A6
OREGON
East Oregonian
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Oregon weighs direct on-farm food safety inspections
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
CORVALLIS — Oregon
farm regulators may decide to
take over fresh produce safety
inspections from the U.S.
Food and Drug Administra-
tion next year.
The FDA began perform-
ing inspections in Oregon in
2019 to implement the Food
Safety Modernization Act,
a federal statute intended to
prevent foodborne illness.
Since then, the state
Department of Agriculture
has focused on providing
education and technical assis-
tance to fresh produce growers
rather than directly conduct-
ing on-farm inspections.
However, some farmers
have told ODA that they’d
prefer to be overseen by state
inspectors who are more
familiar with local crops, said
Susanna Pearlstein, the agen-
cy’s produce safety program
manager.
“They want Oregon people
to regulate Oregon agricul-
ture,” she said.
Currently, Oregon is one
of just four states that allow
FDA to perform on-farm
inspections rather than hiring
their own inspectors, she
said May 5 at the State Board
of Agriculture meeting in
Corvallis.
“The majority of states
have taken on regulatory
programs,” Pearlstein said.
Farmers are inspected by
25 investigators from FDA
who may not be acquainted
with the processes and equip-
ment used for the state’s
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press, File
Oregon farm regulators are weighing whether to conduct
on-farm inspections of fresh produce or continue to have the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration do it.
niche crops, she said.
Some of them may prefer
working with ODA inspectors
who are more knowledgeable
about their specifi c circum-
stances, said Lauren Hender-
son, ODA’s deputy director.
Those state inspectors
would be credentialed by the
FDA and operate under its
authority.
The Oregon Farm Bureau
has urged the ODA to take on
the additional inspection role,
citing “signifi cant regulatory
hurdles for producers” who’ve
found “federal inspectors to be
overreaching and diffi cult to
work with.”
Support for switching to
ODA inspectors is not univer-
sal among the state’s farmers,
though, and agency offi cials
plan to seek more input before
they have to make a decision.
“We want to have addi-
tional stakeholder outreach,
meetings and conversations,”
said Alexis Taylor, the agen-
cy’s director, noting ODA
also will ask the State Board
of Agriculture to weigh in on
the choice.
“It’s going to be an addi-
tional workload,” she said.
The ODA is approved for
$630,000 in federal funds to
provide assistance and educa-
tion during the FDA’s 2021-
2026 grant cycle. If it decides
to directly perform inspec-
tions, the federal government
may provide another $500,000
in funding.
The state agency must
decide by a March 2023 dead-
line to qualify for that funding
during the current fi ve-year
grant cycle.
While it’s estimated
those funds would cover the
ODA’s costs of implementing
the program, it’s unknown
whether the agency can count
on continued federal support
in future cycles, said Hender-
son.
The FDA reduced its
education and outreach fund-
ing by $100,000 in 2021-26
compared to the previous
grant cycle, for example.
‘We need every state to step up’ 7 highways to get charging stations
U.S. health
secretary in
Oregon speaks
on mental health
By ALEX
BAUMHARDT
Oregon Capital Chronicle
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
PORTLAND — Xavier
Becerra said the federal
government will be there
to support mental health
services — starting with
the new national 988 hotline
for suicide prevention — if
states also step up.
Becerra, the U.S. secre-
tary of health and human
services, made his comment
Thursday, May 5, after he
and Gov. Kate Brown spoke
with six young workers
for YouthLine, a peer-to-
peer service that is part of
the Lines for Life nonprofi t
based in Portland.
On his brief stop in
Oregon, Becerra also took
part in a roundtable discus-
sion with three of Oregon’s
U.S. representatives, state
legislators and mental health
advocates, and met privately
with Planned Parenthood
advocates. He also visited
the Sylvania campus of Port-
land Community College,
where he met future health
care workers and took part
in another roundtable.
The HHS budget for
2023 now before Congress
proposes $700 million for
implementation of the 988
hotline, which is scheduled
to start July 16 — the amount
is up from the $109 million
in the current budget — and
a total of $7.5 billion for
competitive grants to states
to transform their mental
health services. The larger
amount is part of a 10-year,
$51.7 billion commitment
that President Joe Biden
laid out for mental health in
his fi rst State of the Union
address on March 1.
“We want to invest with
those states that want to
do the work. Gov. Brown
has made it very clear that
Oregon is going to step up
and do that,” Becerra told
reporters after he and Brown
met with the YouthLine
workers.
