Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
OTHER VIEWS
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
MARISSA WILLIAMS
Regional Advertising Director
MARCY ROSENBERG
Circulation Manager
JANNA HEIMGARTNER
Business Office Manager
MIKE JENSEN
Production Manager
OUR VIEW
Building literal
bridges across
partisan divide
There is no reason that a large-
on our side of the state, that’s not
scale transportation plan cannot be
quite the case from a business and
a bipartisan project. Republican and recreation standpoint. And another
Democrat, urban and rural, bikers
way to look at it: The smoother
and truckers, 1 percenters and the
traffic moves in Portland, the less
rest of us — we all benefit from
likely those Portlanders are to pick
an efficient, safe and affordable
up stakes in the big city and head
transportation system.
our way.
Yet for years now, agreement on
But the plan is more than just
transportation and infrastructure
multi-millions for Multnomah
work has been lacking on the state
County. Highway 97 would become
level here in Oregon, and for much
a divided, improved highway that
longer than that on the federal level. could handle major traffic if, God
It’s an example of the partisan
forbid, the Cascadia earthquake hits
bickering that has come to dominate and renders I-5 unusable for a long
our political atmosphere. Politicians period of time. Even if that doesn’t
are worried more about who gets the happen, Highway 97 between
credit and who gets the blame than
Bend and the Columbia Gorge is as
solving a problem we all
dangerous a stretch of
face equally.
road as any in the state,
The bill
and improving it will
The Oregon
Bend and many
Legislature is trying
could fund benefit
Central Oregon residents.
to rise above that,
attempting now in
salt storage There’s plenty of
planned even
the latter days of this
facilities work
farther east. The bill
year’s session to come
up with the expansive
along I-84. could fund salt storage
facilities along Interstate
transportation plan that
84, from Idaho possibly
has recently eluded them.
all the way to The Dalles. The state
A similar type of bill was rounding
experimented with using salt on
third base and headed for home in
the always dangerous stretch of
2015 when the road was pulled out
highway between Pendleton and La
from under it and it came crashing
Grande last winter, and is willing
down. The now much-derided
Columbia River Crossing had plenty to make the changeover. It will take
millions of dollars, however, to site
to do with that bill’s collapse.
the storage facilities and make sure
But this year may be different.
the salt there does not leech into
The $8 billion plan remains under
the water table, which can cause
development, but it has gone
environmental degradation.
through a much more stringent,
There may be other benefits to the
public process than its predecessors.
area: funding for rural airports such
It’s also a heck of a lot bigger than
as Pendleton’s, increased dollars for
the $343 million proposed in 2015.
city and county road budgets, major
Those on both sides of the aisle,
construction projects in Hermiston
and nonpartisans who have been
involved, say lessons were learned in and more.
And we always have our eye
the last go-round and those hurdles
on the Interstate 82 bridge across
have been hopped.
the Columbia River at Umatilla,
A key cog of the transportation
a quickly deteriorating roadway
plan is upgrades in Portland. But
built in 1955 that a state report
in order to convince a majority of
showed would not survive a large
legislators — who do not represent
earthquake.
Portland — they are touting the
The political sausage-making
city’s huge impact on the statewide
factory is operating full tilt right
economy.
Bob Russell, vice president of the now. And taxpayers will have to
pay for whatever compromise is
Oregon Trucking Association, told
reached — legislators say funding
the EO edit board that “transit time
through Portland is just not reliable,” for the plan would come from a
combination of hikes in the gas tax
and that negatively impacts every
and registration and license fees,
business in the state — and the
tolls and new taxes on payroll and
region— who need to move goods
purchases of new vehicles and
through Oregon’s largest city. In
our neck of the woods, that includes bicycles.
But, if done right, this is one
the farmers and food processors,
issue that does not just benefit one
the ports of Morrow and Umatilla,
political party, or one demographic,
manufacturers and middlemen.
