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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 23, 2018)
3A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2018 Brown plans order to block drilling off coast A shot at Trump By DIRK VANDERHART Oregon Public Broadcasting PORTLAND — Drilling for oil and gas off of the Oregon Coast has long been seen as a dicey proposition — filled with potential pitfalls, and without certainty that there’s much to find in the first place. That’s not stopping Gov. Kate Brown from making it a campaign issue. In an announcement short on details and long on promises to stand up to President Don- ald Trump, the governor said Monday that she’s planning to sign an executive order in com- ing days that will “permanently ban offshore drilling along the Oregon Coast.” “The executive order will make it very clear to the oil and gas industries that Oregon is not for sale,” Brown said during a press conference in downtown Portland. The move is Brown’s lat- est response to news earlier this year that Interior Secre- tary Ryan Zinke plans to open up federally controlled offshore areas around the country to oil and gas exploration. Follow- ing that announcement, Brown AP Photo/Andrew Selsky People gather with signs on the Capitol steps in Salem in February to protest against a federal proposal that would open up the nation’s coastline, including all of Oregon’s shores, to oil and gas drilling. and other West Coast governors pressed Zinke for an exemption to potential drilling, something he extended to Florida. Brown says she’s still wait- ing for clarity. “For the past nine months I’ve been calling on Secretary Zinke to rescind his expan- sion on drilling for the Oregon Coast,” she said. “Despite his promise to give our state cer- tainty, nothing is happening. Time is up.” Specifics of what Brown has in mind weren’t plentiful at the announcement. The state con- trols a band of water and land extending 3 miles out from its coastline, and that area cur- rently has a state-enforced mor- atorium on oil and gas drilling. The federal government has say over the continental shelf beyond the 3-mile point. Asked how she intended to exert con- trol over that area, Brown said only that she’d “cover” the con- tinental shelf with her execu- tive order “and we will work to pass legislation to make that it’s incorporated into state statute so that the next governor can- not just erase it with a pen.” A draft copy of the order is not available, Brown said. Following the event, staff from the Oregon League of Conservation Voters and the governor’s office clarified that the proposal actually targets infrastructure within the 3-mile zone Oregon controls. Brown is essentially planning to order state agencies not to issue per- mits for piers, pipelines and other structures that would be needed to support an offshore drilling rig. California passed similar legislation earlier this year. The move is likely to appeal to some voters as Brown enters the final days of a highly com- petitive re-election bid against Republican state Rep. Knute Buehler. There’s little evidence it’s immediately necessary. As Oregon Public Broad- casting has reported, no one has drilled off the Oregon Coast since 1964, when companies turned up very little. There are possibly 810 million barrels of “undiscovered technically recoverable” oil and gas off the coast of the Pacific North- west, but it’s unclear how much of that would be feasible to collect. Even Brown has suggested in the past that Zinke has lit- tle faith that drilling would occur off of Oregon. She told the Huffington Post in March that Zinke had told her “that the return on investment is not very lucrative for offshore drilling, off of Oregon and Washington coasts. The return on invest- ment is not good. We know that.” Asked about that Monday, Brown said the lack of further clarity from federal officials forced her hand. “There’s no reason why they shouldn’t have given us certainty when I asked for it nine months ago,” she said. “We’ve been waiting and wait- ing and waiting (for them) to say no we’re gonna exclude Oregon. They wouldn’t give me that promise. That’s why we’re moving forward.” At the event, Brown appeared with officials with the Sierra Club and Oregon League of Conservation Voters, along with two members of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Ballot measure would give grocers constitutional protections Measure 103 would block taxes on grocers By DIRK VANDERHART Oregon Public Broadcasting In an election year when Oregonians will make weighty decisions on abortion and immigration policy, the ballot measure attracting the most cash has to do with the humble grocery cart. In what amounts to a pre-emptive strike at new taxes on grocery chains — and the farms and factories that supply them — large gro- cers are dumping millions of dollars into passing Measure 103. “Keep our groceries tax free!” say ads blanketing the airwaves, plastered to web- sites, waiting at your grocery store’s check stand. The mes- sages are so pervasive, you might think there’s a state- wide proposal to slap a tax on your supermarket. There isn’t. Instead, Measure 103 would change the Oregon Constitution, prohibiting law- makers from imposing a new “tax, fee, or other assessment” on the “sale or distribution” of groceries, if one is proposed in the future. In doing so, it would largely freeze in place the tax structure that grocers and their suppliers operate under today. “There are really only two sides of this measure,” says Joe Gilliam, president of the Northwest Grocery Associa- tion, the leading advocate for Measure 103. “Those who want to keep their groceries tax free and those that want to tax groceries and continue to come up with proposals to tax your groceries.” In Oregon’s long-stand- ing debate over how to pay for public services, specifi- cally taxing grocery sales isn’t likely to gain any