Friday, March 4, 2022
CapitalPress.com 3
Oregon House votes to end
agricultural overtime exemption
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — After an emotional
three-hour debate, the Oregon
House voted 37-23 on March 1 to
end the state’s agricultural exemp-
tion from higher overtime wages.
The measure is awaiting a vote
in the Senate.
The overtime exemption would
be phased out over fi ve years under
House Bill 4002, and tax cred-
its would cover some of the higher
wages paid by farmers, But crit-
ics claimed those provisions won’t
prevent the inevitable loss of fam-
ily farms.
“They could be the nail in the
coffi n for farmers who can’t absorb
any more increased costs,” said
Rep. David Brock-Smith, R-Port
Orford.
Many growers operate on razor-
thin margins and would likely go
out of business while waiting for
the promised money from tax cred-
its, since they can’t aff ord higher
overtime payments, he said.
Rep. Raquel Moore-Green,
R-Salem, said House Bill 4002
also isn’t likely to help farmwork-
ers, since their employers will likely
seek to reduce weekly hours, switch
crops or simply exit the industry.
“They could reduce their opera-
tion size or cease farming altogether
and sell out,” she said.
Supporters of HB 4002 cast the
legislation as a matter of constitu-
tional fairness and noted that if an
ongoing lawsuit against the agri-
cultural overtime exemption is suc-
cessful, farmers won’t get assis-
tance to ease the economic blow.
“I believe it’s time to live up to
the promise of equal protection of
the law,” said Rep. Paul Holvey,
D-Eugene. “We owe basic protec-
tions to farmworkers and we owe
it to farmers not to make a major
change to their bottom line without
a safety net.”
Before approving HB 4002, the
House voted 32-27 against remand-
ing the bill back to a joint com-
mittee to consider an amendment
favored by Republican lawmakers.
“There is still time to fi nd a more
workable solution. An Oregon solu-
tion,” said Rep. Shelly Boshart-Da-
vis, R-Albany.
The House chamber in the Oregon State Capitol.
Under that amendment, farm-
workers would receive overtime
relief payments from the state gov-
ernment after they’d worked more
than 40 hours per week.
Meanwhile, farmers would
pay workers time-and-a-half over-
time wages after a weekly thresh-
old of 48 hours during most of the
year and after 55 hours during an
15-week “peak labor period.”
“It is more generous to farm-
workers than any other policy,”
said Rep. Daniel Bonham, R-The
Dalles. “They won’t have their
hours cut nearly as much and will
still earn overtime wages after 40
hours.”
Rep. Holvey said he opposed the
amendment because the state over-
time payments wouldn’t include
contributions to social security
insurance, unemployment insur-
ance or worker’s compensation
insurance.
Farmworkers would also have to
wait up to two months to receive the
relief payments from the state gov-
ernment, he said.
The amendment was already
thoroughly discussed and rejected
by the Joint Committee on Farm
Worker Overtime, Holvey said.
“Sending the bill back to commit-
tee would not end up with a diff er-
ent outcome.”
Under the version of HB 4002
passed by the House, the weekly
threshold for farmworker overtime
would begin at 55 hours next year
and incrementally drop to 40 hours
in 2027.
Most farms will be divided into
three tax credit tiers based on their
number of employees:
Growers employing fewer than
Another buff er bill stalls
in Washington Senate
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — A House
bill to require publicly funded
projects to benefi t salmon
did not have enough support
Monday to pass the Senate
Ways and Means Commit-
tee, blocking the legislation,
which was opposed by farm
groups.
House Bill 1117 was
scheduled for a vote by
the Senate committee, but
was skipped over. Commit-
tee Chairwoman Christine
Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island,
said in an email that the bill
did not have the votes to pass.
Although the bill is no lon-
ger under consideration in
the Senate, the House has set
aside more than $14 million in
its budget proposal to develop
rules for achieving “net eco-
logical gain” through publicly
owned or fi nanced projects.
If Senate budget nego-
tiators come around to the
House’s position, HB 1117
could be voted on by the Sen-
ate before the Legislature
adjourns March 10.
The public will have no
more chances to comment on
the legislation or watch it take
its fi nal shape. “The whole dis-
cussion goes underground,”
Washington Farm Bureau
director of government rela-
tions Tom Davis said.
HB 1117 would make
salmon recovery a goal for cit-
ies and counties. All publicly
owned or fi nanced projects
would have to have “net eco-
logical gain,” even if the proj-
ect was not near fi sh-bearing
waters.
The bill would give the
Department of Fish and Wild-
life a free hand to determine
what qualifi es as net ecologi-
cal gain.
Rep. Debra Lekanoff , a
Skagit County Democrat
who introduced the bill in the
House, said the legislation
was a vehicle for establishing
riparian buff ers.
Farm groups agree and
Seastock
The Nooksack River fl ows
through Whatcom County
in northwestern Washing-
ton state. A second bill
aimed at requiring buff er
zones on some river banks
has died in committee —
for now.
compare HB 1117 to Gov.
Jay Inslee’s failed proposal to
mandate riparian buff ers on
farmland.
Washington State Dairy
Federation executive direc-
tor Dan Wood said Monday
that budget writers should
increase funding for volun-
tary conservation programs,
rather than imposing “extreme
regulations.”
“Doing that would actu-
ally harm salmon recov-
ery because it would make it
impossible for farmers to par-
ticipate in conservation pro-
grams,” he said. “There is no
soundness to that approach at
all.”
Fish and Wildlife and envi-
ronmental groups have testi-
fi ed in support of the bill, say-
ing it’s necessary for salmon
survival. Some tribal offi cials
have criticized leaving salmon
recovery up to an undefi ned
“net ecological gain.”
