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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021
Oregon House moves to curb forest institute’s power and budget
By TONY SCHICK
and ROB DAVIS
Oregon Public Broadcasting
and The Oregonian
The Oregon House voted
Tuesday to cut the Ore-
gon Forest Resources Insti-
tute’s budget by two-thirds
and redirect the money to the
type of climate science it tried
to undermine, delivering a
sharp rebuke to a tax-funded
agency that a news investiga-
tion showed had attacked sci-
entists and acted as a lobbying
and public relations arm for
the timber industry.
Representatives agreed in
a 32-27 vote to increase over-
sight of the institute, end its
public advertising campaign
and shift $2.7 million of its
$4 million annual budget to
the Oregon Department of
Forestry for projects includ-
ing climate research in for-
ests and assisting small land-
owners. The bill now moves
to the Oregon Senate for
consideration.
The
Oregon
Forest
Resources Institute was cre-
ated in 1991 to educate the
public about forestry and to
teach landowners about log-
ging laws and sound environ-
mental practices.
A joint investigation by
The Oregonian, Oregon Pub-
lic Broadcasting and Pro-
Publica in August revealed
that the institute had acted as
a de-facto lobbying arm of the
timber industry, in some cases
skirting legal constraints that
forbid it from doing so. The
investigation showed that the
organization attacked scien-
tists studying carbon in Ore-
gon’s forests, with one top
offi cial calling them “folks
who likely believe that the
planet would be better off
without humans.”
State Rep. Khanh Pham,
a Portland Democrat and one
of the bill’s sponsors, said she
was outraged by the investi-
gation’s fi ndings, praising the
news organizations for expos-
ing the institute’s actions. She
said she had received a fl ood
of emails from constituents
who wanted to see the insti-
Kristyna Wentz-Graff /Oregon Public Broadcasting
Logging trucks roll down Santiam Highway in front of the Detroit Ranger Station where about two dozen people gathered in
April to protest the post-wildfi re logging along fi re-impacted roads impacted by the wildfi res of 2020.
tute held accountable.
“It was alarming, frustrat-
ing and eye-opening where
our public dollars were
going,” Pham said.
Lawmakers established a
tax on logging to pay for the
institute, at the same time cut-
ting taxes paid by the tim-
ber industry that helped fund
schools and local govern-
ments. The news organiza-
tions found that tax cuts for the
timber industry had cost Ore-
gon an estimated $3 billion
in lost revenue since 1991,
which came at the expense
of rural counties struggling
to provide basic government
services.
The Oregon Forest &
Industries Council, the state
trade group that wrote the
bill creating the institute in
1991, has strongly opposed
changes. Its lobbyists said the
institute provides necessary
promotion of one of Oregon’s
backbone industries.
“It would be a gross mis-
carriage of justice to eliminate
‘IT WAS ALARMING,
FRUSTRATING AND
EYE-OPENING WHERE
OUR PUBLIC DOLLARS
WERE GOING.’
State Rep. Khanh Pham | a Portland Democrat
and one of the bill’s sponsors
the jobs of dedicated public
employees for no reason other
than a sensationalized news-
paper story,” Mike Eliason, an
industry council lobbyist, said
in testimony to lawmakers.
Lawmakers this session
stalled in their eff orts to rein-
state a tax that large timber
companies paid on the value
of trees they logged. Timber
tax policy is now more likely
to be taken up by a task force
or work group with the intent
of crafting legislation for a
future session, according to
Rep. Paul Holvey, a Eugene
Democrat, who sponsored the
Oregon requires coronavirus
vaccines for farmed mink
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
SALEM — Oregon’s
campaign to vaccinate the
public against COVID-19
is extending to the animal
kingdom.
The state Department
of Agriculture has fi led an
emergency temporary rule
requiring coronavirus vac-
cines for as many as 212,700
farmed mink to reduce the
risk of new infections, virus
mutations and possible ani-
mal-to-human transmission,
the agency announced late
last month.
Mink farmers have until
Aug. 31 to vaccinate their
animals. Any mink born or
imported after that date must
be vaccinated within 120
days of birth, or within 60
days of being brought into
Oregon.
Farms must also agree to
participate in additional sur-
veillance testing per state
Department of Agriculture
and U.S. Department of
Agriculture guidelines.
“ODA is taking the nec-
essary precautions to reduce
the risk of infection in cap-
tive mink, as well as reduce
the risk of potential muta-
tion of the virus and the
potential for virus transmis-
sion back to humans,” said
Ryan Scholz, state veteri-
narian for the Department
of Agriculture. “It is critical
that owner-operators vacci-
nate their mink against the
virus.”
Surveillance testing will
provide assurance the vac-
cine is eff ective, and infec-
tions are not occurring on
farms, Scholz added.
The rule comes after one
mink farm in Oregon was
placed under quarantine
for more than two months
between late November and
early February after multi-
ple animals tested positive
for the virus. Scholz said the
Fur Commission USA
The Oregon Department
of Agriculture has fi led an
emergency temporary rule
requiring
Oregon
mink
operators to vaccinate all
captive mink against the
coronavirus.
mink had likely contracted
the virus from workers at the
farm.
