The Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) passed by a nearly 2/3 vote of the people in 2018. Yet this popular and one-of-a-kind tax on billion-dollar corporations doing business in Portland is being diverted to non-climate and clean energy purposes in the mayor's proposed budget, even though the funds are already allocated through 2029.

PCEF is already propping up the City's budget, with about $130 million of PCEF funds going to City projects related to climate, clean energy, and environmental justice annually.

• The proposed budget includes diverting PCEF from projects related to climate, clean energy, and equity to projects such as houseless camp sweeps, Portland Solutions administration, and other unrelated budget gaps.

• PCEF funds a large portion of the Urban Forestry budget, including a lot of the work 350PDX supports in tree planting and shade equity. This department already received deep and painful cuts in last year's budget and should not be cut further.

• Redirecting PCEF money will mean cuts to existing City staff and programs, since the City of Portland budget already includes about $130 million of PCEF funds each year.

Send a letter to City Council today to let them know PCEF is a community driven program and should not be redirected without first going through the PCEF Committee.

We're already experiencing the climate crisis and it's only going to get worse if we don't do all we can to mitigate our impact, and to prepare and build resilient and adaptive community responses to the climate harms already facing us. City leaders need to create their own innovative sources of revenue rather than raiding this one that community members worked so hard to secure.