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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2018
Oregon Dems blast Supreme Court nominee
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
PORTLAND — Gov. Kate
Brown joined Oregon Sens.
Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley
and some Democratic members
of Oregon’s congressional dele-
gation on Thursday to condemn
U.S. Supreme Court nominee
Brett Kavanaugh and call for
an independent investigation
into decades-old allegations of
sexual assault against him.
At a rally and news confer-
ence at a Planned Parenthood
office in Portland, speakers —
including U.S. Reps. Suzanne
Bonamici and Earl Blumenauer
— told attendees that Kavana-
ugh’s successful nomination
could also threaten a woman’s
right to an abortion even in a lib-
eral state like Oregon.
Sen. Jeff Merkley speaks at the rally. Backing him are,
from right, Gov. Kate Brown, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, Rep.
Earl Blumenauer and Sen. Ron Wyden.
People hold signs of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kava-
naugh at the rally.
Kavanaugh
has
been
accused by Christine Blasey
Ford, a California college pro-
fessor, of sexually assault-
ing Ford at a party in the
1980s in a Maryland suburb of
mittee that her client would tes-
tify next week to the Senate
about her accusation against
Kavanaugh if agreement can be
reached to “terms that are fair
and which ensure her safety.”
Washington.
Kavanaugh has denied the
allegations.
The press conference came
at the same time that a Ford
attorney told the Judiciary Com-
AP Photos/Gillian Flaccus
The message resurrected
the possibility that the panel
would hold a dramatic hearing
at which both Ford and Kava-
naugh could give their ver-
sions of what happened at the
party when they were both high
schoolers.
The allegation has shaken
Kavanaugh’s prospects for
winning Senate confirma-
tion to be a justice, which until
Ford’s emergence last week had
seemed all but certain.
Wyden said the hearing was
not enough and called for a for-
mal investigation into Ford’s
allegations.
“There are credible and seri-
ous allegations against Brett
Kavanaugh and there needs to
be a credible and serious pro-
cess, rather than something
where you just ram this thing
through and then say, ‘Gee,
I guess we’re too busy, for
example, to even listen to wit-
nesses!’” he said.
Both senators said they
would not vote for Kavanaugh.
Voter approval for tolls moves
closer to the 2020 election ballot
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
A voter initiative that
would amend the state Con-
stitution to require in certain
circumstances voter approval
to place tolls on existing free-
ways is moving closer toward
the 2020 ballot.
The Oregon Department of
Justice released the draft bal-
lot title for Initiative Petition
10 on Monday, Sept. 17. The
draft opens up a public com-
ment period before the ballot
title is finalized.
Dubbed “Tolls Need Voter
Approval,” the initiative
would require a vote of the
people to toll existing free-
ways unless the proceeds
paid only for increasing vehi-
cle capacity. Voter approval
would be required both state-
wide and in the county where
the toll would be imposed.
Under the Constitution,
revenue from transportation
tolls may be used for a vari-
ety of purposes, including
construction, reconstruction,
repair, maintenance, opera-
tion and use of public high-
ways” and other roads.
Additionally, officials with
the Oregon Department of
Transportation have asked the
DOJ for advice on whether
the Constitution allows the
proceeds to be used to pay
for improving access to pub-
lic transportation and car-
pool incentives. The idea is
that both strategies remove
vehicles off the freeways and
Pamplin Media Group
Sponsors of the “Tolls Need Voter Approval” initiative may
soon be able to gather signatures to land the proposal on
the 2020 ballot.
decrease traffic.
Gladstone Planning Com-
missioner Les Poole and state
Reps. Mike Nearman, R-In-
dependence, and Julie Parish,
R-West Linn, filed the initia-
tive in response to a proposal
to toll sections of Interstate 5
and Interstate 205 in Portland
to raise money for highway
improvements.
“Logically, a toll would
sunset once the project is paid
for,” Poole said. “Tolling is
a way of financing a project
in lieu of bonding the entire
project. Together in aggre-
gate, all of tolling money
should have to go to that
specific project. They (state
transportation commission-
ers) want to charge us just to
use the roads.”
The Oregon Transporta-
tion Commission voted unan-
imously Aug. 16 to seek
approval from the Federal
Highway Administration to
toll the Abernethy Bridge
on I-205 and all lanes of I-5
between Northeast Going
Street/Alberta Street and
Southwest Multnomah Bou-
levard. Meanwhile, commis-
sioners have instructed the
ODOT to conduct a feasibil-
ity study of tolling all seven
interstates in Portland to form
a “seamless loop” around the
city.
Gov. Kate Brown has
expressed support for that
strategy.
However, poll results sug-
gest the vast majority of Ore-
gonians are more skeptical of
tolling.
A DHM Research poll
commissioned by ODOT in
December found only 22.5
percent of residents in Mult-
nomah, Washington, Clacka-
mas and Clark counties were
willing to pay a toll weekly or
more frequently.