The state did not iden-
tify the farm for security
reasons. The positive tests
prompted concern about the
possibility of a “viral reser-
voir” among captive mink
spilling into the wild and
infecting related species
like river otters, fi shers and
martens.
After two consecutive
rounds of follow-up testing
at the farm revealed no new
cases, the quarantine was
lifted on Feb. 11.
The approved vaccine
for minks was developed
by Zoetis, the world’s larg-
est producer of medicine
and vaccinations for pets
and livestock. The company,
based in New Jersey, worked
with Fur Commission USA,
which represents U.S. mink
farmers, on clinical testing
for the vaccine last year.
Michael Whelan, execu-
tive director of Fur Commis-
sion USA, said mink farm-
ers were already working
toward vaccinating their ani-
mals even before the Oregon
rule was announced.
“We see the importance
of keeping the mink healthy,
keeping the workers healthy
and keeping the public
healthy,” Whelan said.
Farmers will bear the
expense of vaccinating their
own animals, Whelan said.
Like the Pfi zer and Mod-
erna vaccine for humans,
the Zoetis vaccine for minks
requires two rounds of shots.
The cost works out to about
77 cents per mink.
State Department of
Agriculture spokeswoman
Andrea Cantu-Schomus said
Oregon has a maximum per-
mitted capacity of 212,700
animals at registered mink
farms, though the actual
count is likely lower.
Fur Commission USA is
assisting in the distribution
of vaccines to veterinarians.
The fi rst phase of vaccina-
tions in Oregon will likely
begin this week, Whelan
said.
In addition, Whelan said
the USDA and Centers for
Disease Control and Pre-
vention are in the process of
developing national proto-
cols that will likely require
vaccinating all mink nation-
wide. As of 2018, the U.S.
had 245 mink farms in 22
states that produced 3.1 mil-
lion pelts, according to the
commission.
“Oregon was quicker to
make an emergency rule
because of the outbreak, but
all mink in the country will
be vaccinated before the end
of July,” Whelan said.
As of December 2020,
eight countries have reported
cases of the coronavirus in
farmed mink, including the
U.S. Perhaps the most seri-
ous outbreak was in Den-
mark, where authorities
ordered the entire farmed
mink population of up to 17
million animals slaughtered.
Denmark also banned
mink farming and breeding
until at least 2022 after dis-
covering a new strain of the
virus that can be passed to
humans, called the “Cluster
5” strain.
bill to restore the tax.
Rep. Andrea Salinas, a
Lake Oswego Democrat, said
she was disappointed law-
makers haven’t done more on
timber taxes this session. Sali-
nas, who sponsored the bill,
said passing it took far more
time than she anticipated.
“This felt so small. It
should have been so easy,”
Salinas said of the bill. “There
was a lot around how to
restructure the severance tax
and the harvest tax. Those feel
really big and diffi cult now.”
During more than 90 min-
utes of debate on the House
fl oor Tuesday, numerous law-
makers cited the news investi-
gation and said the institute’s
actions demanded an immedi-
ate response.
In a speech on the house
fl oor, bill co-sponsor Rep.
Marty Wilde, a Eugene Dem-
ocrat, told his colleagues he
would have preferred to com-
pletely eliminate the institute.
But some Democrats were
reluctant. The fi nal bill, Wilde
said, is a “critical correction to
an agency that veered far off
course.”
Rep. Susan McLain, a
Hillsboro Democrat, said the
legislative compromise that
staved off the institute’s elimi-
nation won her vote. She said
her nieces and nephews had
been through its “fabulous”
educational programs for
school children, which will
remain as one of its core func-
tions. She encouraged state
senators to closely examine
the bill.
“There were many com-
promises and there were
many good opportunities that
were left on the table,” she
said. McLain did not expand
on what she meant.
Gov. Kate Brown, a Dem-
ocrat who was the target of
some of the institute’s lob-
bying eff orts, has called
the investigation’s fi ndings
“deeply troubling.” House
Speaker Tina Kotek has said
she was “appalled” by the
institute’s attacks on scientifi c
research.
Brown requested an audit
by Oregon’s Secretary of
State that is expected to be
completed in late June or
early July. A spokesperson for
Brown said the governor does
not generally take positions
on bills still working through
the legislative process. In
requesting the audit, Brown’s
offi ce said such a probe was
“necessary to bring transpar-
ency to whether OFRI con-
ducts its mission in keeping
with its statutory authority,
including the clear prohibi-
tion on OFRI infl uencing, or
attempting to infl uence state
policy.”
Lawmakers who opposed
the bill said it would gut the
institute and leave it without
the ability to support one of
the state’s key rural industries.
Rep. Bill Post, R-Keizer,
who voted no, urged his col-
leagues to wait for the results
of an audit due this summer
from the Oregon Secretary
of State. “The Oregonian and
OPB are not judge and jury
in Oregon and good policy
should not be based on the
opinions of some journalists,”
Post said. The news organiza-
tions have published a piece
that details the investigation,
which was based on extensive
interviews and documents.
Thousands of records
obtained by the news orga-
nizations documented how
the agency targeted univer-
sity climate change research
and spent millions of dol-
lars on advertisements that
promoted Oregon’s logging
laws as strong, even as they
fell behind regulations in
neighboring California and
Washington.
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