NATION/WORLD/OFF PAGE ONE
Friday, April 26, 2019
East Oregonian
A7
Biden launches 2020 presidential bid Ban: ‘Enough
warning ‘soul’ of America is at stake is enough. We’re
nickel-and-diming
our citizens’
By STEVE PEOPLES and
THOMAS BEAUMONT
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
—
Declaring the “soul of this
nation” at stake, former Vice
President Joe Biden pushed
into the crowded 2020 pres-
idential contest on Thursday
and quickly sparked a fierce
debate over the direction of
the modern-day Democratic
Party.
Ignoring the political
noise in his own party, Biden
aimed directly at Donald
Trump in an announcement
video seizing on the Repub-
lican president’s response
to the deadly clash between
white supremacists and
counter-protesters in Char-
lottesville, Virginia, two
years ago. That was the spur
for him to launch a third
presidential bid, Biden said,
noting Trump’s comments
that there were some “very
fine people” on both sides of
the violent encounter, which
left one woman dead.
“We are in the battle
for the soul of this nation,”
Biden declared. “If we give
Donald Trump eight years
in the White House, he will
forever and fundamentally
alter the character of this
nation — who we are. And
I cannot stand by and watch
that happen.”
Yet Biden will get a
chance to take on Trump
only if he survives a Demo-
cratic field that now spans at
least 20 contenders. And his
party’s more liberal wing
was far from welcoming in
the hours immediately after
Report:
N. Korea sought
$2M from U.S.
for captured
American
WASHINGTON (AP)
— North Korea report-
edly insisted the U.S.
agree to pay $2 mil-
lion in medical costs in
2017 before it released
detained
American
college student Otto
Warmbier while he was
in a coma, according
to a report published
Thursday.
The Washington Post,
citing two people famil-
iar with the situation,
reported that Joseph
Yun, a U.S. envoy sent to
North Korea to retrieve
the 21-year-old student,
signed an agreement
to pay the $2 million
on instructions passed
down from President
Donald Trump. They
spoke on the condition
of anonymity because
they were not authorized
to discuss the matter
publicly.
The bill went to the
Treasury Department,
where it remained —
unpaid — throughout
2017, the newspaper said.
It is unclear whether
the Trump administra-
tion later paid the bill,
or whether it came up
during
preparations
for Trump’s two sum-
mits with North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un.
White House press
secretary Sarah Sand-
ers said the administra-
tion does not comment
on hostage negotiations.
U.S. policy is to refuse
to pay ransom for the
release of Americans
detained abroad.
While the majority of
Americans detained by
North Korea have been
released in relatively
good condition, Warm-
bier, a student at the Uni-
versity of Virginia, died
in June last year shortly
after he was flown
home comatose after 17
months in captivity.
Warmbier was seized
from a tour group while
visiting North Korea in
January 2016 and con-
victed on charges of try-
ing to steal a propaganda
poster and sentenced to
15 years of hard labor.
Continued from Page A1
The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP/Jessica Griffin
Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden greets people at Gi-
anni’s Pizza, in Wilmington Del., on Thursday.
he declared his candidacy.
Justice Democrats, a group
created from the remnants
of Bernie Sanders’ failed
2016 campaign, came out
against Biden on Thurs-
day and spent much of the
day assailing him on social
media.
As an older white man
with often-centrist views,
Biden must now prove he’s
not out of step with Dem-
ocrats trying to push the
party to the left.
He’s been taking steps
in recent weeks to clean up
perceived missteps from
his long record in elected
office, including his role as
a senator in allowing sex-
ual harassment accuser
Anita Hill to be grilled
by an all-male committee
during the Clarence Thomas
Supreme Court confirma-
tion hearings.
A campaign aide said
Biden has privately con-
tacted Hill to share “his
regret for what she endured
and his admiration for
everything she has done to
change the culture around
sexual harassment in this
country.” But The New York
Times reported Thursday
that Hill said in an inter-
view she was “deeply unsat-
isfied” and unconvinced by
his apology.
Biden has also high-
lighted his role in author-
ing the Violence Against
Women Act nearly three
decades ago, legislation
that is credited with reduc-
ing domestic violence
nationwide.
Still, the 76-year-old
Scranton,
Pennsylvania,
native’s political liabilities
are many.
He would be the oldest
person ever elected presi-
dent — Trump was 70 in
2016 — even as his party
embraces a new genera-
tion of diversity. He’s also
yet to outline his positions
on issues defining the 2020
Democratic primary, most
notably “Medicare for All,”
the universal health care
plan authored by Sanders
that has been embraced in
one form or another by vir-
tually the entire Democratic
field.
Ex-officer sentenced to 25 years
in black motorist’s killing
By TERRY SPENCER
Associated Press
WEST PALM BEACH,
Fla. — A former Florida
police officer was sentenced
to 25 years in prison Thurs-
day for the fatal on-duty
shooting of a black musi-
cian whose SUV had bro-
ken down after a late-night
concert.
