February 19, 2016
CapitalPress.com
Oregon wolf delisting bill draws Oregon farm wins
questions in Senate committee radish seed dispute
Favorable decision
may affect other
growers in lawsuit
with bank
Bill would ratify
removal of wolves
from endangered
species list
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Courtesy of ODFW
OR-3, a 3-year-old male wolf from the Imnaha pack, is seen in this image captured from video taken
by an ODFW employee on May 10, 2011, in Wallowa County, Ore.
in Oregon’s management plan
for wolves, which does not re-
quire the Legislature to ratify
the commission’s decision,
said Prozanski.
“Why are we doing that, if
it was never part of the plan?”
Prozanski asked Sen. Bill
Hansell, R-Athena, who tes-
tiied in support of HB 4040.
While the Legislature may
not have previously ratiied
a delisting, it’s not unprece-
dented for lawmakers to ratify
decisions by the state’s exec-
utive branch, Hansell replied.
The bill isn’t intended to
preclude the environmental-
ist lawsuit, which claims the
wolf delisting was not based
on the best available science,
he said. “If people want to
sue, they’ll have the ability to
do that.”
If the purpose of HB 4040
is simply to afirm that wild-
life regulators have done a
good job, then “it doesn’t
seem like an appropriate use
of our time,” Prozanski said.
Dembrow said he dis-
cussed the bill with the Of-
ice of Legislative Counsel,
which advises lawmakers on
legal issues, and was told HB
4040 would effectively force
a judge to dismiss the envi-
ronmentalist lawsuit.
Ratiication by the Legis-
lature would cure any legal
deiciency in the delisting de-
cision, which Dembrow said
Relaxed Oregon hemp rules pass House
Bill would allow
growers to use
greenhouses,
cuttings
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — Oregon hemp
growers would be free to
propagate the crop from cut-
tings and grow it in green-
houses under a bill that’s won
the approval of the House.
Under current law, hemp
can only be seeded directly
outdoors in ields at least 2.5
acres in size, which was in-
tended to facilitate industrial
production but proved too in-
lexible for growers.
At the time Oregon law-
makers originally legalized
hemp production in 2009,
they enacted these restrictions
with the expectation the crop
Capital Press ile photo
Hemp growing in Oregon’s
Willamette Valley in 2015. A bill
in the Oregon Legislature would
make indoor cultivation of hemp
legal, and make other changes
in rules regulating the crop.
would be used for oilseed and
iber instead of human con-
sumption.
Since then, the Oregon De-
partment of Agriculture found
that many hemp producers
were more interested in grow-
ing the crop for cannabidiol, a
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Feb. 27th • 9-4
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compound used for medicinal
purposes, than for such tradi-
tional products.
To this end, they wanted
to use greenhouses, clone de-
sirable plants and produce the
crop on a smaller scale.
Under House Bill 4060,
which was passed 54-4 by the
House on Feb. 16, the min-
imum 2.5 acre ield require-
ment would be scrapped and
hemp farmers would be given
the same lexibility in produc-
tion and propagation methods
as growers of other crops.
The Oregon Farm Bureau
supports HB 4060 because it
wants hemp treated like other
crops.
The bill includes an
amendment approved by the
House Committee on Agri-
culture and Natural Resources
that clariies hemp would be
subject to the same Oregon
Department of Agriculture
water and pesticide regula-
tions as other crops.
he found troubling due to the
scientiic issues involved.
“Essentially, what we’re
being asked to do is say the
science is right, the process is
right,” he said. “I don’t how
many of us in the legislature
can say that.”
Dembrow also noted that
he’s proposed an amendment
to the bill clarifying that the
legislature ratiies the delis-
ting as long as the decision
is in compliance with the
law and administrative rules,
which would cause HB 4040
to have no legal effect.
If the bill’s purpose isn’t
to void the lawsuit, then “per-
haps this amendment would
be in order,” Dembrow said.
A favorable ruling won by an
Oregon farm in a legal dispute
over radish seed may have pos-
itive consequences for other op-
erations involved in the lawsuit.
Several farms in Oregon
are ighting a legal complaint
iled by Northwest Bank of
Warren, Pa., that claims it has a
security interest in radish seed
they grew in 2014.
The bank claims the radish
seed serves as collateral for a
$7 million loan taken out by
Cover Crop Solutions, a seed
company that contracted with
Oregon growers to produce a
proprietary variety.
Radish plants are used as
a cover crop in the Midwest,
but weather in 2014 reduced
demand among farmers in that
region and resulted in an over-
supply.
Northwest Bank’s lawsuit
contends that its security interest
in the radish seed has priority
over that of the growers, but a
federal judge in Portland has
disagreed with that argument in
regard to at least one farm.
U.S. Chief District Judge
Michael Mosman has found that
Hawman Farms of Hermiston,
Ore., agreed to grow roughly
$180,000 worth of seed and
has a “possessory lien” on
the crop that takes precedence
over the security interest held
by the bank.
Under a possessory lien, a
party can retain possession of
property until a debt has been
paid.
Northwest Bank claimed
the contract between Hawman
Farms and Cover Crop Solu-
tions invalidated all such liens,
but Mosman decided that it only
barred liens against the licensed
radish cultivar — which was
owned by another company —
and not the physical seed crop.
Sanford Landress, attor-
ney for Hawman Farms, said
Mosman’s opinion may also be
consequential for other farms,
which claim they have posses-
sory liens on the seed.
Hawman Farms grew,
cleaned and stored the radish
seed, which puts the compa-
ny in a different legal position
than growers who had another
irm clean and store the crop,
Landress said.
“People with continuous
possession of the seed, like
Hawman, are going to beat the
bank,” he said.
Several other farms that also
possessed the radish seed with-
out interruption have iled sim-
ilar motions citing the Hawman
Farms ruling and asking the
judge to declare that their pos-
sessory liens have priority.
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SALEM — A bill to ratify
removing wolves from Ore-
gon’s endangered species list
came under sharp questioning
Tuesday in a key Senate com-
mittee.
House Bill 4040, which
declares that Oregon wildlife
regulators followed the law
when delisting wolves last
year, was approved 33-23
in the House on Feb. 12 and
is now under consideration
by the Senate Committee on
Environment and Natural Re-
sources.
Proponents of HB 4040
say it would buttress the cred-
ibility of the Oregon Fish and
Wildlife Commission’s deci-
sion, while critics say the bill
is intended to derail an envi-
ronmentalist lawsuit against
the delisting.
During a Feb. 16 hear-
ing, Sen. Michael Dem-
brow, D-Portland, and Floyd
Prozanski, D-Eugene, ex-
pressed reservations about the
purpose of the bill.
The delisting was part of a
three-step process described
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