As discussed here a few weeks ago, Oregon's gov. Retread got together with Washington gov. Inslee and a British Columbia bureaucrat down in San Francisco, where they hooked up with Moonbeam and all decided to Save The Planet™ all by their very selves. One of the things they agreed on was implementing a carbon tax, which B.C. and California already have. So Retread and Inslee decided we'd do the same. But they forgot to check with the lawyers:
Oregon’s attempt to impose a Cap & Trade-like system on gasoline and diesel took a new twist recently when the Ninth Circuit Court sent California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) back to the lower courts. The proponents in California see this as good news (it wasn’t declared unconstitutional), but raises serious doubts about its legality in Oregon.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals noted that only California was exempt from the Federal Clean Air Act’s preemption on individual state fuel blends thus raising the argument that Oregon’s program is preempted by federal law.
Whoopsie; this means that Oregon can't go all California, and if they try, it's going to be tied up in the courts for years. Retread desperately wants a specially-blended-for Oregon LCFS fuel with increased amounts of ethanol. Of course, under his plan, fuel prices in Oregon would "necessarily skyrocket" - to say nothing of the increased costs to consumers due to engine damage.
Another tiny issue that Retread's conveniently overlooked involves the potential liability to the state due to tourist and commercial lawsuits; if Retread was able to impose higher ethanol concentrations specially for Oregon and thereby causes engine damage in out-of-state vehicles, there's almost certain to be some blowback. As is so often the case around here, there's a tendency to run with "feel-good" and "trend-setting" without actually thinking things through. See also: Coverup Oregon website.