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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 25, 2015)
VIEWPOINTS Saturday, July 25, 2015 Quick takes Response to fire rumors “While the smoke was billowing, take note of all the folks that stood and took pictures & videos with their cell phones but never offered to help. I heard others stand next to the family on the street speculating out loud about a meth lab scenario.” — Mystie Spencer “I think you did right to address it. Too bad some people would rather indulge in the excitement of talking about possibilities. We can’t stop people from speculating. ... So, yes — I think anyone in authority who can put down a rumor should do it.” — Peg Willis “My belief is if there is no facts and it could harm or hurt the survivors of the family it should just be buried. To many people take their beloved news source as actual facts and not conjecture.” — Skip Cripe $13.50 minimum wage “I think it’s important that people understand there are plenty of places that have a generous minimum wage and are thriving. It’s not as if we don’t have the data.” — Liz McLellan “It’s a given that the price of goods and VHUYLFHVZLOOLQFUHDVH:H¿[HGLQFRPH folks are struggling as it is.” — Susan Goodnow One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is that much can be summed up in just a few words. Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours @Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian. com, and keep them to 140 characters. Page 5A New energy policy needed now By RAÚL M. GRIJALVA Writers on the Range The energy world we live in now was unthinkable just a decade ago. Policy back then was shaped by talk of peak oil and fears of increased reliance on Russian or Middle East imports. President Bush used his State of the Union address that year to push Congress for legislation to reduce environmental oversight and expand domestic drilling. As I remember it, the mood in Washington could best be described as frantic. So much has changed since then. Domestic development is now booming so fast that Big Oil has set its sight beyond our shores and wants to end the export ban. The underground fracking revolution has ended any talk of “peak” production. But you wouldn’t know it in Washington. Instead of recognizing that renewable energy has become affordable, or acknowledging the environmental risks of continued greenhouse gas emissions, industry lobbyists and many of my colleagues repeat the same talking points they’ve been using for years. I give them full credit for consistency, but they sound like a broken record that’s been skipping VLQFHWKHGD\VRIWKH¿UVW:HVWZDUGRLOUXVK Responding to President Bush’s plea, the Energy Policy Act passed by a Republican- dominated Congress in 2005 was in some ways a product of the country’s strike-it-rich mentality. Oil-patch pioneers may have embraced innovation and bold thinking, but the law reads like an industry wish list. It gave away tens of billions of dollars worth of royalty-free oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico and exempted oil and gas drillers from the Safe Drinking Water Act. It waived the National Environmental Policy Act for drilling projects on public lands and gave billions of dollars in tax subsidies to nuclear, fossil fuel and “clean coal” interests. Much of that law is still on the books, and now serious observers of all stripes agree we need to revisit it. But not even our national fracking boom, the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, or an ongoing barrage of news about disastrous pipeline spills have convinced my House Republican counterparts to provide more balance to our energy policy. This is frustrating indeed. It’s past time to write a new energy law. We need to deal with the tremendous impacts that communities face when oil and gas interests move into their towns and demand access to the resources under or near their homes or watersheds. President Obama has made some improvements WRWKH%XVKDGPLQLVWUDWLRQ¶VGULOO¿UVW philosophy on our public lands. Congress needs to get equally engaged. My friends in the Senate have started working on some overdue updates. I doubt I’ll agree with everything the Republican majority comes up with, but I salute their willingness to tackle the issue in a bipartisan fashion. I may live to regret these words, but I wish their House counterparts showed the same initiative. The House Natural Resources Committee has held no meaningful hearings on a new The lack of urgency is dangerous. Legislative session serves all corners of Oregon T East Oregonian he Legislature recently • Targeted transportation concluded its 2015 investments will improve safety session with a long list of along some of the most deadly accomplishments that will improve corridors in the state, including the lives of Oregonians. $4 million to reduce accidents We worked to expand throughout the Blue Mountains opportunity for working families, Snow Zone on I-84 between invest in education, and level the Pendleton and La Grande, which SOD\LQJ¿HOGIRU2UHJRQLDQVOHIW currently experiences a two- to Tina behind by the economic recovery. three-times greater number of Kotek