The Bend City Council’s approach to creating a pollution fee for the city is not if it should create a pollution fee, but when.

“I think we are going to be a little bit swimming upstream on this,” Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler said at the most recent Bend City Council meeting. “Just the national narrative is ending or trying to end some of the programs to really move us to a clean energy economy.”

She said that is not a reason that Bend should not go forward.

The council’s preferred alternative, at this point at least, seems to be a policy similar to the one the city of Ashland adopted recently. It basically charges an extra fee of some hundreds of dollars when a fossil-fuel appliance is installed in new housing. For instance, the installation of a natural gas furnace or stove would trigger the fee. An electric alternative would not.

Electricity and not fossil fuels should be the future. But there is also concern about rising cost of electricity, the potential for lawsuits over such a policy, federal retribution and other unknowns.

The city plans to include builders, residents and more in discussions about development of this policy. You can tell councilors what you think at council@bendoregon.gov.