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Friday, April 29, 2022
Opinion
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Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com | CapitalPress.com/opinion
Our View
Earth Day, NEPA and the ‘Infrastructure Decade’
T
he 1960s marked the dawn of
environmentalism in the U.S.
Prodded by the publication
of such books as Rachel Carson’s
“Silent Spring” and the 1969 oil
well blowout that sent a slick of
black tar onto the beaches of Santa
Barbara, Calif., every newly minted
environmentalist took up the banner
of “saving the Earth.”
Earth Day was first celebrated
in 1970 — the 52nd iteration was
observed last week — adding
momentum to the new environmental
movement.
Congress even got into the act. In
1969, it passed the Endangered Spe-
cies Conservation Act, the predeces-
sor of the Endangered Species Act it
passed in 1973.
President Richard Nixon cre-
ated the Environmental Protection
Agency in 1970, right after he signed
the National Environmental Policy
Act, called the “magna carta” of fed-
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
President Joe Biden speaks about
the infrastructure law in Portland last
week. Will his administration’s rewrite
of NEPA be used to block some of those
projects?
eral environmental law. It requires
federal agencies to assess the impact
large projects will have on the
environment.
Capital Press readers may recog-
nize the acronyms NEPA, ESA and
EPA. They regularly appear in news
stories about lawsuits environmental
groups — most of which didn’t exist
in 1970 — regularly file seeking to
stop forest thinning projects, grazing
and other activities.
In a half a century, the uses of
those laws have mutated from pro-
tecting the environment to stopping
projects unpopular with special inter-
ests. Environmental groups use the
laws for their purposes, including
fundraising, while the wellbeing of
nature seems to be secondary.
Projects, even those aimed at
reducing the destruction of forests
by wildfire and protecting the habitat
of protected species, are stopped or
delayed, some for more an a decade.
One such project in the Cascade
Range was delayed 12 years by an
environmental lawsuit.
In the end, the project aimed at
preventing or diminishing the sever-
ity of wildfires across 160,000 acres
of the Deschutes National Forest was
allowed to proceed.
In the meantime, the resources
of federal agencies were sopped up
by legal expenses defending against
Biden administration
ignores the facts —
dams are not the problem
Our View
I
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press File
Farmworkers work in vineyards in Turner, Ore. The new law on overtime will change Oregon agricul-
ture.
OT law will prompt
changes in Oregon ag
O
regon Gov. Kate Brown has signed
legislation that will grant farmwork-
ers overtime pay after 40 hours of
work beginning in 2027.
Under the law, farmworkers will be owed
time-and-a-half wages after 55 weekly hours
of work in 2023, after 48 hours of work
in 2025-2026 and after 40 hours per week
beginning in 2027.
The legislation changes a farm pay for-
mula that has stood for 84 years, and will
lead to big changes for both employers and
employees.
The Fair Labor Standards Act, passed by
Congress in 1938, established a federal min-
imum wage and provided for overtime pay
for work over 40 hours. The act also provided
19 job classifications, including farmworkers,
that are exempt from the overtime rule.
Critics argue that the exemption was the
product of racism and pandering to the needs
of special interests — big, “corporate” farm-
ing concerns. Farmers of every scale note that
farm work is distinct from factory produc-
tion. The nature of most farm work makes it
difficult to schedule in eight-hour days and
40-hour work weeks.
The economics of agriculture have not
changed since 1938. Farmers are still price
takers, not price makers, who cannot simply
pass along higher labor costs to consumers
the way retailers and manufacturers, though
limited by the impacts of competition, do.
Gov. Brown acknowledged that the bill she
signed is not perfect. She points out that the
bill allows for a phase-in for overtime pay,
a provision she says will give farm interests
time to negotiate changes and improvements
wave after wave of attacks.
This most certainly was not what
Congress had in mind when it wrote
those landmark environmental laws.
Congress recently set aside $1 tril-
lion for what President Biden has
called the “Infrastructure Decade.”
He visited Portland last week promis-
ing the money would go for all sorts
of projects across Oregon and the rest
of the nation. Like many other states,
Oregon is in dire need of upgrading
ports, roads, bridges, dams, irrigation
canals and other infrastructure.
Ironically, an effort to rewrite
NEPA that his administration has
undertaken could spell the end — or
costly delays — for some of those
projects. Environmental groups will
be able to use NEPA and other laws
to head for court in an effort to stop
or stall them.
And it will happen despite the fact
that those laws passed in the 1960s
and 1970s were meant to protect the
environment, not stop progress.
to the legislation.
No doubt farm interests will try to get the
law changed. But, it seems unlikely there will
be significant changes made. It is more likely
that farmers and processors will use the grace
period to find ways they can change their
operations to reduce labor costs.
