CUB’s Week in Eugene
Posted on March 8, 2012 by Sommer Moser
Tags, Climate and Conservation, Public Involvement and Coalitions
This past weekend, SA, Bob, and I had the pleasure of spending a few days in the great city of Eugene to partake in the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC). PIELC is an annual gathering for environmental activists, attorneys, students, scientists, and community members to share their expertise and insight about all things environmental (including lots of panels on energy and climate change, both of which are near and dear to CUB’s heart!)
We kicked off the weekend on Thursday night with a Meet and Greet as part of Bob’s 20th year celebration. It’s not often that CUB gets a chance to hold events in Eugene, and we were very fortunate to have the help of our two Eugene-area Board Members, Scott Hansen and Sarah Peters, in making the night a success. It was an intimate event, which really gave folks a chance to talk to Bob one-on-one about CUB’s past 20 years and some of our current work and projects. We generated a lot of enthusiasm and recruited some new members to boot!
On Friday, the PIELC fun began in earnest. We got our table set up and SA and I spent the remainder of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday alternating between panels and tabling, which gave us both a chance to learn lots of new stuff and to get the word out about CUB all at the same time. Because attendees come from all over the United States as well as several other countries, several folks had never heard about CUB. It was a lot of fun telling people all about the work that we do and the accomplishments that we’ve made over the past 28 years.
On Saturday, Bob had the honor of speaking on a panel—Utility Regulation and the Fight Against Coal. Given CUB’s extensive first-hand knowledge about using utility regulation and economics to close the Boardman coal plant, Bob obviously had a lot to say. He recounted the integral role that CUB played in convincing PGE to model closing Boardman early in light of current and future carbon regulation and the associated economic risks. Bob also shared some great advice for other people and organizations advocating for the closure of coal-fired power plants in their states. Bob ended the panel in his usual boisterous fashion, exclaiming: “Oregon’s going to close a freakin’ coal plant. And not just any coal plant — a freakin’ base-load modern coal plant built in the 1970s.”
All in all, our weekend in Eugene was a lot of fun and we got to spend a lot of time doing something we love—talking about CUB. I even had the pleasure of introducing SA to some of my favorite Eugene haunts—the Bier Stein, Sushi Domo, and Sweet Life. Until next time, Eugene!
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03/29/17 | 0 Comments | CUB’s Week in Eugene