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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.
VOTE NOV. 6
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