By Alex Dobuzinskis
(Reuters) - Oregon's Democratic governor dispatched the state police on Thursday to bring back to the legislature Senate Republicans who left the Capitol in order to scuttle a vote on climate change legislation.
Governor Kate Brown said in a statement that Senate Democrats had requested the assistance of state police to bring their colleagues back.
"As the executive of the agency, I am authorizing the state police to fulfill the Senate Democrats' request," Brown said. "It is absolutely unacceptable that the Senate Republicans would turn their back on their constituents who they are honor-bound to represent here in this building."
The rules of the Oregon Senate require at least 20 members to be present for action to be taken on bills. With the Republican senators missing, the Democrats lacked a quorum.
The Republicans' departure from the Capitol and the involvement of state police is an indication of the level of acrimony that has infected negotiations over the state's climate change bill.
The Oregon Assembly passed the legislation earlier this week, sending it to the Senate.
The bill would require Oregon to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions below 45 percent of 1990 levels by 2035, according to the text of the legislation.
The approach, which is called cap and trade, would cap the total amount of greenhouse gases in the state and force companies, such as utilities, to buy emission allowances.
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Republicans contend the legislation would make fossil fuel prices too high. They have sought to allow the proposal to be placed on the ballot so voters can decide.
"Protesting cap and trade by walking out today represents our constituency and exactly how we should be doing our job," Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger wrote in a statement posted on Twitter.
Oregon state Senator Brian Boquist, a Republican, told Portland television station KGW on Wednesday that if state police come for him, they should "send bachelors and come heavily armed."
"I'm not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon," Boquist added.
Boquist did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Thursday.
As Oregon lawmakers squabbled over the bill, the New York legislature early on Thursday approved its own legislation that seeks to slow climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.
If signed into law, it would make New York the second U.S. state after California to aim for a carbon-neutral economy decades from now.