Editorials from around Oregon

Selected editorials from Oregon newspapers:

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Corvallis Gazette-Times, Jan. 10, on carbon bill not being a good fit for short session:

A pair of Oregon legislators said this week that they plan to introduce, in this year’s session, bills intended to reduce carbon emissions statewide through a so-called “cap and invest” model.

The bills establish a price per ton of emissions for the largest greenhouse gas producers in the state. They also include provisions to take those proceeds and invest them in projects to reduce pollution.

Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, is leading the effort in the Senate. Rep. Ken Helm, D-Beaverton, will introduce an identical bill in the House.

In a press release, Dembrow said the idea is not just to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; the legislation (dubbed collectively the Clean Energy Jobs Bill) also aims to create jobs in “economically distressed communities across Oregon.”

Now, the Clean Energy Jobs Bill may well turn out to be a terrific piece of legislation.

But it has no business being considered in a short session of the Legislature. It’s a significant enough piece of legislation, with enough far-reaching ramifications, that it requires the fuller examination it would receive in the longer legislative sessions held in odd-numbered years.

To that end, it might be timely to review exactly what these shorter legislative sessions, held in even-numbered years, were intended to do:

Ballot Measure 71, which voters handily approved in 2010, gave the green light to annual legislative sessions; before then, legislators met every two years. More than two-thirds of Oregon voters understood that state government had become such a complicated operation that legislators couldn’t keep an eye on it by meeting every other year. But many of those same voters worried about the havoc that could result if the Legislature held lengthy sessions each year.

Measure 71 eased those fears by striking this bargain: Most of the Legislature’s heavy lifting, we were told, would occur in sessions that took place in odd-numbered years. Those sessions would run 160 days. Those were the sessions to pitch big ideas or major changes in state policies.

By contrast, the sessions set for odd-numbered years, such as the one that starts next month, were intended mostly for legislators to tie up loose ends from the longer sessions. The idea was that legislators would use the 35-day sessions to rebalance budgets and make technical fixes.

There’s good reason for that: A 35-day session does not allow sufficient time for big ideas to get the full hearing they deserve, let alone for the public to participate in any meaningful way.

Nevertheless, the 2016 short session featured two big pieces of legislation that should have been considered in the longer session: a bill requiring power companies to eliminate coal-fired resources from their power supply and another measure to increase the state’s minimum wage.

To be fair, both Dembrow and Helm held public meetings with various stakeholders last summer and fall. But that is not the same thing as subjecting an actual bill to the give-and-take and public examination that only a longer legislative session can provide. And if Dembrow and Helm believed their work had smoothed the road to passage next month, they might have miscalculated: Industry and business groups were quick to pan the proposal.

If the Legislature really wants to sink its teeth into some tough issues this session, allow us to suggest a couple of alternatives: Perhaps legislators could make some headway at easing the problems posed by the unfunded liability in the state’s public pension system. Any progress at all on that issue - even a small step or two - would be welcome. And if voters reject Measure 101 in a couple of weeks, legislators may find their time occupied with efforts to fill a $300 million hole in the state’s Medicaid budget.

Overall, legislators would do well to remember the promises made to voters in Ballot Measure 71 and keep these short sessions as quick and to-the-point as possible.

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The Eugene Register-Guard, Jan. 10, on audit needing to help the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality:

After high levels of toxic heavy metals were found in the air near glass companies in Portland two years ago, Gov. Kate Brown and the Legislature launched a Cleaner Air Oregon initiative to track and reduce industrial air pollution. But now an audit by the secretary of state’s office has found that the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is unable to enforce existing air pollution regulations, let alone new ones. The audit should spur lawmakers to give the DEQ the direction and resources it needs to protect air quality and public health.

The DEQ regulates air quality mainly by issuing permits to industries and other sources of pollutants that meet state and federal clean air standards. Permits are denied to those that fail to meet the standards, and fines are levied when inspectors find that polluters aren’t meeting the air-quality requirements spelled out in their permits. The system depends on a robust permitting and inspection process - and Oregon doesn’t have one.

The audit found that 43 percent of the 246 holders of the largest and most complex permits - mostly heavy industries - are overdue for renewal by the DEQ, which means they could be out of compliance with air quality standards and the state wouldn’t know it. The audit also found that the DEQ was behind in its inspections, but couldn’t say how far behind because it lacks a system for tracking its work.

“Backlogs increase the risk that permit holders could be operating equipment and emitting pollution outside their permits,” the audit said, “which can negatively affect human health and the environment.” Air pollution in Oregon has to some extent become unregulated.

Lane County is an exception to this unacceptable state of affairs. Air quality permitting and monitoring is performed by the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency, the last of Oregon’s regional air pollution authorities. LRAPA issues permits for 310 sources of air pollution, ranging from heavy industries to gas stations, according to its 2016 annual report. Thirty-nine permits were issued or renewed, 125 were modified and 149 inspections were conducted. The agency issued 41 warnings and notices of non-compliance, 36 notices of violations and penalties, and levied $41,508 in fines.

