The Portland Clean Energy Fund is in the news again, and this time it’s tied to basketball.

City and state officials, including Gov. Tina Kotek, have vowed to work together to keep the Portland Trail Blazers in Portland. But to do so, they need to raise more than half a billion dollars to renovate the nearly 30-year-old Moda Center.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson has suggested using the city’s billion-dollar climate fund to help pay for some of those renovations, as first reported by The Oregonian.

But is that possible?

Here’s a fresh look at the city’s climate fund, how it came to be, and whether the fund can actually move money into the Moda Center renovations.

What is the Portland Clean Energy Fund?

Portland voters created a first-of-its-kind climate and justice program in 2018, when they approved a 1% tax on retail sales of large corporations in the city.

The money raised would fund a range of climate-related projects, including energy-efficient retrofits, renewable energy development, and job training in construction and energy.

The Portland Clean Energy Fund was created with a mission to address social and racial justice and environmental justice gaps – and to fund programs the city was not finding money for.

The idea was: if these historically underserved communities received investments in things that address climate change — like energy efficiency upgrades in their homes or electric cars that help reduce air pollution — it would help the impacted community as well as the city as a whole.

When the climate tax was approved, the city auditor expected it would generate to $60 million per year.

Instead, the climate tax has collected an estimated $250 million a year.

So far, the fund has generated 1.71 billion dollars – and climbing.

A billion and a half dollars is a lot of money for a cash-strapped city like Portland. How did the PCEF pot get so full?

It’s all about how much people spend and where they spend it.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it led to a shift in shopping habits.

The more people shop at large corporations, instead of smaller mom-and-pop shops, the more PCEF gets.

All that extra money led PCEF staff and the committee that oversees the fund to adjust how it spends money.

It created a five-year $750 million Climate Investment Plan, allocating the funds into strategic plans or community grants for smaller nonprofits in the city related to PCEF’s mission.

In December 2024, with tax collections continuing to accumulate, the committee doubled these commitments to $1.5 billion.

So even though there’s a very large pot of money, the funds have all been promised to city and nonprofit programs through 2028

What is the mayor’s proposal for these PCEF funds?

Some would call the climate fund’s enormous bank account a blessing for climate response, especially at a time when the Trump administration has rescinded hundreds of billions of dollars toward climate action.

But it’s also left a lot of people eying the money for non-climate programs, on and off, for years.

Now, with the owner of the Portland Trail Blazers hinting that the city’s only major league sports team could move away, Mayor Wilson has joined the long list of people eying the PCEF pot.

According to a city spokesperson, Wilson’s vision includes using at least $75 million from PCEF to modernize the existing Moda Center arena and to use renewable technology to reduce its carbon emissions.

But we have yet to see any public plans. This has all been happening behind closed doors. There have been no public meetings.

Is this the first time Portland has considered diverting climate funds to help with political leaders’ priorities?

A billion dollars is a lot of money.

As Portland’s elected leaders have seen how much the fund is generating per year, some have gotten googly-eyed about using PCEF funds for other things – like filling the city’s budget gaps.

For the past two years, Portland has used the interest generated by PCEF funds for non-climate programs.

This year, Portland’s general fund received about $18 million.

Under the fund’s Climate Investment Plan, PCEF dollars have also been used to fund the budget of six city bureaus to pay for climate-related projects.

More than $623 million has gone to these city programs, spurring years of back-and-forth conversations about the original intent of the fund and budget gaps.

This year, voters could be asked to vote on diverting a quarter of PCEF’s yearly funds to hire about 400 new Portland police officers.

Mayor Wilson’s proposal is the latest ask.

How easy would it be to take this money for the Moda Center’s upgrades?

It is possible, but big decisions will have to be made.

All of PCEF’s funds have been allocated through 2028. In order to divert climate funds to the Moda Center over the next few years, other programs would face cuts.

The eight-member PCEF committee could decide which programs to cut to free up money for the Moda Center. Or the mayor or a city council member could come directly to the committee with a pitch.

Ultimately, the mayor can’t make it a done deal — city councilors make the final decision.

What comes next?

It’s tough to determine what kind of timeline this is under.

On Wednesday night, the eight-member PCEF committee will meet, and as of now, it has not listed it as a topic of discussion on its agenda.

Lawmakers are also looking at Moda funding in Salem.

This may play a role in how quickly decisions need to be made, given that it’s a short legislative session.

We still don’t know what the City Council will do, when it will begin public conversations, or whether environmental advocates will fight any effort to shift funds earmarked for climate justice to a large arena.

A lot is in the works; we will have to see how it all shakes out.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/02/11/inside-portlands-climate-fund/