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OPINION
East Oregonian
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
Transportation package
sorely needed in Oregon
It was disappointing, for many
Hermiston, the trafic snarl after
school each day is not only
reasons, to watch a $300 million
frustrating but potentially dangerous,
transportation package dissolve at
the hands of the legislature last year. as it clogs the roadway directly in
front of the ire station. The same is
The deal was created by a
true in Stanield, where downtown
bipartisan committee representing
development is hampered by truck
all corners of the state, and would
trafic on Highway 395 that will
have pumped some much-needed
only be remedied
funding into
with some serious
Oregon’s lagging
In Hermiston, the work.
infrastructure.
Business in
Unfortunately,
trafic snarl after
Umatilla and Morrow
it hinged on a
school each day is counties also has
bill — the clean fuel
standards — that
not only frustrating plenty to gain.
The Highway 395
had already passed.
but potentially
corridor between
Democrats had no
interest in altering
dangerous, as it Hermiston and
has the
it and Republicans
clogs the roadway Umatilla
potential for great
wouldn’t budge
unless it was
directly in front of growth, but is far
from adequate right
changed, so the
the ire station.
now. Same goes for
nearly unrelated
the former Umatilla
transportation
Chemical Depot, which could be
package died on the bargaining
an economic powerhouse in the
table.
Northwest with some help with
It didn’t help that the package
access.
showed up late in the legislative
Out Pendleton way, a real estate
session after much work behind the
scenes and was viewed by some as a agent shared a real-life story of
a lost business because of poor
last-ditch effort instead of a well-
infrastructure — Costco, which had
reasoned plan.
been looking at a lot near Exit 210,
We’re hopeful that legislators
pulled out of negotiations at least in
have learned from these missteps
part because an access road couldn’t
and will deliver some cash in the
next session for projects both crucial manage the trafic.
These were just a few of the
and commercial.
A committee tasked with drawing examples given, and we know the
committee will have their ear bent at
up the new transportation package
every stop of the listening tour.
visited Hermiston last week to see
It’s good these legislators
where the dollars could be put to use
are doing their homework and
in the region.
coming out to see irsthand our
Some projects, like Hermiston’s
transportation shortcomings. We
First Place and Stanield’s
hope they’ll pass the real test during
Main Street, would make those
the 2017 session.
communities more livable. In
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher
Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
OTHER VIEWS
‘Success’ an overstatement
for energy tax credit program
The Oregonian/OregonLive, July 2
O
ptimism must be a job
requirement for leading the
beleaguered Oregon Department
of Energy, now on its ifth director
since 2009 and buffeted from one
controversy to the next. Optimism
also might explain the silver-lining
summation that director Michael
Kaplan offered legislators last Monday
in assessing the agency’s disastrous
Business Energy Tax Credit program,
a now-defunct initiative beset by serial
mismanagement and possible fraud.
“From an economic development
strategy, the program worked,” said
Kaplan, as The Oregonian/Oregonlive’s
Hillary Borrud reported. Despite the
department’s failures to vet projects,
verify documentation and responsibly
oversee its signature program, Kaplan
said, “the amount of projects that we
saw in a very short period of time and
the amount of money that was invested
in those projects, I think, invariably
cascade down to a signiicant impact on
the state.”
How signiicant? Who knows,
although Kaplan is likely right to some
degree. Granting nearly $1 billion
worth of transferrable tax credits in a
seven-year-period to public agencies,
nonproits and private businesses that
promise green-energy or eficiency
upgrades certainly has some effect on
economic activity. The supersizing of
the tax-credits program in 2007, the
year before the economy went into
recession, may have also provided a
well-timed boost.
The problem, however, is that
there’s little data to show the extent
of it and how much was triggered by
the BETC program. At the same time,
The Oregonian/OregonLive and other
organizations have documented abuse
after abuse, from the granting of $30
million in tax credits to a project that
qualiied for only $10 million to the
possible backdating of documents
in a solar-panel project now under
criminal investigation. Legislators,
who are weighing whether to pare
back or abolish the energy department,
should view Kaplan’s comments about
such economic impact with deserved
skepticism.
“Economic development” efforts
are based on a conscious strategy,
with identiied goals and follow-up
measurements of whether those goals
were achieved. As Kaplan himself
admits, the agency lacked the expertise
to steer economic development.
Instead, the agency simply opened
its doors, accepting thousands of
applications for tax credits and
applying little scrutiny to each project’s
goals. Ask Kaplan to provide data on
the total value of project investments,
the number of jobs created, the amount
of energy saved or generated and his
response is the same: He does not
know.
“I do not have conidence in much
of the data that currently resides at
the Department of Energy,” he told
legislators. But he maintains there have
been “thousands of successes” despite
the “drastic missteps,” many of which
predated his tenure as director.
“Without talking about those
throughout the program’s life,” he told
legislators, “we lose the ability to see it
in its entirety.”
Perhaps. But under that logic, the
state could argue that Cover Oregon
was also a success from an economic
development point of view. Sure,
the state wasted $300 million on a
health-insurance exchange that failed
to launch. But some of that slug of cash
went toward employing Oregonians
and hiring vendors in the state to assist
with the work. Taken to an extreme,
one could contend that economic
activity continues to this day, thanks
to the millions that the state and
software vendor Oracle are spending
in legal battles over who is to blame.