About 31 percent agreed
ODOT should explore mul-
tiple options for encouraging
motorists to alter their trans-
portation choices, including
tolling.
Even if the initiative
passes, the transportation
commission could still impose
tolls without voter approval.
No vote is required if the tolls
are used to pay for “new net
capacity.”
The intent is that the pro-
ceeds would go toward proj-
ects on the road or bridge
where the toll applies, Poole
said. That is something the
survey showed more residents
support.
“New net capacity” is
defined as “expansion of
transportation infrastructure
which did not exist prior to
Jan. 1, 2018, and which has
not been converted from a
previous form of transporta-
tion infrastructure” already
built and/or operated with
public moneys.
The state Elections Divi-
sion will accept written com-
ments on the draft ballot title
until 5 p.m. Oct. 1. The com-
ments will be delivered to the
DOJ for consideration before
certification of the ballot title.
Comments may be emailed
to irrlistnotifier.sos@oregon.
gov, faxed to 503-373-7414 or
mailed to Elections Division,
255 Capitol St. N.E., Suite
501, Salem, Oregon 97301.
US agrees to improve worker safety at Hanford
By PHUONG LE
Associated Press
SEATTLE — The U.S. gov-
ernment will test and imple-
ment a new system to capture
and destroy dangerous vapors
released at the nation’s most
polluted nuclear weapons pro-
duction site as part of a set-
tlement agreement reached
Wednesday.
Washington Attorney Gen-
eral Bob Ferguson told report-
ers that the agreement rep-
resents a major win for
hundreds of workers who have
been getting sick for years
while cleaning up the nation’s
nuclear waste at the Hanford
Nuclear Reservation in eastern
Washington.
“Those workers deserve to
be protected,” Ferguson said.
He added that the U.S.
Department of Energy did not
take the issue seriously and
resisted putting protections in
place.
The Energy Department
will for the first time test a
new technology that Ferguson
called “game-changing” that
would protect workers from
the vapor exposures.
Under the agreement, the
agency will pay $925,000 in
fees and costs to the state and
Hanford Challenge, a watch-
dog group that has for decades
been warning about worker
safety. The agency will also
install a new vapor monitoring
and alarm system and maintain
safety measures that are cur-
rently in place, including sup-
plying air and respirators.
The Department of Energy
said in an emailed statement
that the agreement “acknowl-
edges the extensive actions” that
the agency, and its contractor,
Washington River Protection
Solutions LLC, have taken to
protect workers from potential
exposure to chemical vapors.
AP Photo/Don Ryan
A marijuana plant is shown in Oregon.
Patients react to new
limits on Oregon
medical marijuana
By NOELLE CROMBIE
The Oregonian
PORTLAND — In
August, a state analyst
spotted dozens of suspi-
cious transactions when he
crunched cannabis sales
data: a small number of med-
ical marijuana cardholders
bought unusually large quan-
tities of marijuana flowers on
consecutive days.
Oregon regulators sus-
pected medical marijuana
patients and caregivers were
exploiting the system by
buying cannabis to sell on
the illicit market.
The response was swift.
The Oregon Liquor Control
Commission, under pres-
sure from federal officials to
tackle the robust black mar-
ket for marijuana, quickly
issued a temporary rule that
dramatically reduced the
amount that medical mari-
juana cardholders could buy
in a day.
The limit dropped from
a pound and a half of mari-
juana to 1 ounce — the same
quantity recreational canna-
bis consumers are allowed
to buy.
“What we saw was abuse,
clear abuse of the stan-
dards,” Steve Marks, exec-
utive director of the Liquor
Control Commission, said
Wednesday.
Over 19 days in August,
for instance, one medical
marijuana cardholder bought
nearly 13 pounds of canna-
bis. Another bought 7 pounds
over 10 days that month.
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Officials said the question-
able transactions came from
a small percentage of card-
holders and that the typical
purchase for most cardhold-
ers was 4 grams or less.
Marks said marijuana
program overseers worried
that the state’s low marijuana
prices enticed some card-
holders to stock up and “take
it to Iowa or wherever and
sell for a profit.”
“We saw that happening,”
he said, adding it was “a little
bit of a Ponzi scheme.”
Oregon has been in the
crosshairs of U.S. Justice
Department leaders for not
doing enough to crack down
on the black market. U.S.
Attorney Billy Williams has
repeatedly expressed frustra-
tion with the state’s failure to
contain production and he’s
chided top officials for not
devoting enough resources to
oversight and enforcement.
On Wednesday, patients
and advocates for the med-
ical marijuana program
blasted the new limits at
a contentious meeting of
the state’s rules advisory
committee.
Advocates said medical
marijuana patients some-
times need large quantities
of the drug to make prod-
ucts they rely on to treat their
conditions and they accused
the state of meddling with
medicine.
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