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Street Roots • Dec. 7-13, 2018
News
Wyden clears way fo r coal-supporter
Manchin to head energy committee
Fears mount that the West Virginia senator would
derail progress on climate change policy, but
Wyden signals he’ll likely pass on the position
BY EM ILY GREEN
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
regon’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron
^Wydenis nextin. line for the
««
ra n k in g s e a t on th e S e n a te
Energy Committee - a position that
would hold tremendous power over
which carbon policies and other climate
change-related energy bills see the light
of day on the Senate floor.
This prospect comes at a pivotal time.
As climate reports from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change and even the federal government
are striking an ever bleaker tone, support
is building in the House around Rep.-
elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.)
Green New Deal, which aims to get the
U.S. to 100 percent renewable energy
and meet the Paris Accord’s goal of
keeping temperature increases to below
2.7 degrees Celsius. Should Democrats
keep the House in future election cycles,
and take back the White House and
Senate, the ranking member of the ,
Senate Energy Committee would likely
control this deal’s destiny. But it won’t be
Wyden making the call. Instead, it will
likely be a coal-loving senator from West
Virginia, Joe Manchin.
Senators are only allowed to be
ranking member on one committee.
Wyden and two other senators that would
be next in line for the seat after h i m ^ ;
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen.
Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) - are
reportedly uninterested in leaving their
current top slots.
This would leave the seat - and power
over carbon policy - to Manchin, who is
next in line after them. He’s known as a
staunch fossil-fuel ally who votes with
shot the cap-and-trade bill with a rifle in
a 2010 campaign ad to simultaneously
show his süpport of guns and his state’s
coal industry.
Given thé potentially high stakes of his
decision not to take the seat, Street
Roots asked Wyden if he would
reconsider if it came down to him or
Manchin.
This was the full response from
Wyden’s spokesperson Hank Stern:
“A senator can only bé the ranking
member on one committee - as ranking
member of the Senate Finance
Committee, Senator Wyden is well-
positioned to work on legislation such as
scrapping the tax code’s 40-plus
subsidies for fossil fuels and replacing
them with three provisions that support
clean energy options, as well as other
crucial issues from reducing prescription
drug prices to protecting Medicaid,
Social Security and Medicare.”
Climate activists demonstrated ôutside
Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) office Dec* 3 to
demand that he not allow Manchin to
take the seat should Current ranking
member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.)
leave to become ranking member of the
Commerce Committee.
According to Bloomberg, Manchin had
lunch with President Donald Trump the ;
same day.
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P H O T O B Y C ELESTE N O C H E
Dwrmg' her photo shoot outside Street Root’s office, Portland Policé C hief Danielle Outlaw m et
up with Street Roots vendors Francine Parks (left) a n d Nettie Johnson.
O UTLAW , fro m p ag e s
*** •*—***
two people.
Sheffield:
generally what it turns
into.
Outlaw: Again, it depends on the
circumstances of the situation, the history
of the people. But, with all of that said,
■ when you asked about what our procedure
is, our training and my expectation in
alignment with that training is that once we
know what we have, we begin to peel back
. the resources that we have once we realize
either the situation is de-escalated or a
threat is no longer present.
Sheffield: A n d that’s what I ’ve always
seen in other cities, and other communities, is
de-escalation - we gotta control this, gotta pull
back a little bit.
To be honest with the stu ff Pve seen a t my
campsite, I have yet to see the Portland police
do that. In fact, I have seen the opposite. I see
more come in once they see it’s a homeless
person. A good example is the other night at
my camp, somebody was talking to my
girlfriend and our camping buddies, dnd he
ju st passed out. A n d there Were fo u r cop cars
there before the fire department even got there,
and this was more o f a medical thing. I t was
one o f my camping buddies who called 911,
and he even said on the call, “We need the fire
department and an ambulance.”Instead, fo u r
cops came, and then they called the fire
department.
Outlaw: And that’s an example of a call
where we’re dispatched, and ultimately, it
was something that should have been
handled in another way. And that would be
the type of call as well, depending on the
rest of the circumstances, where the person
sitting in dispatch would be able to say, “No,
it doesn’t sound like it requires a police
response at this time; this is solely a
medical call.” '
Street Roots Executive Editor Joanne
Zuhl: Awof/îgr (Sfreef Roofe) ww/or, C.W,
wanted to be here. He actually had a housing
meeting a t 9 ‘o clock, so it’s good he ’s not Here.
I ’m going to preface his question, and it’s
k ind o f a philosophical question, but it reflects
a little bit what you told Oregon Public
Broadcasting in that when growing up in
Oakland, you felt the police weren’t there to
help you.
Seven months ago, C.W. was attacked. H e’s
homeless, and he was attacked. He woke up to
a guy beating him with a bottle. He called
police, and he said he waited about a half-
hour - no police. He started packing up his
bags. I t got to be like 45 minutes; no police
showed up. This was downtown, in the Pearl
District. He had been assaulted and was
bleeding, and he waited a t the spot fo r the
Police to show up. A fter 45 m inutes to an
hour, he left. A couple o f blocks away, there
were fo u r police officers, and he was ju st
incensed. H e wants to know: Do you serve the
affluent and the few, or the m any a nd the
poor? I
Outlaw: Last year, I had just gotten here
and immediately delved into our budget
asks. When I presented the first timp at
Council, I attempted to paint a picture of
why we needed more officers. I tried to
start off with a call - it wasn’t allowed to be
played - but it was an emergency call. It
was a carjacking that had just occurred
downtown, near the South Waterfront area,
near that 7-Eleven over there, and what I
was going to do was play thé call, and then
leave it.
And then, an hour and 20 seconds later, I
was going to step back in after the
See OUTLAW, page 11