Lane County and city governments provide 7 percent of LRAPA’s $1.9 million budget, and every few years one of them proposes saving money by abolishing the agency and turning air-quality responsibilities over to the DEQ. The secretary of state’s audit is a persuasive argument against such proposals. Local industries are better off with a consistent, locally responsive system of regulation, and Lane County residents have something their fellow Oregonians lack: up-to-date air quality protections.

The DEQ’s main problem, the audit found, is that the state has been starving the department for years. Its inflation-adjusted budget is 8 percent lower than it was in 2001-03, despite growth in Oregon’s population and economy. The DEQ’s workforce has declined by 29 percent during that same period. The result is a workload that the audit said is “very difficult, if not impossible” to complete.

The Legislature must address this problem with increased funding - and it shouldn’t wait until the main budget-writing session in 2019 to get started. The DEQ should be given added support in the short legislative session that convenes next month, particularly if the department is expected to implement the Cleaner Air Oregon program later this year. Leaving air quality rules unenforced is not much different than having no rules at all.

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The Oregonian/OregonLive, Jan. 10, on Measure 101 needing to be based on facts, not fear and speculation:

There are plenty of reasons to vote “no” on Measure 101, the referendum on new taxes to fund Oregon’s Medicaid program. The sheer inequity of asking college students, K-12 school districts and small businesses to shoulder the cost of an essential program while exempting others is one of the biggest reasons The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board recommended that Oregonians vote “no” and demand that the Legislature deliver a better solution. (Readers can find our full editorial at www.oregonlive.com/opinion).

Voters, of course, may well disagree. But they should base their decision on facts, not on inaccurate or misleading information peddled by those supporting the “yes” side. Here’s a look at a few of the claims that deserve some truthsquadding.

Claim No. 1: Tax, schmax. The funding mechanisms in Measure 101 are “fees” and “assessments.”

The provisions in Measure 101 - a 0.7 percent tax on hospitals and a 1.5 percent tax on select health-care premiums - are, without question, taxes. That’s how the Legislature characterized it in voting on the funding package in 2017. And lawmakers aren’t the only ones who used the word “tax.” The governor’s office, state agency leaders, legislative revenue analysts, legislative fiscal analysts, Medicaid providers, labor unions, nonprofit supporters of the measure as well as the measure’s opponents all routinely referred to the provisions of the funding package as “taxes.” Because that’s what they are.

Yet, you won’t find that word anywhere in the ballot measure title and description, which was written by a committee of four Democratic legislators and two Republican legislators. Instead, the title uses the less-specific term “assessment.” It’s still, however, a tax.

Claim No. 2: Fine. It’s a tax. But those responsible for paying it think it’s a fantastic idea.

Well, let’s take a closer look at who actually pays the tax. Take Section 5 of HB 2391, the Medicaid funding bill, which says “insurers” will pay the state 1.5 percent of the gross amount of premiums that they collect from customers. The bill, signed into law last year by Gov. Kate Brown, also explicitly notes that those insurers “may increase their premium rate on policies or certificates that are subject to the assessment under section 5 of this 2017 Act by 1.5 percent.”

Insurers not only “may” increase their premiums. They already have. A spokesman for the Department of Consumer and Business Services said the agency has already added the 1.5 percent increase into insurers’ authorized 2018 rates in the individual and small-group market.

Who are the customers footing the tax? Thousands of college students who are required to buy health insurance offered through their schools, small businesses that provide health plans for their employees and others who buy their insurance through the health exchange. The law also levies the premium tax on K-12 school districts and the Public Employees Benefit Board.

Meanwhile, the tax does not apply to Nike, Intel and other large employers (including The Oregonian) that administer a self-insured program, nor to seniors and others who are federally protected from the state-imposed tax.

Claim No 3: There’s no Plan B.

The argument from some on the “yes” side is that Oregonians should endorse the new taxes because the state has no back-up plan. But that ignores the fact that the Legislature actually moved the Measure 101 election to January for the express purpose of giving themselves a chance to develop a Plan B in the short legislative session if voters reject Measure 101.

Additionally, Reps. Julie Parrish and Cedric Hayden, who spearheaded the referendum effort, have already offered funding alternatives that could make up at least some of the gap. For example, legislators could replace much of the money raised by the 0.7 percent hospital tax in Measure 101 with an increase in Oregon’s existing method of hospital assessments for Medicaid.

Claim No. 4. Defeat of the measure jeopardizes $5 billion in federal funds.

The Yes on 101 campaign argues that the loss of $210 million to $320 million in state revenue would risk $5 billion in federal funds. This isn’t however, what the state’s budget actually shows. As the financial impact estimate notes, those state funds are tied to $630 million to $960 million in federal funds - not $5 billion. The $5 billion figure is a worst-case scenario based on speculation that the Legislature might simply cut the expanded Medicaid population entirely and forgo matching federal funds rather than identify alternate revenue, trim patient benefits, reduce provider costs or otherwise respond.

