PORTLAND — Gov. Ted Kulongoski was leaving Oregon on Saturday for a
trade mission to Europe and Israel that will focus on market-based
systems to combat global warming.

Kulongoski was leading a delegation he said numbered about 65 people.

He
said his top priority is to talk with officials in Brussels about the
European “cap-and-trade” system of regulating greenhouse gases.

Cap-and-trade
systems limit the overall level of pollution or greenhouse gases.
Companies that reduce their emissions below their caps can sell
pollution rights to other companies, which bid for them. The idea is to
move away from regulations that chafe businesses and toward schemes
that can employ market savvy for green ends.

Kulongoski said in January he plans to put a cap-and-trade proposal before the Oregon Legislature next year.

In Europe, he said, he’s looking for dos and don’ts.

“I’m
really interested in what the Europeans did right and what they can
tell me about, ’Don’t go down that road,’ “ he said in an interview
Saturday.

Kulongoski said he hoped to attract green-energy
companies in Israel to set up shop in Oregon. Israel, he said, “is on
the cutting edge of the technology around batteries for electric cars.”

The
trip also will include stops at outposts of companies important in
Oregon, he said: Intel in Tel Aviv and Nike in the Netherlands.