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Inside
Oregon daily
emerald
Friday, October 29, 1982
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 84. Number 40
Ghosts, goblins, and things that go bump in the night will abound this
weekend of All Hallow's Eve. Not everyone will be wearing an ET
costume, note this particular snake charmer. She resides at the original
g^ffim^mme at 65 Ross Lane. The hou$4, sponsored by the Boys,and
A$ Society, will be open until Somfoy night. It Costs $1.50 fqf
seniors and under 12 years, $2 for everybody else. 4fcj
Law students present
brief against Watt plan
By Frank Shaw
Ot th« Emerald
Three University law students have filed a “friend-of
the-court" brief in an environmental lawsuit involving
Secretary of the Interior James Watt's proposal to lease
space on the continental shelf for offshore-oil drilling in
Northern California
Tod Smith, Willy Weigand and John Philipson are the law
students who presented the brief Oct. 25 to the U S. Court of
Appeals in Washington D C. at the request of the Oregon
Shores Conservation Coalition, the Oregon Environmental
Council and the Oregon Wilderness Coalition
Mike Axline, co-director of the Pacific Northwest
Resource Center, defines a friend-of-the-court brief as a
document that provides information and support for the
court It usually is filed in new or especially controversial
cases, Axline says
The thrust of the brief, says Weigand, “is that when you
look at environmental costs versus benefits of potential oil
discovery the drilling just doesn't make sense.”
Watt's plan makes one billion acres of offshore land
available for leasing The plan accelerates the leasing
process, decreasing the time for comments by state and
individuals.
The problem is that the secretary's study stopped at the
Oregon/California border, Wiegand says The effects of any
oil spill, the students argue, would extend into Oregon and
Washington
“Our special interest is to point out the increased
environmental sensitivity of the Oregon coast to oil damage.”
Axline says
Salmon fisheries, pink shrimp beds, crab beds and
proposed and existing marine fisheries along the coast could
be endangered by the drilling.
The other flaw in Watt's analyses, says Weigand, is that
the secretary did not divide California up into small enough
sections. He looked at Central and Northern California as one
unit and set up his analysis from that.
"If the secretary had broken the state up like he should
have,” Weigand says, "the economic profitability for drilling
off the northern California coast would only be marginal.”
Commission recommendations
depend on blind hope and funds
By Debbie Howlett
Of the Emerald
SALEM — The Oregon
Educational Coordinating Com
mission seemed to be playing a
game of blind man's bluff
Thursday when it made educa
tion budget and tuition
recommendations for the next
biennium.
In spite of the unknowns the
commission went ahead and
recommended a white cane —
differential tuition for students.
The commission doesn't
know how much money will be
in the state's general fund —
which is where the bulk of
higher education’s funding
comes from.
They don't know who they'll
be making recommendations to
— whether it will be Gov. Vic
Atiyeh or his challenger, Ted
Kulongoski.
And until last night, almost no
one on the commission that
coordinates education on all
levels in the state had seen or
been able to study the higher
education recommendations
So T.K. Olson, executive
director of the OECC, came up
with an eye-opening “altern
ative scenarios” table — a
theoretical allocation for funds
The table shows four different
levels of funding for higher
education, which range from
“high optimistic” at $468 million
to "low pessimistic" at $378
million. The other two dollar
amounts are $428 million (low
optimistic) and $415 million
(high pessimistic).
The state system s total
budget request is over $606
million.
“The illustrative allocations
do not constitute a specific
recommendation for any
agency funding,” Olson said
“The table and its implications
do point out vividly the need to
examine priorities and practices
in a fundamental way," Olson
said.
Aside from providing the
scenarios, Olson and the OECC
questioned the disparity
between education budget
requests and what seems to be
the most likely amount the
legislature will offer
“Can you get there from here?
My answer is: 'no, I don’t think
so,' " Olson said
Olson told the commission
that there are two options — to
raise state funding levels, either
by reallocating money in the
general fund or increasing
revenue; or to cut programs.
“That (decision) may be
forced upon us,” Olson said.
"To do neither, either, or both
are political decisions in the
hands of others, but the com
mission can certainly provide
evidence and judgement about
educational need.
Olson went on to address
specific problems in higher
education which he termed
“acute and legitimate needs
that should be addressed
immediately.”
The areas Olson identified are
maintenance problems, faculty
salaries, libraries, research and
economic development, and
tuition.
The proposal for tuition was
at least as eye-opening as the
budget scenarios.
Olson recommended, as the
state system’s top priority tui
tion option, a "differential” tui
tion. Lower division students
would pay less tuition than up
per division students — much
like undergraduate and
graduate tuition structures now
Olson proposed that the lower
division tuition be set at
$100-150 lower than 1982-83
levels.
“A reduction of resident
lower-division tuition, or at least
a freeze, is a preferred action
and can be justified by common
sense," Olson said.
“It's really a recommendation
to the (State Board of Higher
Education) to reassess their tui
tion policy,” Olson said
The implementation of the
differential would result in about
a $4-6 million dollar loss right
away, Olson said. But, the
commission expressed that any
tuition revenues lost through
the differential be "picked up
through general fund alloca
tions.”