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THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JULY 1, 2021
Lawmakers cut timber industry tax
By TONY SCHICK
and ROB DAVIS
Oregon Public Broadcasting
and The Oregonian
Oregon
lawmakers
pledged to increase taxes on
the timber industry and rein in
its infl uence during this year’s
legislative session. Instead,
they handed the companies an
unexpected gift — another tax
break.
As the session wrapped last
week, lawmakers gutted the
remaining $15 million annual
harvest tax paid by timber
companies for cutting down
trees. The move eliminated
about $9 million in annual
revenue that helps fund Ore-
gon State University’s forestry
research and the Department
of Forestry’s enforcement of
state logging laws. Money for
the programs will temporarily
come from the state’s general
fund, forcing the costs onto
taxpayers.
The tax cut came in the
fi nal days of the session after
the state Senate failed to pass
a separate measure, approved
by the House of Representa-
tives, that aimed to overhaul
the Oregon Forest Resources
Institute. Lawmakers left in
place nearly $4 million in
annual harvest taxes for the
institute’s budget, along with
$2 million to fi ght wildfi res.
The institute had sought to dis-
credit scientists and acted as a
de facto lobbying and public
relations arm for the indus-
try, an August investigation
by The Oregonian, Oregon
Public Broadcasting and Pro-
Publica revealed.
While the funding for the
institute and for fi ghting wild-
fi res is permanent, the por-
tions of the harvest tax that
fund Oregon State and the for-
estry department must receive
three-fi fths approval from
lawmakers every two years
to remain in place. This year,
a dispute between the House
and the Senate over the tax left
lawmakers closing the session
without agreeing to a renewal.
The result: Timber compa-
nies, including the real estate
trusts and Wall Street inves-
tors who have become the
Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian
Smoke rises from clearcut land and mixes with fog at an industrial forest in Oregon’s Coast Range.
‘IT WOULD BE A MAJOR HIT. IT’S
HARD TO SAY HOW WE WOULD
MANAGE A HIT LIKE THAT. IT DOES
LEAVE ME WITH QUITE A BIT OF
CONCERN ABOUT HOW MUCH
STABILITY THERE IS THERE.’
Tom DeLuca | dean of the Oregon State University College of Forestry
largest owners of Oregon’s
private forests, saw their tax
burden lowered once again,
marking a win for an industry
that maintains outsized infl u-
ence in state politics.
Despite shrinking its con-
tribution to the state’s econ-
omy, the timber industry has
donated more to Oregon leg-
islators in the past decade than
to lawmakers anywhere else
in the nation.
Tom DeLuca, dean of the
Oregon State College of For-
estry, said he was “hugely dis-
appointed” by the tax cut. He
also said he was heartened to
hear that lawmakers will tap
the state’s general fund this
year, but he worries what will
happen if they fail to perma-
nently restore the tax.
“It would be a major hit,”
DeLuca said. “It’s hard to say
how we would manage a hit
like that. It does leave me with
quite a bit of concern about
how much stability there is
there.”
An investigation last year
by the news organizations
revealed that schools and
counties lost an estimated $3
billion over three decades as
lawmakers repeatedly cut the
state’s severance tax, which
assessed a fee on the value
of the trees logged by private
timber owners.
While the severance tax
was eliminated for all but
small landowners in 1999,
timber companies continued
to pay a harvest tax on the
volume of trees they logged.
That tax provides about $3.2
million annually to Ore-
gon State’s forestry school,
roughly 15% of its budget for
research and a broad swath of
projects.
During the session, House
Democrats attempted to
make the harvest tax perma-
nent after several said they’d
grown tired of how lobbyists
and other lawmakers use it as
leverage each session to bar-
gain for other measures.
Three weeks ago, the
House also passed a bill to cut
the institute’s budget by two-
thirds, redirect the money to
climate research and increase
oversight of the institute. The
bill included a requirement
that the institute end its public
advertising campaign.
The Senate killed the insti-
tute measure and voted to keep
the harvest tax on a schedule
to expire every two years. But
the tax died when the cham-
bers failed to resolve the dis-
pute before the legislative ses-
sion ended.
Charles Boyle, a spokes-
person for Gov. Kate Brown,
said Brown hopes ongoing
negotiations between envi-
ronmental groups and timber
companies over the future of
Oregon’s logging laws will
“help build the trust needed
for us to reach a negotiated
reform package for the harvest
tax in the coming months.”
Boyle said the gover-
nor is awaiting the results of
an ongoing secretary of state
audit of the institute , which
she requested in response
to the news investigation.
Findings from the audit are
expected in July.
The state’s largest timber
lobbying group, the Oregon
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Heat sets up ‘grim’ migration for salmon
By LYNDA V. MAPES
Seattle Times
This is shaping up to be
a dire summer for fi sh and
trees.
Temperatures in the
Columbia and Snake rivers
are already within 2 degrees
of the slaughter zone of
2015, when half the sockeye
salmon run was lost because
of high water tempera-
tures. An estimated 250,000
sockeye died that year long
before reaching their spawn-
ing grounds.
