Simply put, it’s about how ALL Oregonians—businesses, young people, workers, farmers, ranchers, conservationists and forward-thinking public officials—can take action now to ensure that Oregon stays ahead in the economic race to create clean energy jobs from Portland to Pendleton while also taking steps to help Oregon be free from foreign oil.

What’s the measure designed to do?
Why a ballot measure?  
Who supports Oregon Apollo?
What's with the Apollo name?
Plug-In to The Campaign
Press

What’s the measure designed to do?
We need to stop outsourcing and hemorrhaging Oregon's job base.  With oil supplies shrinking and oil at over $60 a barrel, we'd be smart to pioneer a clean energy technology industry and make Oregon—not California or China—the green tech capital of the Pacific.

Experts agree we can win this race with the right blend of business incentives, rural-urban partnerships, and smarter workforce education and training programs to drive the development of a new clean energy economy.

Study after economic study shows that high road investments like these pay for themselves and create high-wage jobs that stay. Strategic investments in clean energy can build export industries for our state, rather than exporting our best and brightest to work elsewhere. Economic benefits will flow directly to local communities and get us off the low road, low wage economic rut we're in.

The measure is designed to spur the growth of Oregon’s biofuels industry and build the state’s clean energy braintrust through the creation of Centers of Excellence across the state. These Centers will drive Oregon’s efforts to pioneer in clean and renewable technology development and job creation. To read the goals and main provisions of the ballot measure, please see the Oregon Apollo Ballot Initiative Summary. You may also download the full text of the proposed intiative in PDF format.

Simply put, there's no reason that Oregon can't lead the way in this critical area, in the same way that California has chosen to lead on stem cell research.

Why a ballot measure?
Don’t take our word for it, check out this recent editorial from the Oregonian entitled “Oregon stalls, Washington accelerates” which makes the case for us.

The bottom line: we can’t rely on politics as usual in Salem to get the job done. Passing the Oregon Apollo measure will not only create quality jobs and build new export industries for our state, it will also send a strong message to all political leaders that it’s time to step up their game.

Who supports Oregon Apollo?
Chief petitioners for the measure are former Governor John Kitzhaber (D) and State Senator Ben Westlund (R-Bend). In the days ahead, Apollo will unveil a Leadership Council from all walks and sectors of Oregon—from business to labor, from east to west—who believe that Oregon Apollo is a good idea that can unite us all around a shared vision of a can-do, innovative economic future for our great state…before it’s too late.

Oregon Apollo is also proud to have garnered the support of the Oregon Bus Project by winning the ballot measure caucus at their 2006 conference: Rebooting Democracy.

What’s With The Apollo Name?
Apollo doesn’t refer to the Roman god or the theater in Harlem, but is designed to invoke the spirit of the old Apollo moon mission effort. 

Like President John F. Kennedy’s Apollo Project, which put a man on the moon in under a decade, an Apollo project for energy freedom must be big, bold and fast. 

Nationally, The Apollo Alliance is calling for such a new Apollo project to create 3 million new clean energy jobs and promote independence from foreign oil. Oregon Apollo is a proud partner designed to complement this broad-based effort.

Press
Download Press Release (PDF)