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OPINION
East Oregonian
Thursday, June 8, 2017
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
BPA a public
project that
actually works
Those of us lucky enough to live
It does not require a perpetually-
climbing profit margin that would
in the Pacific Northwest rely on the
Bonneville Power Administration as certainly be part of privatization.
As it is, the BPA is a self-sustaining
the backbone of our energy system.
But like our own spines, we often enterprise that provides a public
don’t notice it until something goes
good and requires no federal
out of whack and the pain throbs
appropriation.
and we wonder how-oh-how did
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D- Ore.),
we ever take such
is not a fan of
painlessness for
dismantling a service
BPA is a self- that is working just
granted.
But the BPA and
fine.
sustaining
“Public power
its complex vertebrae
enterprise that customers in the
of energy production
Pacific Northwest
and transmission is
provides a
have paid for the
once again under
threat. A dollop of
public good system and their
should not
Bengay is needed
and requires investment
be put up for sale,”
after reading a budget
he said, before later
proposal released
no federal
summarizing Trump’s
last month by the
appropriation. entire budget as a
Trump administration
“cynical assault on
that recommends
American ideas” and
“divestiture of
that he’s “putting this budget where
Bonneville’s transmission assets,”
which would raise $4.9 billion
it belongs — in the trash can.”
The budget document is a bit
for the government over the next
of political showmanship from
decade, according to a short and
incomplete explanation in the
our reality TV president: Promise
Energy Department’s budget.
the world then blame others when
Similar privatization ideas for the
reality rears its head. And it’s not
system were floated in the 1980s and worth getting too worked up about
mid 2000s.
selling off the BPA for scraps, as
In case you need a refresher, the
most of Trump’s budget (like most
BPA runs each of the dams along
presidential budgets) is a pipe dream
the Columbia River as well as
that will never come to pass.
15,000 miles of transmission lines
There are some places
that stretch from Washington into
privatization is worth exploring
California. It runs about 75 percent
— air traffic control and Amtrak
of the high-voltage power lines in
come to mind — but selling off
the region, according to reporting by functioning and self-sustaining
the Seattle Times. In short: it’s the
pieces of public infrastructure is not
major player that keeps the lights
a wise path.
on every day throughout the region,
It is, however, worth keeping an
keeps our AC kicking every summer, eye on and stretching that spine,
and helps make our power bills
reminding ourselves that it’s there
cheaper than in most of the country.
and that it keeps us upright. Trump’s
That’s mostly because the BPA
targeting of it, at the very least,
is a public entity — its shareholders
reminds us of something we must
are the taxpayers and its customers.
protect.
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
Oregon needs way to
impeach its head of state
The (Bend) Bulletin
S
ay what you will about Oregon’s
last governor, John Kitzhaber, he
did one thing right: In the face of a
clear loss of support from leaders of his
party in 2015, he stepped down.
But what if he hadn’t? Oregonians
have no option short of recall to rid
themselves of a governor who may be
crooked or otherwise disgracing his
office.
Impeachment would give them that
option. Yet, thanks to Senate President
Peter Courtney, D-Salem, and Senate
Majority Leader Ginny Burdick,
D-Portland, the power to impeach
the governor likely is to remain a tool
available to be used everywhere in
the United States but Oregon. Both
oppose House Joint Resolution 10,
which would give voters the option to
amend the Oregon Constitution, giving
lawmakers the right to impeach not only
the governor, but the state treasurer,
secretary of state, attorney general and
labor commissioner.
We’ll agree with Burdick and
Courtney on one thing.
Oregon is a recall state, and that
tool could have been used to force the
governor out.
But recall efforts have their problems:
An elected official, other than a member
of the state Legislature, is safe from
recall for the first six months he or she is
in office, no matter what they have done.