“That $700 million-plus
Peter Wong/Oregon Capital Bureau
Xavier Becerra, U.S. secretary of health and human services,
responds to a question following a meeting with six young
workers for YouthLine, a service of the crisis intervention
service Lines for Life based in Portland. On his visit Thursday,
May 5, 2022, Becerra also stopped at Portland Community
College/Sylvania to meet future health care/mental health
workers in training.
would make sure that these
wonderful counselors who
receive all those calls will
be able to do those. We want
to make sure that if some-
one does try to call, they
actually get a person — not
a busy signal, or be put on
hold. When we launch 988
on July 16, It’s going to be
important that we have a
whole bunch of folks who are
ready to go. We need every
state to step up.”
Asked what he learned
from the young workers,
Becerra said:
“Probably that we’ve got
peers who are doing a great
job helping these youths, who
are probably the shyest and
least likely to come forward
quickly. That has got to give
you some sense of promise
that this will be done well, so
long as we invest and provide
them with the resources they
need.”
Becerra said afterward
of YouthLine: “I hope we
can plant seeds of money for
programs like this that make
more peer-to-peer support
possible. I think if we had
more young people at our
front line to help youths
undergoing mental stress,
we’d catch them a lot faster.”
Brown said it was not her
fi rst visit to Lines for Life,
which specializes in crisis
intervention and treatment
for addiction.
“But to hear from the
young people doing the
work is extraordinary,” she
said. “It makes me hopeful
for the future and committed
to fi ght for President Biden’s
$50 billion investment in
behavioral health services
across this country.”
Brown signed a $470
million commitment by the
2021 Legislature with a mix
of state and federal dollars
to boost capacity for mental
health, reorganize services
and expand and diversify the
workforce.
According to a 2020
national survey, the share of
adults who reported a mental
health issue rose from 18.3%
in 2016 — the rate had been
stable for years — to 21%
in 2020. The increase was
attributed to a surge by
young adults ages 18 to 25.
In a 2019 survey of high
school students preceding
the coronavirus pandemic,
one of every three students
reported persistent feel-
ings of sadness and hope-
lessness — and one in fi ve
reported seriously consider-
ing suicide.
May is Mental Health
Awareness Month.
SALEM — An electric
vehicle charging station
could soon exist every 50
miles on some of Oregon’s
main highways.
The Oregon Depart-
ment of Transportation
announced Friday, May 6,
it would direct $100 million
during the next fi ve years
to growing a network of
charging stations for cars,
trucks and SUVs. Some will
charge even medium-duty
vehicles such as delivery
vans. Electric vehicles built
before 2016 have an aver-
age range of 100 miles on
a single charge and today
get an average of about
250 miles, according to the
Plug-in Hybrid & Electric
Vehicle Research Center at
the University of California,
Davis.
The state transportation
department itself won’t be
in charge of installing or
operating the stations but
will contract with private
companies to build them,
according to a press release.
The money comes from
a mix of federal and state
funds, but the bulk of it
comes from the 2021 federal
infrastructure bill.
Of the $100 million,
about two-thirds will go to
building charging stations
every 50 miles on seven
major corridors. Those
include Interstates 5, 84
and 82 and U.S. Highways
26, 101, 20 and 97. Each
charging station will have
at least four ports and be
built so more can be added
over time.
There aren’t yet esti-
mates for how stations will
be built because costs vary
depending on the type of
charger and where they
are installed, according to
Matt Noble, a public aff airs
specialist at the state trans-
portation department.
“We’re confident that
this $100 million invest-
ment will be able to build a
backbone network every 50
miles across the seven corri-
dors,” he wrote in an email.
About $36 million will
go to building out charging
infrastructure in rural
areas and cities, especially
at apartment complexes.
Noble said the depart-
ment will meet with stake-
holder groups during the
next two years to fi gure out
what needs are and where
the stations would be best
located in rural and urban
areas.
The state transporta-
tion department set a goal
in 2021 of tripling the
number of electric vehi-
cles in Oregon by the end
of 2023 and of expanding
the statewide electric vehi-
cle charging network in the
state 10% by 2025. There
are about 2,100 electric
vehicle charging stations
in Oregon, according to
the Oregon Department of
Energy.
Oregon Department
of Transportation will
be going after billions of
dollars in federal grants for
additional charging infra-
structure that will work for
heavy-duty electric vehicles,
such as commercial trucks
and buses, according to the
department’s press release.
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