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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 22, 2019)
Gov. Brown won’t make it to Round-Up this year | REGION, A3 E O AST 143rd year, No. 220 REGONIAN THURSDAy, AUGUST 22, 2019 WINNER OF THE 2019 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD $1.50 Plans for executive action on carbon long in the works Gov. Kate Brown started talking with agency leaders in 2017 about finding an alternative route to lower Oregon’s carbon footprint By AUBREY WIEBER Oregon Capital Bureau SALEM — For more than a year, Gov. Kate Brown’s environ- mental agency has been assessing how the governor could mandate lower greenhouse gas emissions without voter or legislative approval, according to interviews and public records. Brown has said she’s willing to act with her executive authority if lawmakers and industry don’t reach agreement on ways to limit greenhouse gas emissions over the next several decades. Her spokeswoman, Kate Kon- dayen, reiterated that point, saying that Brown would rather see legis- lative action. “The governor has been meet- ing with stakeholders from the agricultural sector, transportation sector, and wood products indus- tries throughout the summer and will continue to do so into the fall to ensure that the policy ben- efits rural Oregon while allowing rural Oregon industries to remain competitive,” Kondayen said in a statement. “In the meantime, she has instructed her team and agencies to explore all options to achieve Oregon’s emissions reduction goals.” Kondayen didn’t otherwise respond to written questions. Richard Whitman, director of the state Department of Environ- mental Quality, said his agency started talking with the gover- nor’s staff a little more than a year ago, exploring what options were available. Those efforts were side- lined as momentum picked up ahead of the 2019 Legislature for See Carbon, Page A7 Losers in road rage case want new trial Jurors awarded $26.5M in wrongful death lawsuit By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian crafting western saddles. Over the next decade Pedrini worked and apprenticed under saddlemakers throughout North America, including Eddie Brooks of J.M. Capriola in Elko, Nevada, and Canadian saddlemaker Chuck Stormes. He became a United States citizen in 1992. “The horse and saddle built this country,” Pedrini said. “Without the horse, there would be no country and no cowboy; everyone that came to the West traveled by horse, it’s the essence of the United States.” It was through these years of tute- lage that Pedrini’s work began to gain the recognition he receives today. PENDLETON — The transport company that lost in a record-set- ting wrongful death lawsuit in fed- eral court in Pendleton wants a do-over. Matthew and Sara Allison vacationed in Oregon in June 2017 and were returning to their home in Boise when a semi in the wrong lane on Highway 20 near Burns hit their car head-on. Sara Allison died. Matthew Allison suffered a slew of injuries and sued two trucking companies and their driv- ers in federal court, alleging the drivers were reckless and engaged in road rage antics that led to the deadly crash. Jurors after a trial lasting 10 days this past May in Pendleton awarded $26.5 million to Allison and the estate of his late wife. Indiana-based Horizon Trans- port has to pay most of that award. The company plus its driver, Jon- athan Hogaboom of Michigan, through Portland attorney Jona- than Henderson, filed a motion in early July for a new trial. Mag- istrate Judge Patricia Sullivan, who presided over the trial, took up the request Wednesday after- noon in the federal courtroom in Pendleton. Henderson delivered several arguments for a new trial, starting with the size of the award, which in court documents he described as “shocking” and reason alone for a new trial. The amount of the award, he said, was larger than any for similar cases in Idaho or Eastern Oregon. But he primarily See Saddles, Page A7 See Road rage, Page A7 Staff photo by Ben Lonergan Pendleton saddlemaker Pedro Pedrini oversees operations in the Hamley Saddle Shop at Hamley & Co. in downtown Pendleton. By BEN LONERGAN East Oregonian ENDLETON — When one thinks of the great Ameri- can West and cowboy cul- ture, their mind is not ini- tially drawn to the French. However, Pendleton saddlemaker Pedro Pedrini breaks that stereotype. P Born in France in 1952, Pedrini’s love affair with Western life began on a family friend’s dude ranch at the base of the French Alps when he was only 10 years old. It was there that the young Pedrini spent time working with horses and learning the ins and outs of saddles, stirrups, bridles and other tack. “I have thought about what drew me to western culture for most of my life,” Pedrini said. “All I can think of is the freedom of the big open spaces and the horse and saddle that built this entire country.” After developing a love for leather carving and crafting in France, Pedrini ran out of viable instructors to teach him. In 1978, Pedrini turned his sights on America to advance his dream of Boardman dairy at center of lawsuit By AIMEE GREEN The Oregonian PORTLAND — The Animal Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit Monday asking a Portland judge to order the Tillamook County Creamery Associ- ation to stop advertising that its Tilla- mook-brand cheese, ice cream, butter and other dairy products come from cows happily grazing on the rolling green pastures of the Oregon Coast. The Animal Legal Defense Fund says that’s deceptive marketing: More than two-thirds of the milk for Tillamook-brand products comes from cows on the opposite side of the state — including from the nation’s largest “industrialized dairy fac- tory farm” in Boardman, 230 miles away in the desert of Eastern Ore- gon, according to the lawsuit. Also known as Columbia River Dairy, Threemile has a 145-square- mile farming operation where manure from the cows is used as fer- tilizer. The Threemile Canyon facil- ity — with 32,000 dairy cows and a total of 70,000 cattle — is comprised of concrete or “barren dirt feedlots” and “robotic carousels” that milk the “continuously confined” animals, according to the suit. “Boardman is flat, arid, and often swelteringly hot — nothing like Til- lamook County,” the suit states. “And the mega-dairy in Boardman is so large that it is visible from space.” Within a month, the Animal Legal Defense Fund plans to amend its law- See Dairy, Page A7 Capital Bureau Photo/Mateusz Perkowski, File Cows are milked at Threemile Canyon Farms in Boardman, in this file pho- to. The dairy is at the center of a lawsuit filed Monday by the Animal Legal Defense Fund.