Limiting greenhouse gas emissions without placing an excessive burden on taxpayers and businesses seems like a complex task, at least to most people.

But the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development isn’t most people. Staffers there have done the math and come up with a simple formula: More public employees equals lower emissions.

Really.

This proposal was one of several discussed Feb. 2 by the (eye-glaze alert) Rulemaking Advisory Committee on Metropolitan Transportation Planning. The committee was created by the state Land Conservation and Development Commission to review planning rules designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions, increase transportation choices and reduce reliance on the automobile.

The committee eventually will ask the LCDC to consider a set of rules to guide urban planners across the state. While it hasn’t settled on a final version yet, it has been weighing in on a set of draft rules compiled by DLCD staff. The result will update existing rules to reduce car trips and, in doing so, cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Among other things, the draft rules would require certain cities to establish performance measures by which the state could measure anti-car progress. Cities and counties would choose performance measures that work for them, according to Bill Holstrom, a planning-services coordinator with DLCD. A set of recommended performance measures considered Feb. 2 includes those designed to boost bike lanes, sidewalks, the number of households within walking distance of transit corridors and, yes, public employees.

A city could, if it chose, demonstrate its progress toward low-car nirvana by hiring a minimum per-capita number of “transportation options” staffers. The sample ratio presented Feb. 2 is two staffers for every 55,536 residents.

Bend City Councilor Bill Moseley, who sits on the committee, sensibly called the per-capita staffing measure “odd,” according to notes from the meeting. He asked how one could correlate public employee staffing levels to reductions in greenhouse gases or reliance upon the automobile.

DLCD staffers pointed out that the measure comes from the state’s 2015 Transportation Options Plan, according to which “tracking the number of staff per capita is a useful measure given the importance of transportation-options staff to conduct outreach, deliver information, and manage programs.” The plan defines a transportation-options staff person as someone “who promotes the use of transportation options and provides transportation options information and education to the community.”

In other words, a PR person.

None of this answers the basic question, which is how hiring PR professionals at public expense would lead in any measurable way to a reduction in vehicle trips and greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, it does show that state officials are committed to fighting automobile use and that they’re determined to do something to that end even if it isn’t very useful. Which is perhaps the point.

It’s only a matter of time, we suppose, before somebody in Salem suggests that the state demonstrate its commitment to solving its public pension crisis by hiring a bunch of PR experts with PERS benefits to talk about it.