Kitzhaber took office Jan. 12, and
a recall effort could not have gotten
underway until mid-July. Only then
could recall supporters have begun
circulating petitions to gather the
signatures needed to force a recall
election. They’d have about 90 days to
gather signatures, and elections officials
would have about 10 days to verify the
signatures.
Then, if the governor had refused to
resign, a vote to remove him from office
would be held within 35 days, and, had
the governor lost, he would have another
30 days to leave office. The process
could have taken nearly a year.
That leaves Oregon essentially
leaderless for far too long. An
impeachment likely would avoid the
delays built into the recall system.
Burdick and Courtney each can
kill HJR 10 by doing nothing. That’s
unfortunate. Impeachment is better than
the prospect of a stubborn but badly
flawed governor holing up in Mahonia
Hall for months as a recall effort plays
out.
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 211 S.E.
Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
OTHER VIEWS
Trump lies. China thrives.
O
ne of the many dangers posed
to Shanghai every day, typically with
to our society by having a
16 cars able to carry nearly 1,300
president who’s a serial liar —
people. … We glide past endless
and who doesn’t behave like an adult,
brand-new factories and immaculate
let alone a president — is that we more
apartment buildings in practically
easily ignore him even if he happens to
every city along the way, with many
say something true.
more still under construction. As you
Yes, some things are true even
suspect, I have been sympathetic to
if Donald Trump believes them. I
Thomas many of Trump’s trade and industrial
explored one of them in China last
Friedman policy ideas. But if anything, Trump
week — Trump’s charge that China is
may be too late.”
Comment
playing unfair on trade.
Ouch.
My visit to Beijing left me with
The core problem, U.S. and
two very strong responses. The first is that we
European business leaders based in China
underestimate China — and attribute all of its
explained, is that when the U.S. allowed
surge in growth to unfair trade practices — at
China to join the World Trade Organization
our peril. The country has been
in 2001 and gain much
fast and smart at adopting new
less restricted access to our
technologies, particularly the
markets, we gave China the
mobile internet. For instance,
right to keep protecting parts
China has moved so fast into
of its market — because it was
a cashless society, where
a “developing economy.” The
everyone pays for everything
assumption was that as China
with a mobile phone, that
reformed and become more
Chinese newspapers report
of our equal, its trade barriers
beggars in major cities have
and government aid to Chinese
started to place a printout of
companies would melt away.
a QR code in their begging bowls so any
They did not. China grew in strength,
passer-by can scan it and use mobile payment
became America’s equal in many fields and
apps like Alibaba’s Alipay or Tencent’s
continued to protect its own companies from
WeChat Wallet to contribute to the beggar’s
foreign competition, either by limiting access
mobile payment account.
or demanding that foreign companies take on
Chinese men and women friends tell me
a Chinese partner and transfer their intellectual
they don’t carry purses or wallets anymore,
property to China as the price of access, or by
only a mobile phone, which they use for
funneling Chinese firms low-interest loans to
everything — including for buying vegetables grow and buy foreign competitors.
from street vendors.
Once those companies got big enough,
“America has been dreaming of becoming
they were unleashed on the world. China
a cashless society,” Ya-Qin Zhang, president
plans to use this strategy to implement its
of Baidu, China’s main search engine,
new plan — “Made in China 2025” — to
remarked to me, “but China is already there.”
make itself the world leader in electric
It has “leapfrogged the rest of world” and is
vehicles, new materials, artificial intelligence,
now going mobile-first in everything.
semiconductors, bio-pharmacy, 5G mobile
Wang Xing, the founder of Meituan.
communications and other industries.
com — a Chinese mobile website that is a
The latest annual survey of the American
combination of Fandango, Yelp, OpenTable,
Chamber of Commerce in China, released in
Grubhub, TripAdvisor, Booking.com and
January, found that 81 percent of its members
Angie’s List — told me that he has around
felt “less welcome” in China than in the past
300,000 people on electric bicycles who
and had little confidence any longer that
deliver takeout food and groceries to 10
China would carry through on promises to
million Chinese mobile internet users daily.
open its markets. APCO Worldwide’s James
“We are the largest food delivery company in
McGregor, one of the keenest observers of
the world,” said Xing.
