitioner, who lives in Eugene and has organized climate policy for years with Oregon Just Transition Alliance, where he is the executive director. 
• Dylan Plummer, a campaign adviser, who lives in Eugene and graduated from University of Oregon. He works on a national clean heat campaign for the Sierra Club. 

Funding and endorsements:

• The campaign has raised $292,695 as of Oct. 13. Contributions have come from chapters of labor unions including the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and Smart Local; the Portland-based Northwest Health Foundation; and out-of-state groups including the Jane Fonda Climate PAC and Accelerator for America Action. 
• The measure has received about 100 endorsements, including U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, Eugene Education Association and Eugene councilmembers Jennifer Yeh, Matt Keating and Lyndsie Leech.

Opponents

The local opposition campaign represents the Eugene Chamber of Commerce, industry groups including the Oregon Bankers Association, the Northwest Grocery Retail Association and Oregon Business and Industry. The campaign filing name is listed as Stop the Hidden Tax on Eugene.

Spokespeople and advisers include:

• Laura Sedwick, a spokesperson, is raising her family in Eugene and worked in the Oregon Legislature for elected officials including state Sen. Richard Devlin and U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio. She served as the director of business and advocacy for the Eugene Chamber of Commerce for about four years. She now works in project management for a tech company.
• PNW Strategies is a political consulting firm, which is listed as funding coordinating opposition arguments submitted to the voters pamphlet. This firm also managed a campaign against a watershed-rights measure earlier this year that raised 16 times the money as the supporters raised.

Funding and arguments:

• The campaign has raised $38,360, as of Oct. 13. Contributions have come from Oregon Business & Industry’s political action committee and the Eugene Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee, called LIFT Lane.
• People who have made a public argument against the measure in the voters’ pamphlet include Rusty Rexius, co-president of landscape company Rexius; Jason Williams, founder of Taxpayers Association of Oregon; former state Sen. Chris Edwards, D-Eugene; and former Eugene city councilors Chris Pryor and George Poling.

Examining the claims 

Lookout checked the following claims and statements from both campaigns. Under state law, government employees can’t advocate for or against ballot measures, and so city officials could not take questions about the measure’s potential effects.

Claim: “Large retailers are a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.”

Who said it: The measure’s findings, Section 1.

What Lookout found: The city’s 2021 greenhouse gas inventory, the most recent available, found that goods produced outside Eugene and delivered to the city, such as furniture and toys, make up the largest category of the community’s “imported” emissions. 

“Community demand for these goods and services are the cause of the imported emissions. Consumption-based imported emissions are more difficult to measure and track, but when included in the accounting, make up a significant portion of the community’s emissions,” the report states.

The report looks at “consumption-based emissions” collectively, meaning pollution from what people consume, both imported and locally generated, such as from landfill waste. In total, the report found, the climate-warming pollution in the city comes to 2,461,883 metric tons of carbon equivalent. According to the report, to sequester that much carbon would take a natural area roughly 14 times the size of Crater Lake National Park.

Claim: “It will create good-paying jobs” 

Who said it: Merkley, as part of his endorsement for the Eugene Clean Energy Fund. 

What Lookout found: According to the measure, 25% to 30% of the fund would go to clean energy jobs training, apprenticeships and contractor support.

Contractors awarded the clean energy projects must meet wage and benefit standards according to Oregon law. They must either have a workforce with apprenticeships, sign project labor agreements, or qualify as a “high-road contractor” — which requires employer-paid retirement and full-family medical benefits to workers on their projects. 

SEIU 503, Oregon’s largest labor union, has also endorsed the measure. 

Claim: “We will see increased costs.”

Who said it: Sedwick, the opposition campaign spokesperson, during a City Club of Eugene forum.

What Lookout found: The opposition’s website, stopthehiddentax.com, argues that the 2% fee will be passed down to consumers. It shows a receipt of bills including cable, school supplies and a Costco trip, adding about $20 a month to “everyday” costs. 

In an interview with Lookout, Sedwick said that the receipt is a “best guess.”

“It is just to give the consumer the visual that this isn’t just a licensing fee that Walmart is going to quietly pay,” said Sedwick, who caveats she is not an economist or business owner but someone worried about affordability and budget appropriations.

The opposition campaign did not reach out to Costco and other big businesses to ask whether the corporation had intentions about passing the cost onto consumers. Costco did not respond to Lookout by time of publication.

Sedwick pointed to a report analyzed by a nonpartisan committee out of the Oregon Legislature in 2016 and again in 2024 about corporate tax measures and consumer pricing.

Both projected that the taxes would raise consumer prices. However, the analyses were economic forecasts rather than a measure of actual price change. The estimates also considered a statewide tax on gross sales, which apply at every stage of production, not a local fee on gross profits from retail sales. 

Sedwick and the opposition campaign refer to the measure as a tax, because they believe people will experience it like a sales tax. However, the measure itself describes it as a “license fee” that large businesses pay as a condition of doing business. Unlike a sales tax, the license fee is not assessed to customers at the register.

Claim: “There is no evidence to show this would be passed onto customers. In fact, there is evidence that says the opposite when we look at Portland.” 

Who said it: Cockram in conversation with Sedwick on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Think Out Loud.” 

What Lookout found: Under Portland’s rules, retailers are allowed to list the surcharge on receipts. (This is not a provision stated in the Eugene measure.) 

However, when some large stores tried to do so in Portland, they faced lawsuits. In 2024, WinCo agreed to pay $3.6 million to settle a class action lawsuit that “alleged the company misled thousands of customers into paying hidden surcharges on certain non-grocery goods,” according to a 2024 report from The Oregonian. Safeway settled a similar lawsuit for up to $8.75 million.

Sedwick has asked the campaign why the Eugene measure exempts items like groceries if there isn’t a concern about prices being raised. (The Portland fund also exempts groceries.)

In a follow-up statement to Lookout, Plummer said: “We wanted to eliminate any doubt in the minds of voters reading the initiative for the first time that the costs of basic goods and services would increase by making them exempt from the fee. Whatever else voters believe about the measure, they can be 100% certain that the costs of essential goods and services wouldn’t be affected.”

In a follow-up statement to Lookout, Cockram added, “The bottom-line is PCEF (the Portland Clean Energy Fund) has been operating for eight years now. If there were direct evidence of this leading to increased prices, the opposition would have provided it.” 

City of Portland staff who work on the fund told Lookout they do not track how businesses itemize surcharges on receipts or bills, because it is outside the scope of their program.

When asked what businesses in Portland have paid into the fund, the city said it could not disclose names due to tax confidentiality.

At a glance: Eugene’s progress on climate goals 

Under its Climate Recovery Ordinance, adopted in 2014, the city of Eugene set a goal to cut communitywide fossil fuel use, such as gasoline, 50% by 2030 — with 2010 as its baseline.

To meet that goal, the city adopted a Climate Action Plan. About 67% of the plan’s actions, including investments in sustainable transportation, are complete, according to its 2025 annual report. 

“We’re actually not on track to meet our goals even though we’ve implemented a majority of the plan,” Danielle Klinkebiel, climate policy analyst for the city of Eugene, told KEZI in August 2025. 

“We’re in a really hard moment right now with some changes at the federal level and even at the state level,” Klinkebiel said. “We face a lot of new challenges in terms of funding to support this work.”

Those challenges still apply, alongside a strained city budget, spokesperson Marion Suitor told Lookout Wednesday, Oct. 15. In an email, Suitor said the city has not identified funding for the additional actions needed to meet its 2030 targets, and current work on the plan relies on partners.