So while solving Portland’s woes nor pushes one group forward while
at first seems to have limited impact another falls behind.
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.
It’s time to worry about
health care in the Senate
W
hile the rest of the country
own email!)
has been transfixed by
If secrecy is the first part of the
Trumpian chaos, members
strategy, distraction is the second.
of the Senate have spent the past two
Eventually, before a vote is taken, the
weeks talking about taking health
details of the Senate bill will become
insurance from millions of Americans.
public, as they did in the House. And
There is an alarmingly large chance
those details will include a long list of
that they’ll decide to do so. But if they
problems.
do, they will almost certainly rely on
Here’s where we get to the Upton
David
a political sleight of hand to disguise
Leonhardt maneuver. The House managed to pass
their bill’s damage. Understanding
its bill only after Fred Upton, R-Mich.,
Comment
that sleight of hand — and calling
offered a proposal purporting to fix one
attention to it — offers the best hope
of the bill’s highest-profile problems,
for defeating the bill.
related to pre-existing conditions.
The effort to take health insurance from the
Never mind that the proposal was only a
middle class and poor and funnel the savings
superficial improvement. Never mind that the
into tax cuts for the rich is a little like mold. It
full bill was still opposed by conservative,
grows best in the dark.
moderate and liberal health
That’s why Republican
care experts. Upton’s
leaders in the House handled
proposal allowed House
their bill as they did.
members to claim they had
They did not hold a single
“fixed” their bill. It gave
hearing, because they knew
them an excuse to vote yes.
that attention would have
Watch for similar moving
been devastating.
of the goal posts in the
Just imagine a hearing
Senate. There, Republican
featuring the leaders of
leaders are likely to brag
these groups, every one of
about the ways they have
which opposes the House
improved the House bill or
bill: the American Medical
early versions of their own
Association, American
bill. They will also point
Nurses Association,
to problems in insurance
American Hospital
markets, some of which
Association, American
President Donald Trump
Academy of Pediatrics,
is deliberately creating, as
American Cancer Society,
reason to do something.
American Heart Association, American
But these are the wrong standards. The
Diabetes Association, American Lung
right standard is whether the bill improves
Association, March of Dimes and AARP.
the health care system. A bill that takes away
The House also passed its final bill without health insurance from 15 million, 10 million
waiting for the Congressional Budget Office
or 1 million Americans — rather than the 20
to estimate how many Americans would
million or so of the House bill — still deserves
lose insurance. The CBO will release that
defeat.
analysis soon. There is no precedent, outside
The final part of the strategy will be
of wartime, for passing a bill this important in
arm-twisting. If victory is in sight, McConnell
such haste.
will invoke party loyalty to cajole his
After the House did, many observers
colleagues, whatever specific concerns some
assumed the bill was too flawed to have much may have. Being the Republican who brought
chance in the Senate. Republican senators,
down Trumpcare wouldn’t be fun.
aware of the bill’s unpopularity, were careful
So the current period is important. It’s
to say publicly that they would start fresh. But a time for all those groups that oppose the
the early signs suggest that Mitch McConnell
bill, and for the engaged progressive base,
and his Republican caucus are actually
to put senators on notice. They shouldn’t be
mimicking the House approach.
tinkering around the edges of a bill that would
Think of it as the Upton strategy, and I’ll
hurt the middle class and the poor, the sick and
explain the name in a minute.
elderly, children and the disabled. They won’t
It starts with avoiding public discussion.
get credit for making it marginally less cruel.
As Politico reported: “McConnell’s strategy
A small group of Senate Republicans has
is to keep the debate within his conference for shown signs of being persuadable, and only
as long as possible. There will be no public
three are likely needed to stop a bill. The
hearings as a bill is drafted, according to
group includes Lamar Alexander, Shelley
several Republican senators and aides, and
Moore Capito, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins,
he’s imploring senators not to leak.”