traction. Even states that have a sales tax — a concept Oregonians have repeatedly shot down — typically exempt groceries. “We don’t have a sales tax on groceries,” says Katherine Driessen, a spokeswoman for advocacy group Our Oregon, which has pushed repeatedly for higher corporate taxes in the state. “Certainly nobody’s proposing one. It’s a complete nonstarter.” Yet Gilliam and his allies argue other recent proposals would have amounted to a tax on groceries. Most prominent is Measure 97, a 2016 ballot proposal to create a new 2.5 percent tax on corporate sales of more than $25 million. Gro- cers played an outsized role in convincing voters to resound- ingly reject that measure, claiming it was a sales tax in disguise. Measure 103 backers also say proposals for taxes on sug- ary beverages — including an effort in Multnomah County that was delayed earlier this year — are a looming threat to Oregon grocers. Their pro- posal would make such taxes impossible. “Most of the folks on the other side of the measure have kind of brought us to this point,” Gilliam says. Gilliam argues Measure 103 is a straight-forward way to make sure that food and beverages are kept out of future conversations about how to pay for public services. (The proposal does not cover sales of grocery store staples that aren’t meant for consump- tion, such as toilet paper. Alco- hol, cannabis products and tobacco are also not included, though e-cigarettes aren’t con- templated by the measure.) dozens of community and advocacy groups and a list of businesses that includes Nike. The same groups are oppos- ing Measure 104, another anti- ‘There are really only two sides of this measure. Those who want to keep their groceries tax free and those that want to tax groceries and continue to come up with proposals to tax your groceries.’ Joe Gilliam, president of the Northwest Grocery Association Complicated But Measure 103’s oppo- nents say it’s far more compli- cated than that. They say the measure would lock sloppy, confusing language into the state’s constitution, where it will be difficult to fix or remove. And they say the measure could block big gro- cery chains from paying their fair share for state services in the future. “The very idea that we would risk putting something legally ambiguous into Ore- gon’s Constitution just doesn’t make any sense at all,” says Becca Uherbelau, executive director of Our Oregon. As a chief opponent to Mea- sure 103, Uherbelau helms a coalition that includes unions, tax proposal that would make it harder for the Legislature to raise new revenue. One of their central argu- ments against Measure 103: That it’s vague and overly broad. The measure prohibits new taxes on the “sale or distribu- tion of groceries” and goes on to define those terms in a way intended to capture not just grocery stores, but any entity in the grocery supply chain. Our Oregon says that defi- nition creates huge compli- cations. An analysis from the group’s attorney suggests the measure would wind up pro- hibiting taxes on food sales at hospitals and trucking com- panies that haul groceries and even pre-empt changes to bottle deposits in Oregon. It’s not clear those argu- ments would hold legal weight. The Oregon Depart- ment of Justice has said that Measure 103 wouldn’t impact an assessment on hos- pitals that voters passed in January to fund Medicaid, and wouldn’t affect planned increases to the state’s gas tax for trucking companies that haul groceries. The Oregon Beverage Recycling Coopera- tive, which facilitates the Ore- gon Bottle Bill, says deposits would remain untouched. The measure’s opponents say those opinions won’t be enough to stop lawsuits if Measure 103 passes. Uherbe- lau believes companies will fight to win protections from taxes under the law. “The fact that we’re argu- ing over what it covers and what it doesn’t means there will be industries out there that say, ‘Oh it doesn’t cover me,’” she says. “It’ll cost the state of Oregon and local communities hundreds of millions of dollars to litigate these issues.” Restaurants The best example of this confusion involves restaurants. According to the Depart- ment of Justice, Oregon eat- eries would be protected from new taxes under the law. Restaurants are even specif- ically included in the ballot language for the measure, a detail cheered by the Ore- gon Restaurant and Lodging Association. “A meal at a restaurant or from takeout is a regular and increasing part of many Ore- gonians’ busy schedules,” the group said in a voters’ pam- phlet statement. “ORLA sup- ports Measure 103 because it will ensure that such meals remain as affordable as pos- sible without unnecessary and burdensome taxation. Yet Gilliam insists most Oregon restaurants aren’t included. He points out that a provision in the measure sin- gles out businesses regulated by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and sev- eral other agencies. That list includes “take- and-bake” pizza places like Papa Murphy’s, Gilliam says, but not most other restau- rants. He can’t say why the Department of Justice and others have reached different conclusions. “We sent a request in to the DOJ saying, ‘How did you get to your interpretation?’ And we have never received a response,” Gilliam says. WANTED Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500 A Clastop County Historical Society Event TalkIng Tombstones xv “Death Becomes Heard" Sunday Oct 28 1-4pm Ocean view cemetery @ the intersection of Delaura Beach Lane & Whiskey Road • Warrenton For more information about this event or other Clatsop County Historical Society activities, please call 503-325-2203 email cchs@cumtux.org Fr e e E ve n t Donations Welcome Visitors sho uld pla n to arrive no la ter thant 3PM, as the deceased begin to fad e from view as the dark ness of nigh t dra ws nea r. Leadership. Experience. Accessibility. Results. 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