Friday, August 13, 2021
CapitalPress.com 11
Oregon offi cials discuss new
hemp regulations with growers
HB 3000 signed by
Gov. Brown on July 19
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
The former Easterday Ranches North Lot cattle feedlot near Eltopia,
Wash. Tyson Fresh Meats has gone to bankruptcy court of forcibly ac-
quire the feedlot, previously sold to Agri Beef by Cody Easterday.
Easterday: Feedlot is estimated to be worth $20 million
Continued from Page 1
Tyson supported the sale to Farm-
land, which operates in Washington as
AgriNorthwest, but says it was blind-
sided by the pre-bankruptcy sale of
North Lot.
Tyson uncovered Cody Easter-
day’s fraud in December and discussed
acquiring the feedlot to begin mak-
ing amends. Easterday estimated the
lot’s worth at $20 million, according to
Tyson.
In late January, on a Friday, Tyson
executives learned in a conference
call with Easterday and his fi nancial
adviser, Pete Richter of Paladin Man-
agement Group, that Easterday planned
to sell the lot within a few days.
Easterday and Richter declined to
identify the buyer. Over the weekend,
Tyson prepared to go to court to stop
the sale, but learned that Monday that
the sale had closed the previous Friday.
Besides claiming it was duped,
Tyson also criticizes how the $16 mil-
lion was distributed.
According to a spreadsheet sent to
Tyson by Easterday’s lawyer, Rich-
ard Pachulski, more than $11.7 mil-
lion went to Easterday Farms and
the English Hay Company, two other
companies owned by Easterday family
members.
Pachulski’s Los Angeles law fi rm
got $600,000, while Richter’s manage-
ment group got $625,604.
Creditors got only $2.1 million,
leaving some bills unpaid.
Six unpaid balances shown on
the spreadsheet topped six fi gures,
including $804,000 owed one busi-
ness for veterinarian services. None
of the money shown distributed went
to Tyson.
Pachulski’s law fi rm was later
retained as lead counsel for Easter-
day’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and
Richter and another Paladin partner
were retained as co-chief restructur-
ing offi cers.
Tyson claims Pachulski’s law
fi rm and Paladin have confl icts
in reconsidering the pre-bank-
ruptcy sale to Agri Beef. Eff orts to
reach Pachulski and Richter were
unsuccessful.
A post-sale appraisal valued
North Lot at $9 million. Tyson calls
the appraisal self-serving and fl awed,
considering Tyson’s standing off er to
pay $25 million.
In the face of Tyson’s bid to obtain
the feedlot, Agri Beef went ahead
Tuesday and paid the bankrupt East-
erday Ranches $1 million for trucks,
tractors and other equipment at North
Lot.
Bankruptcy Judge Whitman Holt
in Yakima approved the equipment
sale. Agri Beef certainly owns the roll-
ing stock, but Tyson’s bid to acquire
the ground will be decided later, the
judge said.
If Tyson prevails, “it creates a
logistical issue. You (Agri Beef) have
to come and get your stuff off the prop-
erty,” Holt said.
SALEM — The Oregon
Department of Agriculture is set to
unveil new rules for hemp produc-
ers that will bring the state’s Hemp
Program into compliance with the
USDA.
Sunny Summers, cannabis pol-
icy coordinator for ODA, said the
agency will release draft rules for
public comment by no later than
Sept. 1. Changes won’t go into
eff ect until Jan. 1, 2022, leaving
the current rules intact through this
fall’s harvest.
“Everything that we’re talking
about now will be for the new
licensing year,” Summers said
during a webinar Tuesday, hosted
by the Oregon Industrial Hemp
Farmers Association.
Summers was one of three
speakers invited to discuss House
Bill 3000 with growers. The bill,
signed by Gov. Kate Brown on
July 19, has multiple compo-
nents aimed at regulating canna-
bis products and cracking down
on illegal marijuana operations.
Part of the legislation also
granted ODA new authorities —
including the ability to conduct
background checks — required
by the USDA to govern hemp
production.
Hemp was legalized as an agri-
cultural commodity in the 2018
Farm Bill, though the USDA did
not publish its fi nal hemp rule
until January.
Oregon has had a pilot pro-
gram for hemp in place since
2015, though ODA must update
its rules to comply with the
USDA. Apart from background
checks, Summers said the federal
rule stipulates a 30-day pre-har-
vest testing window to ensure the
crop does not exceed 0.3% tetra-
Hemp plant
hydrocannabinol, or THC.
By defi nition, hemp cannot
legally exceed that 0.3% THC
limit, though industry groups are
lobbying for the USDA to raise
the threshold to 1%.
If that happens, Summers said
ODA would be allowed under
HB 3000 to change the defi ni-
tion of hemp in its own program
without having to return to the
Legislature.