Our efforts included building crashes than the statewide average. Comment greater opportunities for families • Projects around the state will and businesses outside of Oregon’s create jobs and bolster communities, metropolitan areas, knowing that strong from courthouses in Tillamook and Madras, rural communities make our entire state to a new Main Street Revitalization resilient and successful. grant program, to new resources to build We took targeted steps to support our affordable housing for families and agriculture and natural resource sectors, as supportive housing for individuals with well as made sure our spending decisions mental illness or recovering from addiction. EHQH¿WWHGDOOFRPPXQLWLHV6RPHRIWKH We made education a top spending highlights include: priority because every Oregonian — from • $50 million in grants and loans to Pendleton to Portland, from Bandon to meet water storage and conservation needs %HQG²ZLOOEHQH¿WZKHQHYHU\RQHKDVD around the state to support our agriculture better chance to succeed: industry and plan for tomorrow’s needs. • The $7.4 billion investment in public • Resources to improve sage grouse schools will provide a stable school year and habitats to help avoid federal Endangered fund full-day kindergarten for kids throughout Species Act listing of the bird, a critical 2UHJRQIRUWKH¿UVWWLPHLQKLVWRU\ issue for Eastern Oregon counties. • A $35 million investment in Career • Funds to provide working capital, and Technical Education and Science, technical assistance, and training programs for Technology, Engineering, and Math mobile Western Juniper sawmills, which will education (CTE/STEM) will help increase create jobs and combat this invasive plant. high school graduation rates and better • Investments to position Oregon on prepare Oregon students for high-wage jobs. the cutting edge of the forestry and wood • Students seeking a higher education products industries and create rural jobs, ZLOOEHQH¿WIURPPDMRUERRVWVLQIXQGLQJ including a state-of-the-art forest science for public universities, community facility at Oregon State University, an FROOHJHVDQGVWXGHQW¿QDQFLDODVVLVWDQFH innovative manufacturing program focused (Opportunity Grants) – including a new on advanced engineering of wood products, WXLWLRQZDLYHUSURJUDPIRUTXDOL¿HG and support for forest collaboratives that community college students. HPSOR\ORJJHUVLQXQKHDOWK\DQG¿UHSURQH • New investments in early childhood forests. education will help more families be • Expansion of Oregon’s Farm to School successful and ensure more children arrive program, which supports local farmers at school ready to succeed. by helping schools offset the costs of Finally, we took bold steps to break purchasing locally grown or processed food. down barriers to success that stand in the :HFOHDUHGWKHZD\IRUVLJQL¿FDQWQHZ way for too many women and working investments by large technology companies. families across the state. We passed a set $ORQJRYHUGXH¿[WR2UHJRQ¶VFHQWUDOL]HG of bills that will create real and lasting property tax rules will provide certainty opportunity for Oregonians by ensuring for technology companies – like Apple, workers can earn sick leave, addressing Facebook, and Yahoo! – that want to build SROLFHSUR¿OLQJDOORZLQJSHRSOHZLWK data centers and create jobs in rural Oregon. past convictions a fair shot at gaining We passed bi-partisan bills to authorize employment, and providing greater access public bonds that will impact every corner to retirement security. of our state: We still have more work to do, but • K-12 schools and community colleges together, we made progress this session that will have access to $175 million for seismic ZLOOEHQH¿WIDPLOLHVLQHYHU\FRUQHURIRXU renovations, and K-12 schools will be state. helped with a new $125 million fund for Ŷ capital improvements. House Speaker Tina Kotek is a state • Every regional university campus will representative for District 44 (North/NE EHQH¿WIURPQHZFRQVWUXFWLRQSURMHFWV Portland). national energy strategy. Even if individual members may now understand that our energy situation has changed, they don’t seem to want to do anything about it as a group. We’ve heard nothing about a direction forward, aside from the usual out-of-date ideas about continued subsidies for oil drillers, faster permitting times and weaker environmental standards. There seems to be no recognition of the fact that our energy picture has changed more dramatically over the past decade than perhaps at any time in the twentieth century. Their lack of urgency is dangerous. Climate change is real; everyone from Pope Francis to your local climatologist recognizes it. Fracking will spread to new DUHDVZKHUHYHUDSUR¿WFDQEHPDGHIURPLW Oil spills like the BP disaster and the recent spill near Santa Barbara, California, present an ever-present risk. Our current laws are, in some cases, simply no match for the environmental and energy risks we face. An update to our energy laws would mean a chance to end the industry-friendly loopholes, weak environmental standards and sweeping industry favoritism of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. It would mean a chance to treat renewable energy sources as the economically