A recap of the 2026 Short Session- Small wins, and unsolved issues still left on the table for EJ Communities

Immigrant Justice Package Advocacy Day in front of Oregon capital

That’s a wrap! 2026 Short Session recap!

It has been a challenging short session! Sine Dine happened on Friday, March 6th. Our legislators were put in an incredibly difficult position by the federal administration, which injected chaos throughout our society as it dismantled critical safety nets. While lawmakers delivered on some important new laws (ie. Immigrant Justice), and avoided the worst budget cuts for the remainder of the biennium, they unfortunately, did not prioritize climate and environmental justice for a second year in a row. 

Our Wins:

The Immigrant Justice Package (IJP)  had a variety of wins this session. Our members  along with their communities made it clear that Oregon needed to prioritize immigrant justice this session in light of the federal ICE attacks on our communities. IJP could not have been done without the hundreds of organizations and community members who raised their voice to make the immigrant justice package a priority. These key bills now head to the Governor’s desk for signature.

• HB 4111 - Anti-Discrimination Protection protects immigrants from discrimination in court proceedings based on immigration status. 

• HB 4114 - Protect Your Door  ensures accountability when constitutional rights are violated in Oregon and creates a civil cause of action allowing Oregonians to seek damages when federal or out-of-state agents unlawfully enter private property.

• HB 4138 - Law Enforcement Visibility and Accountability Act (LEVAA)  requires law enforcement officers operating in Oregon to visibly identify themselves and prohibits face coverings. This strengthens public trust by ensuring that all law enforcement actions in Oregon are more transparent, visible, and accountable.

HB 4025 - Fair Act Technical made a targeted technical fix to the FAIR Energy Act (HB 3179), which passed in the 2025 session to reduce the impact of utility rate hikes on households. Due to an oversight that also applied the winter rate increase ban to water utilities, FAIRwould have shifted water rate increases into summer months, when household budgets are already under strain. HB 4025 corrects this by ensuring that water utilities can raise rates  in the winter — when water use and bills are lowest— rather than in summer when they tend to be higher.

We were successful in delaying HB 4046, the Nuclear Study Bill in the Ways and Means committee. This bill required a “study” of the advantages of nuclear energy that contains biased language in favor of nuclear power. We know nuclear energy is a false solution to Oregon’s energy affordability crisis and  a just transition to a renewable energy future. We will continue to monitor bills that offer false solutions to the climate crisis. 

Lastly, a surprising win was the passage of HB 4121 otherwise known as the SPARTICIS Bill championed by Rep. Evans! This bill establishes a Statewide Regional Training Office that would bring together all state resilience efforts into one advisory committee known as the Oregon Disaster Advisory committee. Under OJTA’s recommendation, this bill also establishes the permanency of Community Resilience Hubs as a program under OREM. However, HB 4121 did not allocate any funding to community resilience hubs. We will be back to advocate for funding to be allocated to such a critical and popular program in future sessions!

Make Polluters Pay Advocacy Day with over 200 community members

Our Losses:

Our main priority, SB 1541 - Climate Resilience Superfund Bill did not pass. This bill was a strategic revenue generating solution that would require the largest fossil fuel companies compensate the state and our communities for past climate change damages that occurred between 1995 and 2024. We had over 200 wildfire survivors, faith leaders, firefighters, young people, heat wave survivors, local elected officials, heating and cooling professionals, taxpayers, and community members show up on advocacy day, and shared their stories with a clear message that it was time to make polluters pay for the damages caused to Oregon communities. 

Ultimately, this bill was held up in the ways and means committee. This was the first time the bill had made it this far since the concept was introduced. We built the moment and the energy this year and the fight is not over! We will be upkeeping the community momentum into the 2027 long session in the next few months, join our mailing list to stay up to date. 

As far as the main bills we defended against, HB 4102, Privatized DEQ Permits - unfortunately did pass. This bill allows corporations to apply to be in an “expedited” permitting process if there is a DEQ permit backlog, requiring the agency to hire a third party permit writer, paid for by said corporation. We advocated tirelessly to ensure better community guardrails such as conflicts of interest protections, an entity’s considerations of past noncompliance with environmental regulations to preclude them from being allowed in an expedited process, and incentivizing better labor provisions if development is fast-tracked. Such a concept will disproportionately impact low-income communities that see more development and the construction of data centers, increasing the environmental pollution vulnerable communities are already facing.

Additionally, the Move Oregon Forward priorities which we endorsed did not pass. SB 1542 - Measure What We Drive would have put into place a scoring system that takes a holistic look at potential transportation investments based on climate impacts. SB 1543 - Guardrails for Good Governance would have ensured that ODOT would need approval from both the Oregon State Treasury and Oregon Transportation Commission before taking on additional debt- such as carbon-heavy highway megaprojects. And disappointingly, much of the transportation budget including funding for public transit was defunded in the ODOT budget reconciliation.  

Onward!

While this Session was a challenging one, our communities continued to show up and engaged with us this session. Our fight is far from over and we will continue to uplift the needs of the alliance. Our deepest thanks go out to all the people who joined us and stepped up and those legislators who championed our issues.

As we gear up to tackle our unfinished business, you can lend a hand with a donation of any amount. The future we want will not happen without us. Onward.