HB 3000 also approved ODA’s
budget request for eight new posi-
tions, Summers said, including the
department’s fi rst full-time hemp
program manager. Previously,
hemp was licensed and inspected
by the state alongside nurseries
and Christmas tree farms.
Meanwhile, ODA was granted
broader authority under the bill to
revoke hemp licenses and require
the destruction of crops that
fail to meet standards. Specifi -
cally, Summers mentioned grow-
ers who might apply for a hemp
license as a cover for producing
illegal marijuana.
“The state and the industry are
not going to continue to support
this kind of activity,” she said.
Growers who violate their
hemp license may be banned
from reapplying for up to two
years, Summers added.
The newly renamed Oregon
Liquor and Cannabis Commis-
sion has also approved tempo-
rary rules under HB 3000, and
will work with ODA to test hemp
fi elds across Oregon to deter-
mine if the grows are legitimate
or illegal.
Steven Crowley, a compliance
specialist for OLCC, discussed
the agency’s role during the webi-
nar, which includes regulating
cannabis intoxicants and restrict-
ing sales of “adult-use cannabis”
to minors.
OLCC is defi ning “adult-
use cannabis” as hemp prod-
ucts with 0.5 milligrams of THC.
That includes Delta-9 THC —
the main component in canna-
bis that gets users high — and
Delta-8 THC, a chemically sim-
ilar compound.
According to OLCC, Delta-8
THC can be produced from hemp
and used to make products with
higher potency levels than mari-
juana while being sold outside of
Oregon’s regulated market and in
stores where anyone could buy it.
“For regulating cannabis
intoxicants, that’s one of the
places where OLCC has a little
bit more of an active role,” Crow-
ley explained.
Finally, HB 3000 establishes a
task force to address future regu-
lations and marketing of growing
cannabis in Oregon.
Courtney Moran, president
of the Oregon Industrial Hemp
Farmers Association, and Mary
Anne Cooper, vice president of
public policy for the Oregon Farm
Bureau, said the industry has
secured seats on the task force for
both hemp growers and handlers.
Moran said HB 3000 is, over-
all, a positive for Oregon hemp
growers and may serve as a model
for other states going forward.
“It’s not perfect,” Moran
said. “It’s defi nitely a miracu-
lous improvement, I would say,
from where we started this (leg-
islative) session. I think we were
able to come to a very reason-
able and workable solution that
addressed the main concerns from
all parties.”
Lawsuit: Judge dismissed claims that BLM relied on improper data about sage grouse numbers
Continued from Page 1
have plummeted from his-
toric levels.
While studies com-
pleted after the project’s
approval provided new
information about popula-
tion counts and the eff ects
of transmission lines, the
judge said they’re “not sig-
nifi cant or seriously diff er-
ent” enough to warrant a
supplementary analysis.
“The new information
about the declining popula-
tion of greater sage grouse
is not signifi cantly new or
diff erent
circumstances
from what is discussed in
the FEIS,” Simon said.
Likewise, news articles
about the fi nancial feasi-
bility of burying transmis-
sion lines do not trigger
the need for a supplemen-
tary environmental analy-
sis because they don’t “rise
to the level of signifi cant
information,” as would sci-
entifi c studies, he said.
The judge dismissed
claims that BLM relied on
improper data about sage
grouse numbers and that it
was impermissibly vague
and confusing in examin-
ing the risk of “extirpa-
tion” to a local population
of the species.
“Although not a model
of clarity, the discussion
is not indecipherable,” he
said.
The agency wasn’t
“arbitrary and capricious”
in analyzing the indirect
eff ects on “leks,” where
sage grouse congregate
during mating season,
within three miles of the
transmission line, rather
than using a longer dis-
tance, Simon said.
The judge found that
BLM’s steps for mitigat-
ing the adverse impacts
to the species were suffi -
cient because “there can be
no construction without a
detailed plan.”
“This is not a case in
which the action will com-
mence before it can be
determined whether miti-
gation will be eff ective,”
he said.
The judge said BLM
“worked closely” with the
Idaho Power utility com-
pany on the project and
relied on “suffi cient evi-
dence” to decide against
burying the line near an
interpretive center for the
Oregon Trail.
The agency wasn’t
required to update the
FEIS regarding the envi-
ronmental effects of alter-
native routes for the
transmission line that it
ultimately didn’t choose,
he said.
While the BLM wrongly
failed to “consider grazing
in the cumulative effects
analysis” of the project,
that “error was harmless”
because it wouldn’t have
altered the agency’s con-
clusions, the judge said.
“Plaintiffs do not show
how adding grazing to the
cumulative effects anal-
ysis would have mate-
rially affected the sub-
stance of BLM’s sage
grouse mitigation deci-
sion or other decisions
relating to sage grouse,”
Simon said.
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