SALEM -- Environmental lobbyists might as well have stayed home during the 2005 legislative session. They didn't have a lot of clout, and they didn't get much done.

Not so in 2007.

This year's Legislature might be remembered as the greenest session in 30 years. Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who last week signed three major environmental bills into law, declared 2007 a "landmark session for sustainability in Oregon."

Clashes still occur between industry and environmentalists about state forests and rivers. But competing interests also have found common ground on alternative energy, recycling and giving the state Department of Environmental Quality more tax dollars.

So what's changed?

"Having 31 votes in the House as Democrats and having 18 in the Senate has made a world of difference," Kulongoski said in an interview with The Oregonian. "I truly believe that if there had not been a change of leadership in the House, none of this would have occurred this session."

For the first time in 36 years, lawmakers were able to update Oregon's bottle bill. They also unanimously endorsed an electronics recycling law and, after much negotiation, required the state's largest utilities to generate 25 percent of their electricity from wind, solar or other renewable sources by 2025.

Kulongoski admits there's more to the change than Democratic control of the House, Senate and governor's office.

It started last year, before the primary election, when Kulongoski met with environmentalists, who were so unhappy with his first-term record that they were flirting with the idea of endorsing another Democrat.

"I had some things I wanted to say to them, and they had some things they wanted to say to me," Kulongoski said. "We had a very candid conversation."

Out of that came a pledge from the governor to improve his communications with conservation groups. In turn, they drafted a list of priorities for the 2007 session that included many of the issues Kulongoski campaigned on: reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting Oregon as a hub for renewable energy and protecting rivers and streams.

Then Sybil Ackerman, lobbyist for the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, spent much of last year meeting with 44 legislators in their districts.

Ackerman and other environmental lobbyists also toned down their rhetoric. Instead of referring to places where industrial and municipal wastes are released into waterways as "toxic mixing zones," they talked about the need to "clean up Oregon's rivers."

"They completely changed the tone of the debate about environmental issues," said Stephanie Hallock, DEQ director.

And Hallock's agency benefited.

Early on, Thomas Gallagher, lobbyist for a number of business and industry groups, approached Ackerman about collaborating on a letter urging the co-chairs of the Ways and Means budget-writing committee to increase the money spent on environmental protection and regulation.

"Business folks went to environmentalists and said, 'This is something we can work on together,' " Gallagher said.

Hallock describes the letter as a "classic example of what was different this session." DEQ budget beefed up

The DEQ budget, which passed the House 50-6 and could come up in the Senate this week, gives the agency a 12.4 percent overall increase.

After years of cuts, Hallock says, her agency will be able to hire more employees to monitor air and water contamination as well as pollution in the Columbia River Gorge.

Not everybody who cares about the environment is happy. Carolyn Talarr drove from Beaverton to Salem to speak against a bill that allows hunters with dogs to kill cougars and bears with state permission. The bill passed the Senate on Friday and is on the way to the governor.

"We can't attempt to sterilize the entire landscape," she said. "I'm disappointed."

Lobbyists who represent industry and agricultural groups say the 2007 Legislature has not turned out to be as bad as they feared.

"We don't see any dramatic losses coming," said Katie Fast, lobbyist for the Oregon Farm Bureau. "We have had to work hard to hold our ground on some issues."

John Ledger, lobbyist for Associated Oregon Industries, says the session has been "quite different." But he adds that both sides "still have to go down the center to get something passed."

A controversial renewable energy bill requiring big utilities to get more of their electricity from renewable sources was lobbied until the last vote. So was the bottle bill update. Conservationists wanted to add more than plastic water bottles to the list of beverage containers requiring a nickel deposit. Industry wanted to kill it.

"The business community, the agricultural community and the environmental community all made compromises when it came time to move important bills. This is how it should be," said Sen. Brad Avakian, a Democrat from Bethany and chairman of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee. Governor applies muscle

Rep. Jackie Dingfelder, a Portland Democrat and chairwoman of the House Energy and Environment Committee, also relied upon Kulongoski for extra muscle.

"There were times when I did call the governor and said: 'It would be helpful if you came and spoke to the speaker and majority leader about the importance of these bills,' " she said.

Kulongoski says he had meetings or updates every day before the renewable energy bill passed.

When a bill that would have resulted in more logging on state forests looked as if it had the votes to pass out of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, Kulongoski wrote a letter threatening a veto and reminding lawmakers that he wanted the state forester and forestry board to decide how to manage timberlands. The bill died when the committee closed its books at the end of May.

And last week, when a bill containing tax breaks to encourage growth of a biofuels industry in Oregon appeared to be languishing in the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee, the governor paid a friendly visit to the chairman.

"That bill will be moving this coming week," Kulongoski said with a smile.

Michelle Cole: 503-294-5143; michellecole@news.oregonian.com