China trade, recently noted that China tells the
And in an age when raw data from the
world that its policy is “reform and opening,”
internet of people and the internet of things
but on the ground its policy “more resembles
is the new oil, the fact that China has 700
reform and closing.”
million people doing so many transactions
Today, Alibaba can set up its own cloud
daily on the mobile internet means it’s piling
server in America, but Amazon or Microsoft
up massive amounts of information that can
can’t do the same in China. China just agreed
be harvested to identify trends and spur new
to allow U.S. credit card giants, like Visa and
artificial intelligence applications.
MasterCard, access to its huge market —
Moreover, while Trump is pulling out
something it was required to do under WTO
of the Paris climate deal, China is steadily
rules but just dragged its feet on for years —
pulling out of coal. Xin Guo, CEO of Career
but now domestic Chinese financial services
International, told me two of his hottest job
companies, like UnionPay, so dominate the
openings in China are in “software and new
Chinese market that U.S. companies will be
energy” — everyone is looking for engineers
left to fight over the scraps. The world leader
for electric cars, solar and wind. Walter Fang,
in industrial robots, the German company
a top executive at iSoftStone, which helps
Kuka Robotics, was just bought by the
design China’s smart, sustainable cities, told
Chinese company Midea; Beijing would never
me that “just two weeks ago I brought in about allow the U.S. to buy one of China’s industrial
a dozen green energy startup companies from
gems like that.
Massachusetts” to show them opportunities in
This is not fair. China needs to know that
China.
some people who disagree with everything
And yet, as smart as China has been in
else Trump stands for — and who value a
adopting new technologies, Trump’s broad
strong U.S.-China relationship — might just
complaint that China is not playing fair on
support Trump’s idea for a border-adjustment
trade and has grown in some areas at the
tax on imports to level the playing field.
expense of U.S. and European workers has
Because our economic relationship with China
merit and needs to be addressed — now.
is out of whack — and not just because China
Before going to Beijing I emailed the smartest makes great products, but because we do, too,
person I know inside China on trade (who will and it’s high time they are all allowed through
have to go nameless) and asked if Trump had
China’s front door.
a point.
■
He answered: “Your note has arrived as I
Thomas Friedman, a New York Times
slide across the Chinese countryside at 300
columnist, was awarded two Pulitzer Prizes
kilometers per hour from Beijing to Shanghai. for international reporting in Beirut and Israel
There are nearly 60 trains going from Beijing
and one for commentary.
This is not
fair. China
needs to
know that.
YOUR VIEWS
Dear world: We’re sorry for
our dope of a president
To the people of the world, I know this may
not mean much to you and you may never
get a chance to hear it, but please know that
on behalf of the people of the United States
of America, let me offer my deepest and
sincerest apologies for all the madness coming
from my nation at this time.
As you know, due to an archaic and
dysfunctional aberration of our political
election system, the current occupier of the
White House was granted leadership of the
U.S. despite losing the popular will of the
majority of U.S. citizens (and with likely
assistance from Vladimir Putin). All of
which is to say, his insanity, bombast, uber-
narcissism and general lack of good manners,
tact, diplomacy and adult maturity are holding
all of us in the world hostage at the moment.
So please do not think the vast majority of
U.S. citizens are for the rapacious destruction
of the global environment or the build-up of
yet more nuclear weapons or the elimination
of social services for the poor. Please do not
believe that we are by nature xenophobic or
misogynistic or bullies; we are taught to be
that way by many of our elected officials,
especially by the current resident of the White
House.
Please give us a chance and join us in
holding our collective breath for the next four
years or less until we can get this madness past
us. Thanks for your global patience and grace
as we go through our quadrennial paroxysm.
Matt Henry
Pendleton