Frequently asked questions

The measure would require “Large Retailers” – corporations making both $1 billion or more in gross profits nationally, and $500,000 or more in gross profits within Eugene – to pay 2% of their gross profits annually to the City of Eugene. Typical large retailers include big banks (e.g. Chase, Wells Fargo), big box stores (e.g. Walmart, Home Depot), and big tech (e.g. Amazon). Gross profits from most groceries, medicines, residential garbage and recycling services, and health care services would be excluded. 

Beyond Toxics, Breach Collective, Oregon Just Transition Alliance, and the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club steered the development of the initiative, in consultation with a broader coalition of environmental and climate change organizations, other community groups, and labor unions.

The threshold of $1 billion in gross profits nationally ensures we’re only targeting the largest, national or multinational corporations operating in Eugene. These corporations have lobbied aggressively for tax cuts and environmental and climate deregulation, such as the corporate tax cuts in the Trump Administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and recent wholesale dismantling of federal climate change policy.

These corporations also have an extractive relationship with Eugene: studies have shown that, on average, for every dollar spent at a national retail store, only 14 cents gets recirculated back into the community, compared with 53 cents of every dollar spent at a locally-owned store. For all these reasons and more, these corporations can and should pay their fair share to address climate change and reinvest in our community.

Big banks lend enormous amounts of money to the fossil fuel industry, with the world’s 65 largest banks lending $869 billion dollars in 2024 alone, an increase of $162 billion from 2023. JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo are the United States’ first, third and fifth largest fossil fuel industry funders, respectively. 

Big box stores have long supply chains, massive climate and environmental footprints, very often don't account for greenhouse gases in the production and distribution of their products, and rely on a business model based on low-quality goods, ever-increasing consumption, and eroding labor standards. 

Big tech companies have quietly abandoned their climate commitments in recent years, with AI-driven data center construction driving massive greenhouse gas emissions increases by many of these companies. Amazon, for example, has tripled its greenhouse gas emissions since 2019.

The large retailers that will be affected by the fee determine the prices of their goods and services at a national level, based on national trends. There is no credible argument that the Eugene Clean Energy Fund would meaningfully affect demand or hurt consumers, or raise prices, and there has been no evidence of this occurring with the Portland Clean Energy Fund.

Non-profits and other IRS tax-exempt organizations – such as schools and charitable organizations – can apply for funding either as the sole applicant, or in conjunction with other non-profit entities, government entities, or for-profit businesses. In Portland, this has led to a broad swathe of community groups applying for and/or receiving funding to-date.

Administrative costs will be limited to 10% of the annual fund, once it is up-and-running. A nine-person grant committee will decide on which projects get funded and ensure accountability.

The Committee will have one member from the City of Eugene (i.e. a City employee or City Councilor), one member from the Eugene Water and Electricity Board (i.e. an EWEB Employee or Commissioner), one member appointed by the City’s Sustainability Commission, one member appointed by the City’s Human Rights Commission, and 5 members appointed from the general public by City Council. Members of the committee will be required to have extensive experience in the fields pertaining to the Initiative and represent the segments of Eugene’s community that are most impacted by the effects of climate change. The Committee will be required to evaluate the fund’s effectiveness in achieving the City’s climate goals and plans.

Hundreds and millions of dollars in recent federal and state funding cuts have severely limited the amount of funding and other incentives available for clean energy and other climate programs locally. Other state programs that received one-time funding have recently expired or exhausted that funding. State budget challenges may worsen in the next few years, leading to state agencies working on clean energy becoming understaffed. Bills that would establish new state programs are failing to advance in the legislature.

Eugene needs a stable, local, long-term funding source that meets the scale of our challenges related to climate change and economic inequality. Unlike many of the rebate and tax credit programs offered by the State, which require families to have disposable income to spend upfront, ECEF can work to eliminate upfront costs for improving home energy efficiency and climate resilience.

The Eugene Water and Electricity Board does have subsidies and zero-interest loans to support weatherization and the installation of energy efficiency appliances. These subsidies are limited in who and how much they cover. Homes with gas as their primary heating source cannot access EWEB support programs, and customers must choose between the zero-interest loans or rebates. 

At the same time, a high proportion (65%) of Eugene’s housing stock was built before 1990, when energy efficiency improvements were made to the Oregon’s building code. This means there is a huge need to improve energy efficiency and weatherization in Eugene’s homes, particularly in the face of a changing climate. The Eugene Clean Energy Fund would complement, not duplicate, existing programs by expanding upon and filling gaps in eligibility, and removing upfront cost barriers, to ensure that clean energy upgrades are as accessible as possible in our community. 

Oregon’s Solar & Storage Rebate program was fully allocated as of May 2024, and there is no more funding left in the program. EWEB has some limited solar incentives, but EWEB has yet to meaningfully invest in community- or utility-scale solar. PCEF has funded a significant amount of community solar so far, and our intention is that the Eugene Clean Energy Fund will help to bring community and utility-scale solar and storage to Eugene, increasing community resilience to extreme weather and helping to further clean up Eugene’s grid.

The runaway success of the Portland Clean Energy Fund in bringing in more revenue than forecasted has led to attempts to divert those funds to other projects and programs than were originally intended for the fund. We can expect similar civic debates in Eugene if and when ECEF brings in a proportional amount of revenue. But the same coalition of organizations and community members that helped to pass PCEF have also helped to ensure that, to date, the vast majority of revenue generated by that fund has been spent on clean energy and climate-focused projects. PCEF is currently on track to spend over $1.6 billion on reducing greenhouse emissions by 2029.