Prior to Monday’s Ways
and Means Committee meet-
ing, Rolfes sponsored a strik-
ing amendment — a rewrite
of the bill that would have
kept salmon recovery as a
goal for local governments but
dropped most references to
net ecological gain.
Rolfes said her proposal
did not have enough support
to pass and is no longer being
considered.
25 workers would qualify for tax
credits of 90% of their added over-
time payments next year, which
would decrease to 60% in 2028,
after which they’d expire.
During that time, the tax credit
rate would shift from 75% to
50% for growers with 25 to 50
employees, and from 60% to
15% for farmers with more than
50 workers.
Dairies would be treated dif-
ferently due to their round-the-
clock need for animal care. Those
with fewer than 25 workers would
be eligible for a permanent tax
credit rate of 100% of overtime
payments, while those with more
employees would qualify for a rate
that incrementally shifts from 75%
in 2023 to 50% in 2028, its fi nal
year.
Rep. Andrea Valderrama,
D-Portland, said that lawmakers
heard from thousands of farmers
and workers while deliberating the
bill, but said she was most moved
by the testimony of employees.
Farmworkers testifi ed about
enduring chemicals, dust and
injuries while not having enough
money to cover their rent, educa-
tion and healthcare needs, she said.
“Why is it the people who do the
most sacred work are the most
oppressed, the most exploited?”
Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Lake
Oswego, said the agricultural
exemption was created more than
80 years ago at the national level to
appease Southern lawmakers who
wanted to maintain segregated
conditions for Black farmworkers.
“It was not about economics
back then, it was about race,” she
said.
EPA denies objections, bans
chlorpyrifos use on food crops
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The Environmental Protec-
tion Agency affi rmed Friday that
it will ban all residue of the pesti-
cide chlorpyrifos on food, dismiss-
ing objections by farmers, chemi-
cal companies and several foreign
countries.
Food crops treated after Monday
with chlorpyrifos will be considered
adulterated and barred from inter-
state commerce. Non-food uses will
remain allowed, including applica-
tions to fruit trees that won’t bear
fruit within a year, according to the
EPA.
The EPA, meeting a 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals deadline,
announced the ban in August. Farm
groups asked the agency to exempt
crops particularly dependent on
chlorpyrifos or to delay the ban to
give growers time to use up stocks.
Republican lawmakers also
asked for a delay, as did Ecuador,
Colombia and fi ve pepper-produc-
ing countries in Asia that feared
being shut out of the U.S. market.
The EPA said Friday it couldn’t
wait any longer to ban chlorpyrifos
under the Federal Food, Drug and
Cosmetic Act.
Chlorpyrifos residue on food by
itself is enough to ban the pesticide.
The agency, however, concluded
that potential aggregate exposure
through food, residential and land-
scaping uses and drinking water
exceeded safe levels, particularly
for infants and unborn children.
The ban is unrelated to farm-
worker safety, though in a press
release an EPA offi cial implied that
it was.
“Today’s action shows how
EPA continues to put the health and
safety of the public fi rst, particularly
that of children and farmworkers,”
said Michal Freedhoff , assistant
administrator for chemical safety.
“After more than a decade
of studying a large body of sci-
ence, EPA is taking the next step
towards the cancellation of the use
of chlorpyrifos on food,” she said.
Chlorpyrifos has been registered
in the U.S. since 1965 and has more
than 50 registered uses. The EPA
estimated in 2021 that 43,430 farms
use chlorpyrifos at least once a year.
Anti-pesticide groups petitioned
the EPA in 2007 to ban chlorpyri-
fos. The Obama EPA resisted pres-
sure from the 9th Circuit to rule on
the petition, leaving the decision to
the Trump EPA.
The Trump EPA denied the peti-
tion, but said it would continue to
review the pesticide’s uses.
In June, however, the 9th Circuit
ordered EPA to ban or modify regis-
tered uses within 60 days.
In a notice due to be published
Monday in the Federal Register,
the EPA said evaluating chlorpyri-
fos was complex, but the court was
restless.
It was simply not possible to leave
tolerances in place for more growing
seasons in light of the court’s impa-
tience, according to the EPA.
Some states had already banned
chlorpyrifos and some pesticide
companies had stopped manufac-
turing it. Nevertheless, farm groups
fought to retain the chemical.
“It was on its way out,” Washing-
ton Farm Bureau CEO John Stuhl-
miller said. “Unfortunately, it still
takes an important tool out of the
toolbox.
“The science was not as crystal
clear as I would have liked to see,”
he said. “It just became the unpop-
ular thing.”
Soybean farmers, sugar beet
growers and tart cherry orchard-
ists in Michigan asked EPA to hold
hearings on the ban, as did Gharda
Chemicals International. The EPA
rejected the requests, saying no
one off ered any new evidence to
consider.
At the least, farm groups hoped
the agency would adopt a pro-
posal the Trump EPA made in
2020 to reduce exposure by limit-
ing chlorpyrifos to 11 crops in select
states.
The EPA said Friday the 11-crop
limit was “just a proposal” and that
it didn’t want to pick “winners and
losers.”
The EPA said studies on how
chlorpyrifos aff ects children lacked
details, such as exposure levels and
what other chemicals infants and
expectant mothers were exposed to.
EPA also said sample sizes were
small and that it didn’t have access to
raw data to evaluate fi ndings. Never-
theless, the EPA concluded the stud-
ies were “strong” and pointed to
chlorpyrifos harming young brains.
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