Former Palm Beach Gar-
dens officer Nouman Raja
was the first person in Florida
in nearly 30 years to be con-
victed and sentenced for an
on-duty killing — and one of
only a few nationwide.
The 41-year-old defendant
was sentenced by Circuit
Judge Joseph Marx as family
and friends of the 31-year-old
victim, Corey Jones, looked
on in a hushed courtroom
jammed with supporters on
both sides.
Raja was convicted last
month of manslaughter and
attempted murder in Jones’
death. Marx on Thursday
imposed a sentence of 25
AP Photo/Lannis Waters, File
In this Feb. 28, 2019, file pho-
to, Nouman Raja listens to
testimony during his trial in
West Palm Beach, Fla.
years on each count, to be
served concurrently.
Prosecutors had said Raja
had escalated what should
have been a routine inter-
action into a deadly con-
frontation in 2015 when he
encountered Corey, a hous-
ing inspector and part-time
drummer whose SUV had
stalled on a dark highway
ramp.
Raja had faced a possi-
ble sentencing range from
25 years to life in prison, and
both Prosecutor Adrienne
Ellis and the father of the vic-
tim had urged the judge to
impose the maximum.
Previously, Marx has
rejected motions by Raja’s
attorneys to throw out the
verdicts. They argued the evi-
dence didn’t support his con-
viction and that Marx should
have instructed jurors to con-
sider whether Raja’s use of
force was justified under
Florida’s “stand your ground”
law. They plan to appeal.
At Thursday’s hearing,
Clinton Jones Sr. told the
judge he still has his son’s
number programmed into his
cellphone because he can’t
stand the finality of deleting
it. He said he wanted Raja to
receive a life sentence, not out
of hatred but because of the
pain he had caused the Jones
family.
“It was painful for us to
go through this because I
knew the kind of son we had
raised,” Jones said.
Trump administration reevaluating offshore drilling
By MATTHEW DALY and
ELLEN KNICKMEYER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
Trump administration said
Thursday it is reevaluating its
controversial plan to sharply
expand offshore drilling as
it responds to a court rul-
ing that blocked oil and gas
development off Alaska.
Governors and lawmak-
ers from both Republican-
and Democratic-led states
have strongly opposed the
expanded drilling. And a
federal judge last month
ruled against President Don-
ald Trump’s executive order
to open the Arctic and parts
of the Atlantic to broader oil
and gas development, say-
ing Trump had exceeded his
authority.
Interior
Secretary
David Bernhardt told The
Wall Street Journal on
Thursday that the legal
challenges may be “discom-
bobulating” to the admin-
istration’s overall drilling
plans. Bernhardt says the
administration may have to
wait for the challenges to
AP Photo/David Goldman, File
In this July 16, 2017, file photo, ice is broken up by the pass-
ing of the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica as it sails through
the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska.
fully play out in court.
Interior
spokeswoman
Molly Block said that given
the court setback, the agency
“is evaluating all of its
options.”
The Interior Depart-
ment’s Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management “will
carefully consider all pub-
lic input received, includ-
ing comments from gover-
nors of affected states, before
making final decisions”
on expanded drilling off
the country’s coasts, Block
added.
Environmental
groups
welcomed what they said
amounted to a delay in the
administration’s
coastal
drilling expansion plans.
Collin O’Mara of the
National Wildlife Federa-
tion said the administration
“needs to go one step further
and fully and permanently
scrap its plan to open our
coasts to unfettered offshore
drilling.”
“I do fear the transi-
tion from the polysty-
rene, which is fully recy-
clable, to the clamshell,
fully hard plastic, hinged
to-go containers — which
is a lot more harmful to
the environment,” said
Rep. David Brock Smith,
R-Port Orford, a coastal
legislator who owns a
restaurant, the Port &
Starboard, in his home-
town. “We should be dis-
cussing how we can make
it easier to get these mate-
rials to the recycling facil-
ity so that we can make a
difference, rather than
banning this product.”
However, the number
of recycling facilities that
accept polystyrene foam
is limited — there is one
in Tigard, Agilyx Corp.
— and most curbside
services won’t pick it up
unless it’s being disposed
of as garbage. “Most peo-
ple will simply trash their
food containers,” Rep.
Janeen Sollman, D-Hill-
sboro, said. “They do
not go to the extent that
I do, where I rinse and I
store my takeout contain-
ers to later drive them
to Tigard, to Agilyx, for
them to recycle. … When
we rely on customers to
self-transport the recy-
cle material to a singu-
lar facility in Tigard,
it means that a limited
amount is recycled, and it
ends up in the landfill.”