competitive options they are rather than experimental afterthoughts. It means, more than anything, a chance to treat climate change as an immediate threat rather than an inconvenience that has nothing to do with our energy policies. Ŷ Raúl M. Grijalva is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a column service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is a Democratic congressman from Arizona and ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources. Taxpayers bear burden of illegal immigrants’ tuition A VLJQL¿FDQWELSDUWLVDQPDMRULW\ Not only does SB 932 make of the 2013 Legislative undocumented alien students Assembly voted to enact eligible for Oregon taxpayer-paid House Bill 2787, which became tuition and expenses, it likely gives known as the “Tuition Equity them preference over documented Act.” It established in-state resident citizens. According to the tuition eligibility for students who ELOO¶V¿VFDOUHSRUWJUDQWVDQGORDQV demonstrate the intent to become for unauthorized immigrants “may United States citizens and who be skewed towards an expected Doug met certain previous attendance Whitsett family contribution rate of zero or requirements in schools both in close to zero, which would give this Comment Oregon and other U.S. states and population a higher priority for grant territories. awards.” The bill’s Legislative Fiscal report The Democrat majority further amended estimated that only 38 undocumented alien the existing program by enacting HB 2407. students would access the opportunity to It ensures making grants to students with the pay in-state tuition to attend an Oregon KLJKHVW¿QDQFLDOQHHGDQGZKHUHSRVVLEOH University during the 2013-15 budget prioritize funding for students from period. The report estimated that 80 students underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. would participate during the 2015-17 That priority will be based upon an “equity biennium. The Act didn’t affect Oregon lens” established through Oregon Education community colleges, because they do not Investment Board rulemaking. The “equity have residency requirements. lens” appears to be focused on contributing “Tuition Equity Act” supporters argued ¿QDQFLDODLGWRORZLQFRPHXQGRFXPHQWHG it would cause minimal cost to Oregon alien students. taxpayers. They further inferred they would They further amended statute to include neither ask for future eligibility expansion “foundations of community colleges” IRULQVWDWHWXLWLRQQRUUHTXHVW¿QDQFLDODLG in the program that distributes money to eligibility for undocumented alien students. community colleges. I voted against HB 2787, not least, because Another bill, HB 3063, was created I didn’t believe their words. VSHFL¿FDOO\WRLQFUHDVHWKHQXPEHU University and community college RIXQGHUVHUYHGORZLQFRPHDQG¿UVW students who are neither United States generation college-bound students who citizens nor eligible non-citizens are enroll in community college and make ineligible for federal grant-in-aid programs. SURJUHVVWRZDUGDGHJUHHRUFHUWL¿FDWH7KLV Undocumented aliens are prohibited too appears to be focused on impoverished, IURPHYHQ¿OLQJD)UHH$SSOLFDWLRQIRU ¿UVWJHQHUDWLRQDQGSHUKDSVXQGRFXPHQWHG Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). However, immigrants. Oregon’s own taxpayer funded grant-in-aid It appropriates $3 million in General program for college students, the Oregon Fund dollars to that program. Portland Opportunity Grant, is not constrained by Community College Future Connect is an federal law. existing community college foundation The Democrat majority enacted SB 932 that is eligible to receive the funding. WKLV\HDURQSDUW\OLQHYRWHV,WVLJQL¿FDQWO\ Senator Dembrow, an adjunct professor at enlarged the number of undocumented Portland Community College, carried and aliens who are eligible for in-state tuition. passionately advocated for both SB 932 and Further, the bill created new eligibility for +%RQWKH6HQDWHÀRRU Oregon undocumented alien university Unfortunately, too many “legislative and community college students to receive deals” are not honored. Many legislators, Oregon funded grant-in-aid and student loans. who voted for the “Tuition Equity Act” I believe that the passage of this bill in 2013, rightly feel betrayed. Assurances will serve as a beacon for undocumented WKHLUYRWHZRXOGQRW³RSHQWKHÀRRGJDWHV´ alien students to come to Oregon, for what for undocumented alien students to attend amounts to a free college education, at the Oregon colleges and universities, with expense of Oregon taxpayers. taxpayer funded Opportunity Grants, were The SB 932 Legislative Fiscal Report insincere. estimates as many as 1,000 undocumented Egregiously, some legislators contend alien students may receive Opportunity they’re unable to remember making those *UDQWVWKH¿UVW\HDUDQGDVPDQ\DV assurances. So much for an open and may be participating within four years. At transparent legislative process. only $1,000 per term, the cost could reach Ŷ PLOOLRQSHU\HDU7KH¿VFDOUHSRUW Senator Doug Whitsett represents District doesn’t appear to contemplate my predicted 28, including Klamath, Lake and Crook and in-migration of students. parts of Jackson and Deschutes counties.
