Portland Planning and Sustainability commissioners voted tonight, 6-4, to approve a zoning change necessary for a Canadian company to build a propane storage and export facility in North Portland.
Protestors packed the house and 97 people waited, mostly patiently, to testify mostly against a $500 million giant propane tank that Commissioner Chris Smith said would be “soot on (Portland’s) brand.”
“There’s no way to do this and say we still believe in our Climate Action Plan,” Smith said.
When the commission voted, protestors—who had been remarkably courteous during the six-hour hearing—immediately erupted into chants of “shame!” and “murder!”
But an affirmative vote is just a vote to hand the issue off to Portland City Council, which, several commissioners pointed out, consists of elected officials who maybe should weigh in on the controversial topic. In the end, city council has the final say on the project, regardless of today’s vote.
The commission’s next move is to submit their recommendations—which will include six of nine proposed amendments—to city council. The commissioners could also choose to submit one or more letters to the council to explain the split vote.
What I said was it would be “soot on Portland’s brand”.
Thanks for commenting, Commissioner Smith. I’ll make that change.
Who voted for and who voted against?
This seems a bit reactionary or maybe these people lack the acumen to distinguish between crude/LNG exports and LPG exports.
China and other asian nations are trying to reduce reliance on coal in residential heating/cooking, industrial, and transport. It’s also used to increase the heating potential of LNG that they get from other places. Asia replacing coal with liquid hydrocarbon gasses has a net benefit if it displaces coal.
These countries are going to use fossil fuels for the foreseeable future and LPG/LNG is less damaging to the environment than coal by a very large margin, including greenhouse emissions.
I was opposed to the large scale LNG terminals because they are huge and present little benefit to the state – also LNG is a resource we can use domestically.
This terminal is small by comparative standards and uses rail infrastructure already in place. It’s more ships making PDX port of call and another company paying taxes in the city. Propane is highly benign compared to the bitumen rail cars we already deal with. I don’t really see what the downside here is – we already store far nastier liquid products in the tank farms down there. I mean it’s sort of whatever really.
The only woman I’m pimping is sweet lady propane and I’m tricking her out all over this town.
There is no market that won’t be filled by austrailia and asian supplies! They are in construction and developement today!
Anyone bring up how pointless it is for a city to have a “climate action plan”? Portland might as well have an action plan for ending violence in the Middle East.
“shame” “murder” ….
oh please.
A “climate action plan” is a vague concept used to justify whatever Hales & his campaign contributors want. A big condo in the Pearl, surrounded by expensive restaurants serving imported mutton, and the childless couple who fly out of PDX twice a month is “sustainable.”
A household in Lents with a sfh and (gasp) a backyard and a small car are not sustainnablle- their house must be replaced by two town homes and no lawn, and the car must be given up for a bus pass and a bike.
Glad that Mr. Smith voted correctly. Chris Smith may have a shot at the seat of Hales or Novick if either votes for the terminal. I would like to see Smith run against Novick. That would be an interesting 3-way race.