Like Smith, Rep. Mar-
garet Doherty, D-Tigard,
said she wants to create a
“transfer system” to make
recycling foam products
more feasible. Doherty,
normally a reliable Dem-
ocratic vote, voted against
HB 2883 both times. “The
intent of this bill is hon-
est, and we don’t want
things that you can’t recy-
cle out there,” Doherty
said. “But these, you can.”
To Schouten, it doesn’t
make economic or envi-
ronmental sense for far-
flung Oregon commu-
nities to truck small
polystyrene food contain-
ers to Tigard when restau-
rants could simply use
more eco-friendly alter-
natives instead. “If it’s
going to go in the landfill,
let’s make it something
that will biodegrade,”
Schouten said.
House Bill 2509, the
bag ban, would make
Oregon the fourth state
to ban plastic checkout
bags. California has a
similar law, which voters
approved in 2016. Seven-
teen Oregon cities have
already banned plastic
bags at stores, including
Portland, Salem, Eugene,
Bend and Hillsboro. HB
2509 is based in large part
on Hillsboro’s ban, which
also applies to restau-
rants, Sollman noted.
Critics of plastic bag
bans argue that targeting
plastic bags won’t move
the needle on greenhouse
gas emissions, which are
the primary driver behind
climate change. Several
studies suggest that man-
ufacturing plastic bags
takes less energy than
paper bags, and paper
bags have a larger “carbon
footprint” than plastic.
However, unlike paper
and other wood prod-
ucts, plastic is non-biode-
gradable. Experts aren’t
sure how long it would
take a typical plastic bag
to decompose — they
haven’t existed for long
enough to observe their
decomposition — but it’s
likely to be on the order
of centuries. Plastic waste
also frequently makes its
way into waterways and
oceans, where it can pose
a choking or suffocation
hazard for animals.
“It is ending up in our
own food chain,” Sollman
said. “We are consum-
ing this by consuming the
animals that are getting
this in their own system.”
HB 2509 also includes
a 5-cent fee for paper
bags, to which the paper
industry objects. “The
charge will increase costs
for working families and
discourage
consumers
from choosing paper bags
that are easily recycled
and do not create haz-
ards for wildlife,” warned
Mike Draper, chairman of
the Forest Products Indus-
try National Labor-Man-
agement Committee.
Doherty and Smith
voted for HB 2509 on
Thursday, but they said
they hope the bag fee pro-
vision will be changed
before the bill passes the
Senate. Legislators who
spoke against the bill also
cited the fee as a reason to
vote against it.
“Enough is enough,”
said Rep. Jack Zika,
R-Redmond,
who
opposed the bill in Thurs-
day’s vote. “We’re nick-
el-and-diming
our
citizens.”
Retailers will collect
the fee. Essentially, it’s
a surcharge on any pur-
chase for which a cus-
tomer requests a paper
bag — although those
paying with WIC or Ore-
gon Trail card benefits are
exempt — thereby help-
ing to cover businesses’
own costs for replacing
cheaper plastic bags with
paper.
Beyond that, grocers
argue it will prod shop-
pers to bring their own
bags, thus discouraging
waste.
“The five cents is really
a trigger to change behav-
ior — to move to reus-
able,” said Shawn Miller,
Northwest Grocery Asso-
ciation lobbyist, at a com-
mittee meeting Monday.
“We’re not, in any way,
demonizing the paper
bag,” Sollman said.
Businesses could be
fined up to $250 for every
day they violate the plas-
tic bag ban, if it becomes
law.
An earlier version of
the polystyrene bill con-
tained a similar provision,
but it was stripped from
the bill before it went to
the House floor.
Sollman said consumer
pressure can ensure com-
pliance with the ban if it
becomes law. “It’s going
to be impacted by peo-
ple,” she said. “They
know the ban. They’re
going to tell restaurants,
and continue to tell folks,
‘This is something that’s
a state law. You should
adhere to that state law.’
And I think that people
shop and use their dollars
where companies respect
the law and they respect
the environment.”
The plastic bag ban
would take effect on Jan.
1, 2020. The polystyrene
ban would take effect on
Jan. 1, 2021.
The polystyrene bill
was originally slated to
pass the House on Mon-
day, April 22, which was
Earth Day. With two rep-
resentatives absent, the
bill suffered a rare fail-
ure on the House floor,
appearing to pass before
Reps. Mike McLane,
R-Powell Butte — who
had not intended to vote
“aye” — and Jeff Barker,
D-Aloha, switched their
votes to “nay.”
HB 2883 was brought
up for reconsideration the
following morning with
all 60 House members
present, at which point it
passed with the “aye” vote
of Rep. Rachel Prusak,
D-West Linn, who had
been out sick on Monday.
Rep. Brad Witt, D-Clats-
kanie, also changed his
vote to “aye.”
Both bills still require
Senate approval.