Clearly, this is not a winning economic
development strategy that any public
agency should pursue.
Kaplan acknowledges that economic
development gains from energy
department programs don’t necessarily
outweigh the long list of problems
in BETC and multiple other energy
department programs. But his efforts
to highlight such “successes” does
neither the agency nor legislators
contemplating its future any good.
Economic development accomplished
by accident is not an argument for
keeping the energy department around.
OTHER VIEWS
GOP blue-collar
heroes laud Trump
T
he Washington Examiner’s Jim
Finally, there is Buchanan, who
Antle recently noted that despite
25 years ago sounded some of what
talk of a Republican “consensus”
are now thought of as Trump themes.
on trade, “three runners-up for the
When Trump said, “Our workers’
Republican nomination who received
loyalty was repaid with betrayal,”
strong conservative support — Pat
Buchanan thought back to his
Buchanan in 1996, Mike Huckabee in
own 1998 manifesto on economic
2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012 —
nationalism, “The Great Betrayal.”
were to varying degrees protectionist.”
“I think Donald Trump gave
Byron
And that suggests the consensus isn’t
the
best speech on trade from the
York
standpoint of economic patriotism and
really as much of a consensus as some
Comment
economic nationalism of any candidate
might think.
in this century,” Buchanan, who won
“It doesn’t exist, as far as I’m
the New Hampshire primary and three others
concerned,” Santorum told me in a phone
in 1996, told me Wednesday. “I’ve read it and
conversation Wednesday. The former
re-read it, and I found it hard to believe at
senator, presidential candidate and author of
times — but there were echoes of my youth
“Blue Collar Conservatives” has endorsed
there.”
Trump and attended Trump’s trade speech
Indeed there were. Buchanan saw Trump’s
in Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania
trade speech as a “precise rejection” of a
Tuesday.
globalist economy philosophy embraced by
“It was exactly what I think a lot of folks
Republican leaders over many years. “This is
from my end of the state, and I guarantee
one of the basic tenets of Ryan Republicanism,
you from all throughout the Rust Belt, have
Romney Republicanism
been waiting to hear from a
Bush Republicanism,”
presidential candidate for a long
Trump has an and
Buchanan said. “And Donald
time,” Santorum told me.
In 2012, Santorum, who as
opportunity to Trump is saying this has led us
to disaster.”
a member of Congress voted
test just how far
Why did those themes
against NAFTA and urged
work
for Trump in the 2016
George W. Bush to impose
economic
Republican race when they
steel tariffs, won 11 primaries
did not win for Buchanan in
and caucuses with an economic
nationalism
1996? Of course there were
message focused on Americans
can go in a
other factors at play — money,
left behind in the changing U.S.
Trump’s celebrity, and more
economy. At times in the race,
general
election
— but I asked Buchanan: What
Santorum appeared on the verge
campaign.
has changed between then and
of overtaking Mitt Romney,
now?
who, having made a fortune
“What has changed is the
in private equity, seemed to
results have come in that we predicted would
represent everything Santorum did not.
happen in the ‘90s,” Buchanan said. “I was
“I was talking about the 74 percent of
saying in ‘91, ‘92, this is what will happen.
Americans who don’t have a college degree,
You will lose your entire manufacturing base.
who are not beneiting from the globalization
It will be gone.”
of the economy, and who ... see continuing
“Those were predictions,” Buchanan
globalization, combined with open borders, as
continued. “And now Trump walks out there
not in their best interest,” Santorum told me.
and can point to the largest trade deicits any
And now, the current Republican nominee
Western country has ever seen, the loss of
has taken a position on trade not far from
Santorum’s own. “Trump nailed it,” Santorum 55,000 manufacturing plants since the turn of
the century, six million manufacturing jobs,
said of Tuesday’s speech.
every state, every community has seen a plant
Likewise, Huckabee, who won eight
that is gone. All the returns are in now.”
primaries and caucuses before losing to
Besides some of their positions, Santorum,
John McCain in 2008, went a long way on
Huckabee and Buchanan have at least
economic populism — with a Southern touch
one other thing in common: They did not
— from the beginning of his irst presidential
become president. They didn’t even win the
campaign to the book, “God, Guns, Grits
Republican nomination. Trump has already
and Gravy,” that set up his 2016 run. Now,
won his party’s top prize. In recent weeks he
Huckabee, too, has endorsed Trump.
has been distracted, suffering from mostly
“Trump is saying what I said in 2008 and
self-inlicted wounds. But if he can stop
2016 — and the reactions were the same
administering those wounds — a huge “if”
from the elites,” Huckabee said in an email
for anyone who has followed his campaign
exchange. “I was called a protectionist and
— Trump has an opportunity to test just how
a populist and attacked with millions of
far economic nationalism can go in a general
dollars of TV spots. Trump recognizes, as did
election campaign.
several of us, that the political, inancial and
■
media institutions have failed working-class
Byron York is chief political correspondent
Americans. I’m glad Trump is getting traction
for The Washington Examiner.
for the truth.”
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues
and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper
reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and
products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must
be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number.
The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send
letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801
or email editor@eastoregonian.com.