Home » Environment » Decarbonizing Cascadia » Can Oregon Democrats learn from B.C.’s conservative-backed carbon tax? After two years of defeat in Salem, carbon pricing still lacks support from business and rural interests. This report is contributed by Jefferson Public Radio, a partner in Getting to Zero, InvestigateWest’s yearlong reporting initiative. In 2019 and again in 2020, Oregon Republicans walked out of the state Legislature to prevent a vote on cap and trade climate bills. The legislation was meant to drive down the state’s carbon emissions, but Republicans feared the bills would place the greatest burden of higher fuel prices on sparsely populated rural communities.