The Oregon Environmental Council (OEC) is an environmental advocacy group

Environmental organization

An environmental organization is an organization that seeks to protect, analyze or monitor the environment against misuse or degradation or lobby for these goals....

 based in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, United States. It was founded in 1968. According to the group's mission statement

Mission statement

A mission statement is a statement of the purpose of a company or organization. The mission statement should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-making...

, they advance "innovative, collaborative solutions to Oregon's environmental challenges for today and future generations".

History

The Oregon Environmental Council was founded in 1968 by a group of "ordinary citizens", including PTA

Parent-Teacher Association

In the U.S. a parent-teacher association or Parent-Teacher-Student Association is a formal organization composed of parents, teachers and staff that is intended to facilitate parental participation in a public or private school. Most public and private K-8 schools in the U.S. have a PTA, a...

 and garden club members, outdoor enthusiasts, conservationists and other individuals who "had an interest in protecting the environmental legacy of Oregon".

Current work

Current program work of the OEC includes public policy

Public policy

Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...

, addressing global warming

Global warming

Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...

, preventing toxic exposure

Toxicity

Toxicity is the degree to which a substance can damage a living or non-living organisms. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a substructure of the organism, such as a cell or an organ , such as the liver...

, improving the quality of Oregon's rivers, sustainable

Sustainability

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...

 economic issues, and food and farms. Andrea Durbin has been the group's executive director

Executive director

Executive director is a term sometimes applied to the chief executive officer or managing director of an organization, company, or corporation. It is widely used in North American non-profit organizations, though in recent decades many U.S. nonprofits have adopted the title "President/CEO"...

 since 2006.

Key accomplishments

Key accomplishments of Oregon Environmental Council include:

• 1968 - Passed Mount Jefferson Wilderness
  Mount Jefferson Wilderness
  The Mount Jefferson Wilderness is a wilderness area located on and around Mount Jefferson in the central Cascade Range of Oregon in the United States. It is situated where the Willamette, Deschutes, and Mount Hood National Forests meet...
  
   Bill
• 1971 - Led citizen support that passed the Oregon Bottle Bill
  Oregon Bottle Bill
  The Oregon Bottle Bill is container-deposit legislation passed in the U.S. state of Oregon in 1971 and amended in 2007. It requires cans, bottles, and other containers of carbonated soft drink, beer, and water sold in Oregon to be returnable with a minimum refund value...
  
  , the first bottle bill in the nation
• 1973 - Helped pass Oregon Senate Bills 100 and 101
  Oregon Senate Bills 100 and 101 (1973)
  Oregon Senate Bills 100 and 101 were pieces of landmark legislation passed in 1973. It created a framework for land use planning across the state, requiring every city and county to develop a comprehensive plan for land use....
  
  , Oregon's land use planning law
• 1975 - Secured National Recreation Area
  National Recreation Area
  National Recreation Area is a designation for a protected area in the United States, often centered on large reservoirs and emphasizing water-based recreation for a large number of people. The first National Recreation Area was the Boulder Dam Recreation Area...
  
   protection for Hells Canyon
  Hells Canyon
  Hells Canyon is a wide canyon located along the border of eastern Oregon and western Idaho in the United States. It is North America's deepest river gorge at and part of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area....
  
  
• 1977 - Secured nation's first ban on certain ozone-depleting chemicals
  Ozone depletion
  Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4% per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere , and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon...
  
  
• 1987 - Created Oregon Superfund Program and the Governor's Watershed Enhancement Board (now known as Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board)
• 1991 - Secured the nation's first law requiring state agencies to minimize pesticide use
• 1999 - Passed a Pesticide Right to Know Law guaranteeing public access to data about all commercial pesticide use in Oregon
• 2003 - Passed a first-of-its-kind tax incentive for insurance companies to offer Pay-as-You-Drive auto insurance
• 2006 - Won United States Environmental Protection Agency
  United States Environmental Protection Agency
  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
  
   (EPA) Children's Environmental Health Excellence Award for their Eco-Healthy Child Care and Tiny Footprints programs that help parents and caregivers reduce children's exposure to toxic chemicals
• 2007 - Passed Climate Change Integration Act, setting greenhouse gas reduction goals for Oregon into statute and established statewide Global Warming Commission
• 2007 - Launched the Carbon Neutral Challenge for Oregon wine
  Oregon wine
  The state of Oregon in the United States has established an international reputation for its production of wine. Oregon has several different growing regions within the state's borders which are well-suited to the cultivation of grapes; additional regions straddle the border between Oregon and the...
  
  ries, with dozens of Oregon wineries participating to reduce their carbon footprint
  Carbon footprint
  A carbon footprint has historically been defined as "the total set of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an organization, event, product or person.". However, calculating a carbon footprint which conforms to this definition is often impracticable due to the large amount of data required, which is...
  
  s
• 2008 - Released landmark "Pollution in People" report, which tested the bodies of 10 Oregon men and women for chemicals, followed by the "Price of Pollution" report, the state's first-ever economic assessment of the true costs of environmentally triggered disease in Oregon