Claim No. 5: Forty-nine states use “the same types of assessments” to fund health care.

That depends on how broad your definition of “same types of assessment” is. While every state except Alaska collects assessments from health-care providers, few states levy a tax on health care premiums, according to Rachel Garfield with the Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks how states fund Medicaid.

It’s now up to voters, who have until Jan. 23 to get their ballots in. Those who believe the Legislature can and must do better than this deeply inequitable plan should mark their ballots “no.”

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The Bend Bulletin, Jan. 9, on climate change bill not being ready:

We might be considered old-fashioned, but before the Legislature passes a climate change bill, it should be clear which businesses will have to pay up and which get a pass.

The major climate change bill scheduled for the February session doesn’t do that.

It doesn’t matter if you believe climate change is happening or not. It doesn’t matter if you believe this bill will affect the climate or not. The bill is not ready.

The idea behind the “cap and invest” bill is to tax carbon, and then the Legislature will turn around and spend the money. That’s a way to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions, counter climate change and its effects and transition Oregon to a cleaner, healthier and more robust economy,” the bill’s authors say.

How much will that jack up the price of filling a gas tank? What will it do to the cost of health care or the price of groceries? Those questions are difficult to answer, but it’s likely going to raise prices for a lot of things.

But there is also the fundamental question of whom the bill affects. So-called emissions-intensive, trade-exposed businesses are going to get a pass. They aren’t going to get a complete pass, but they get easier rules. Those businesses get a pass because they emit a lot of carbon and might decide to pick up and leave Oregon because of the new rules. They will take jobs with them, and then they might just relocate to another state or country and emit the carbon there.

The bill has a Senate and a House version, but neither makes clear what specific businesses get a pass. The House version does not specify what types of industries will get a pass and leaves it up to the Environmental Quality Commission and some unnamed third-party analyst. The Senate version does outline the general industries in broad terms. Here’s a partial list - cement manufacturing, frozen fruit, juice and vegetable manufacturing, iron and steel mills, some plastics manufacturing, glass container manufacturing and pulp and paper mills get a pass - except newsprint.

But legislators, businesses and the general public should be able to easily know which businesses get a pass. The bill also doesn’t even spell out exactly how much of a pass these will get. Oregonians and surely legislators should know what kind of tax break the state is giving away and to whom.

Almost every bill the Legislature passes has rules or policies that may be finalized later. This bill leaves too many basic questions unanswered. The bill is not ready for this short session.

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Pendleton East Oregonian, Jan. 9, on marijuana money rolling in:

The results are in: Marijuana receipts in Pendleton - the only municipality in northeast Oregon to allow recreational and medical sales - are far beyond initial expectations.

In the current fiscal year, which started in July and still has six months to go, the city has already brought in $131,963 in tax money from marijuana. The Pendleton City Council had budgeted just $25,000 in marijuana revenue for the entire fiscal year. Remember, for instance, the gas tax the city floated (and was defeated by voters) in November 2015 that was expected to bring in about $550,000 per year. Now the city is getting half of that with a voluntary sin tax (approved by voters).

The council was right to start with a conservative estimate of marijuana tax income. When they had to first ballpark a number, there were no retailers open yet in the city and it was unknown how many - if any - entrepreneurs would take the plunge.

But three stores have since opened, and despite some concerns with how a couple are operating, it has been a relatively easy jump across the gorge of prohibition.

And for Pendleton, it has been a leap that came with serious monetary reward.

The city has no shortage of uses for the money. Although not the most useful about 360 days of the year, the city could do worse from a public relations perspective than buying a sparkling new snowplow (or better yet, a half-priced used one!) to help clear its streets each winter. The city public works department could certainly use another infusion for its roads - and using the money on something tangible may help persuade those who were not supportive of allowing a new, federally prohibited industry to operate in city limits. And public safety, the department that deals with the downsides of legal marijuana, could use a cut to cover the costs of dealing with the new businesses and their customers.

This all comes, however, against the backdrop of noise that marijuana may be once again in the crosshairs of the federal government. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a noted marijuana opponent, removed the barrier last week that kept Department of Justice prosecutors from pursuing marijuana cases in states that had made pot legal.

It’s hard to parse the conflicting messages coming from the White House, but we don’t think Sessions’ actions will have much impact on policy. Marijuana has arrived to a number of states, it has worked better than expected, and it is helping raise money for cash-strapped governments.

We think that other municipalities in Eastern Oregon, especially smaller ones suffering from a lack of revenue and new industries, should reconsider their opposition to the drug. The upside is higher than many in the region thought it would be, and the downside is manageable. Assuredly, Pendleton is hoping other cities keep their bans and keep sending their customers in its direction.

Marijuana tax revenue is not a panacea, but it pays better than prohibition.