Mary Anne Cooper, vice president of gov-
ernment affairs at the Oregon Farm Bureau,
said farm employees will also lose out when
employers can’t afford to hire more workers
or must offer workers fewer hours.
“We think this legislation will have devas-
tating consequences for our family farms and
their employees, will likely result in signifi-
cantly reduced farm employment in Oregon
and is really going to change the landscape of
Oregon agriculture,” said Cooper.
Innovators are busy designing machines
that can do intricate and delicate work such as
picking fruit and pruning trees. Higher labor
costs will hasten that effort.
Farmers who produce labor-intensive crops
are also weighing the profit potential of grow-
ing crops that require less labor. Those crops
generally are not as valuable as the labor-in-
tensive crops, but for smaller producers the
potential reductions in costs could make those
crops more viable.
Inevitably, some farmers will decide that
they can’t afford higher labor costs, increased
automation, or changes in their cropping
plans. They will sell out to a larger operation
that can.
We think everyone performing farm work
should be paid as much as business condi-
tions allow. But we know that mandating
overtime won’t change the basic economics.
t is completely mind-bog-
gling that amidst an energy
and supply chain crisis, Pres-
ident Biden would remove a
source of power and transpor-
tation for an entire region. Yet,
just recently, the White House
updated their blog with a post
about doing just that: breach-
ing the four Lower Snake River
Dams.
This “blog post” proves that
the Biden Administration is
beholden to radical, environ-
mental lobbyists, and is only
hearing their side of the argu-
ment. They are completely
ignoring the devastating impacts
that breaching the Lower Snake
River Dams would have on the
people of Central Washington
and the entire Pacific North-
west. And they’re trying to use
salmon to prop up their flimsy
arguments.
Not only is their narrative
peppered with falsehoods, but
it completely ignores so many
elements of this many-faceted
issue. It ignores not one, but two
multi-year, multi-million dol-
lar studies implemented by both
Republican and Democratic
administrations that came to the
conclusion that dam-breach-
ing would not benefit our native
salmon species. Let me repeat
that: conservation experts and
scientists studied this issue for
years and came to the same con-
clusion most of us know already:
salmon and dams coexist.
And you know why? Because
we have done what Central
Washingtonians do: innovate,
adapt, and thrive. There is no
doubt that construction of dams
throughout the Pacific Northwest
has placed significant impacts
on fish and our environment,
but these species began declin-
ing long before the Lower Snake
River Dams were even built. In
the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s,
the state of Idaho quite literally
poisoned their lakes and water-
ways systematically to extermi-
nate native salmon populations
because they weren’t “good
fishin’.”
Today, we have done more
than just overcome these
impacts. We have taken steps to
restore and protect our native
salmon populations, includ-
ing continued investments in
research and development, as
well as new technologies to
improve fish passage.
I remain committed to bol-
stering native salmon popu-
lations, and it is important to
GUEST
VIEW
Rep. Dan
Newhouse
note that it is not just the dams
that have impacted the species.
The stressors and challenges
they face result from a myriad
of issues, including poor ocean
conditions, excessive predation,
and environmental degradation
like sewage dumping. Our dams
have fish ladders and well over
a 90% fish passage rate, and our
salmon are showing record lev-
els of recovery. To compress
these impacts into one singular
argument — that dam breaching
is the only answer — is a disin-
genuous perspective that should
be rejected.
Every day, fish biologists,
local conservation partners,
tribal neighbors, and federal
agencies work hard to protect
and revitalize this population.
The data shows they have made
clear and significant progress.
Unfortunately, radical envi-
ronmentalists have decided that
they want our dams breached at
any cost—and they won’t stop
with just ours. Because of the
political power they hold, Gov-
ernor Inslee and Senator Mur-
ray have bought into their unsci-
entific notions. And now, the
White House is perpetuating
their myths.
The men and women who
live in Central Washington rely
on these critical pieces of infra-
structure for clean, carbon-free
energy throughout the region,
water for their crops that feed
the world, and clean, reliable
transportation to move their
goods to export markets. They
don’t just want to keep these
dams; they need these dams.
And I won’t let them take them.
I will continue to fight for our
dams, and the clean energy, reli-
able transportation, and life-giv-
ing water they provide. I will lis-
ten to the science, which shows
that dams are not the problem. I
will support our salmon recovery
efforts — that are working. And
I urge these misguided groups
and ill-informed officials to stop
playing politics with these dams:
our way of life in Central Wash-
ington and the Pacific Northwest
depends on it.
Dan Newhouse, a Republi-
can, represents Central Wash-
ington state in the U.S. House.
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