Dean Heller, Lisa Murkowski and Rob
The Democrats’ process for passing the
Portman.
Affordable Care Act in 2008-10 was certainly
They should hear a loud message that
not perfect. But it was radically more open
Americans aren’t in favor of taking health
than this process, including 44 hearings
insurance from their fellow citizens. The
and other public events in the Senate alone.
senators work for those citizens, not for Mitch
Republicans, by contrast, have invited select
McConnell, Paul Ryan and Donald Trump.
people to send feedback to an email address
■
— HealthReform@finance.senate.gov — no
David Leonhardt is an op-ed columnist for
later than today. (I encourage you to send your The New York Times.
House
Republicans
did not hold a
single hearing,
because they
knew that
attention would
have been
devastating.
YOUR VIEWS
Sherman Co. weed problem
about to get worse for farms
A serious misunderstanding is circulating
concerning Azure Farms’ weed problem. It is
that they would lose organic status on crops
currently growing if the county was to make
an application of synthetic pesticides. This is
not true.
The USDA allows for emergency weed
control with synthetic pesticides when
the state or county deems it necessary.
And unless the fields at Azure Farms are
so infested with weeds as to render them
un-harvestable, this weed control will only
occur outside of the crop-growing areas,
in buffers and along fence lines. Should it
prove necessary for the county to spray an
entire field, including the standing crop,
then there would have been little point in
harvesting that crop.
In either case, the field itself would not
lose its certification.
As for the plan put forth by the owners
of Azure Farms, the only question is, why
haven’t they been implementing this plan
all along? Organic weed control costs
anywhere from 10 to 100 times as expensive
as conventional or “chemical” weed control,
which is why farmers moved away from the
old ways to the new ways, the same way
you moved from a manual typewriter to an
iPhone. And the single most important factor
in determining how much an organic farmer
will spend depends on how out-of-control
the weeds have become.
As such, I predict that the owners of
Azure Farms, contrary to their professed
Biblical beliefs, will quickly grow tired and
broke trying to deal with their runaway weed
problem. I could be wrong. But any organic
farmer who is so demonstrably delinquent
in managing weeds over the years clearly
has no ability to deal with them once they’ve
become a problem for neighboring farms.
Things are about to go from bad to worse
for the neighbors of Azure Farms.
Mischa Popoff,
former USDA contract organic inspector
Royse City, Texas
Large majority of scientists
agree on global warming
Do most scientists believe in global
warming? I wish I could say no. Nothing
would make me happier, and I mean that.
Unfortunately, most scientists do believe in
global warming. Beyond that, they believe
that it’s caused by human activity. We can’t
even escape by saying “It isn’t our fault! It’s
a natural weather cycle!”
A few facts: A scientist named John Cook
in Australia led a long list of scientists in
reviewing about 12,000 scientific articles on
global warming that were published between
1991 and 2011.
Many of the authors of these papers
expressed an opinion on global warming,
although some just presented information.
Of those expressing an opinion, over 97
percent agreed that humans are causing the
problem.
A report on the review of these articles
was published in 2013. At that time, about
57 percent of the American public either
disagreed or were not aware that scientists
overwhelmingly agree that the earth is
warming due to human activity.
The concept of global warming can be
overwhelming and anxiety producing. It
feels like a problem without a solution.
But there are things we can do.
Paul Hawken’s new book explains 80
solutions, some of which are already being
implemented around the world.
The number one solution cited by Mr.
Hawken is “refrigerant management.”
Refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners,
supermarket cases, etc., release gases that
warm the atmosphere. Their capacity to
do harm is 1,000 to 9,000 times greater
than carbon dioxide. An amendment to the
Montreal Protocol will begin phasing out
HFCs in 2019.So: A problem was identified
and a plan was made to solve it. This is how
the world should work.
LETTERS POLICY
Paula Surmann
Sisters
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 newspa-
per reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual ser-
vices 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.