The sockeye run is at its
peak right now just as tem-
peratures hit record highs
across Washington state and
in Idaho. Spring and sum-
mer Chinook and steelhead
migrating in the rivers also
are at risk.
Salmon are cold-wa-
ter animals. Temperatures
above 62 degrees make them
more vulnerable to disease,
and as temperatures climb
higher, they will stop migrat-
ing altogether.
The risk of heat stress
is present in the mainstem
rivers, but also in fi sh lad-
ders, where salmon will turn
around and head back down
river if the temperature is
higher at the top of the lad-
der than where they entered
it. Cooling water released
at the top of the ladders can
only do so much as air tem-
peratures reach unprece-
dented highs.
Water temperatures are
already at dangerous lev-
els despite an earlier start
to cold-water releases from
deep in the Dworshak Dam,
on the Clearwater River,
upstream of Lower Gran-
ite Dam on the Lower Snake
River. Nonetheless, tempera-
tures in the tailrace at Lower
Granite are still edging above
safe levels for salmon and
are even hotter downriver.
“We are crossing the line
to temperatures that can be
disastrous for fi sh,” said
Steve Ringman/Seattle Times
Fish managers fear a sockeye slaughter similar to losses of
2015 is in the making in the heat and drought of this summer.
Michele DeHart, manager
of the Fish Passage Center,
which monitors and stud-
ies fi sh migration in the
Columbia and Snake rivers.
“I would say the outlook is
pretty grim.”
Claire McGrath, fi sher-
ies biologist for the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration based in
Portland, said managers are
throwing everything they’ve
got at the problem — and
even mustering trucks to take
sockeye out of the Lower
Snake River — if they make
it to Lower Granite. Instead
of migrating naturally in the
river, the fi sh would take the
highway to an inland hatch-
ery for spawning.
“Idaho is preparing to
move fi sh, if they have to,”
she said, adding that very
low fl ows in the Snake River,
at 60% of average, are com-
pounding the temperature
problem.
Trucking fi sh obviously
is not preferred to natural,
in-river migration, McGrath
said. “But not at the risk of
losing most of the run.”
After the last sockeye
meltdown in 2015, the Fish
Passage Center concluded
in a 2016 memo that a draw-
down of the Lower Gran-
ite reservoir off ers signifi -
cant potential for reducing
the water temperatures at
the dam, and possibly con-
tribute to overall lower tem-
peratures at the other down-
stream Snake River sites.
The idea, so far, has not
gained traction.
U.S. Rep. Mike Simp-
son, an Idaho Republican,
has proposed going further,
to take out the Lower Snake
dams and replace their ben-
efi ts to boost survival of
salmon and steelhead at risk
of extinction, a proposal gen-
erating plenty of heat of its
own.
Trees are also suff ering.
Trees are already stressed
after a spring drought. March
and April were the fourth dri-
est on record in Washington
State since 1895, according
to the state Department of
Ecology.
Then June — long called
“Juneuary” by locals West of
the Cascades for its relent-
less cool, wet gloom —
instead came on hot and dry
and now is punishing trees
with baking heat.
Hot dry weather pulls
water out of trees, and with
inadequate moisture in the
soil, the interior plumbing of
trees ruptures, or cavitates,
noted Tom Hinckley, for-
mer director for the Univer-
sity of Washington’s Botanic
Gardens’ Center for Urban
Horticulture and emeritus
professor at the university’s
School of Environmental
and Forest Sciences.
Stressed trees are more
vulnerable to bugs and
pathogens. Of course the
worst tree killer is fi re — and
conditions this year are set
for fi re, with dried out vege-
tation and soils.
Even if trees die back but
survive this year, they will
be stunted in next year’s
growth. That is because this
is the time when trees need
to be growing their stron-
gest, and socking away food
stores for next year’s spring
growth spurt. But they have
little moisture with which
to power photosynthesis, by
which they make food and
grow new tissue.
The suff ering of trees this
spring and summer will be
recorded. Not only on a land-
scape that will see more dead
trees and trees dying back,
usually from the top down.
But in rings that in the future
will show a harsh season
with little growth, as the tree
hunkers down, just trying to
survive.
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Forest & Industries Council,
opposed eliminating the insti-
tute but was open to a com-
promise that included main-
taining the harvest tax, said
Sara Duncan, a spokesperson
for the group.
“In the middle of intense
negotiations to fi nd a compro-
mise on OFRI, the biennial
harvest tax bill was hijacked in
a power play meant to end any
successful resolution,” Dun-
can said. She added that the
group looks forward to “more
thoughtful and less politically
motivated work in the coming
months.”
Sean Stevens, executive
director of Oregon Wild, an
environmental group, accused
Senate President Peter Court-
ney, a Democrat who rep-
resents Salem, of sinking
the institute bill to appease
Republican senators as the
end of session drew near.
“There weren’t the votes,”
Courtney said in a four-word
statement responding to ques-
tions about whether he sup-
ported the the institute bill or
endorsed the institute’s lobby-
ing eff orts.
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