OPINION  NEWS
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
A5
Farmers, ranchers immune from liability on wildfi res
By George Plaven
Capital Press
SALEM — The Oregon Leg-
islature has passed a bill to pro-
tect farmers and ranchers from
liability while fi ghting dangerous
wildfi res, such as the 2018 Sub-
station fi re in Wasco and Sherman
counties.
Senate Bill 290 is similar to
other Good Samaritan laws that
encourage bystanders to assist
people in emergencies with-
out worrying about being sued if
something goes wrong.
Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena,
sponsored SB 290, which passed
both the House and Senate unani-
mously. Gov. Kate Brown signed
the bill during a ceremony on
June 18 with members of the Ore-
gon Wheat Growers League.
Hansell said the bill was
inspired by the deadly Substation
fi re that torched 78,425 acres of
dry wheat fi elds and grasslands
last year in north-central Oregon.
Wheat farmers were among
the fi rst to arrive on scene, using
tractors and disc plows to dig
wide fi rebreaks around homes
and communities. If not for their
quick response, Hansell said the
fi re might have devastated the
Courtesy of Molly Belshe
Marty Belshe, a wheat farmer in Sherman County, Ore., uses a tractor and disc plow to create a fi re break around
one of his fi elds in anticipation of the Substation Fire that burned 78,425 acres in July. A new state law protects
farmers and others who fi ght wildfi res from incurring liability.
nearby small cities of Moro and
Grass Valley, similar to Paradise,
Calif.
“Farmers have been doing
this ever since we began raising
wheat,” said Hansell, whose fam-
LETTERS to the EDITOR
Think before you vote!
Think before you vote!
After watching the D-Day Memorial
in France and seeing all the rows of mar-
ble crosses, I started thinking of the countless
Americans who gave their lives for our lib-
erty and freedom from the Revolutionary War
to the present day. It saddens me to know that
there are people in our country who would
throw their sacrifi ce away for a false promise
of power and “Free Stuff.” Think very carefully
before voting for a socialist agenda. God bless
America.
Mike McLain
Lostine
Government bureaucracy runs
amuck AGAIN
It was astounding to read that burnt timber
from only 250 acres can be salvaged from the
80,000 acre 2015 Grizzly Bear Complex Fire
without an Environmental Impact Assessment
(EIA). That’s about 1/3 of 1% of the total burnt
timber land!. Perhaps the Forestry Service
should be required to conduct an Economic
Impact Analysis of their forest management
policies that have contributed to the increas-
ing incidence of “super fi res” that are destroy-
ing our forests.
It’s rumored that the U.S. Department of
Interior is considering measures to exempt the
Forestry Service of certainly overly-restrictive
environmental regulation under certain circum-
stances. Maybe this would be a good test case.
Scott Hathorn
Joseph
OK Theatre volunteers needed
ily runs a wheat farm in Umatilla
County.
One farmer, 64-year-old John
Ruby, died trying to protect his
neighbor’s home from the fi re.
Hansell said the tragedy raised
FDA needs to learn a new language
S
ome call it cowboy talk. Oth-
ers call it straight talk, plain
talk, talking turkey or just plain
English.
Whatever you want to call it, the
Food and Drug Administration often
doesn’t do it.
A case in point. The FDA has been
monkeying around — there’s some
plain talk for you — with the labels the
agency wants to paste on jars of honey
and maple syrup and on containers of
cranberry products.
The FDA wanted to tell consumers
what is in honey and maple syrup. If
ever there were two products that need
no label whatsoever, it’s honey and
maple syrup.
What’s in honey? H-O-N-E-Y. End
of story.
What’s in maple syrup? M-A-P-L-E
S-Y-R-U-P.
There’s no added anything. On the
nutritional labels of those two prod-
ucts, only carbohydrates — sugars —
are listed.
What the ever-so-helpful FDA was
trying to do is point out that if someone
put honey or maple syrup on a pancake,
he would be adding sugar to it.
Fair enough, except the FDA said
that honey and maple syrup contained
“added sugars” because they added
sugar to whatever they were put on.
In plain language, that is wrong.
How or why the FDA ever came up with
OTHER VOICES
Capital Press
that idea, we cannot say. That’s like say-
ing milk has added ingredients because
some people put it on their cereal.
In the case of cranberry products,
anyone who has ever eaten one knows
they are tart. To make them less tart,
sugar is added to some products made
with cranberries. Why the FDA needs
to say anything, we cannot imagine. It’s
right there on the nutrition label.
Now, however, the FDA has
reworked these labels in a way that is
still bizarre. The labels now say that if
Capital Press
Maple syrup producers complain that a
Food and Drug Administration labeling
requirement will mislead consumers into
thinking sugar is added to their product.
you put honey or maple syrup on a pan-
cake you will add sugar to your diet.
FDA might want to rename its label
policy, “Nutrition for Dummies.”
Why the FDA gets itself involved in
such tomfoolery, we cannot say.
What we can say is the FDA is the
same agency that took the Food Safety
Modernization Act and wrote rules that
apply to everything from cattle feed
— distillers grains — to onions, which
had never been involved in food safety
problems.
By the time the FDA was done, the
food safety regulations included 14 fi nal
rules and 36 separate guidance docu-
ments on such things as 12 pages on
counting the number of employees a
farm has. The title: “Determining the
Number of Employees for Purposes of
the ‘Small Business’ Defi nition in Parts
117 and 507 (CGMP and Preventive
Controls Regulations for Human and
Animal Food): Guidance for Industry.”
Good grief.
Such rules are nearly unreadable by
anyone who is not a bureaucrat. A new
industry has sprung up to help farmers
fi gure out what the FDA means in those
documents.
We have a suggestion. The folks
at the FDA should go back to school
and take a class: English as a second
language.
They have bureaucratese down, now
they should try cowboy talk.
Walden joins with Dem rep to take out robocalls
East Oregonian
Wallowa County has many wonderful things,
and the OK Theatre is at the top of that list. This
summer the old OK turns 100, and there is a
huge Centennial Celebration July 12-13 at the
theatre and on Main Street in Enterprise. If you
love the OK and want to show your support,
please consider volunteering for the bash.
There are lots of jobs open, and each shift
worked gets a free Saturday pass. Find the vol-
unteer signup online on the OK Theatre’s Face-
book page, or come in or call me at NAPA Auto
Parts in Enterprise – 541-426-3181. It’s going to
be a fun event, and if you can give a few hours
of your time we won’t ask you to do it again
until the Bicentennial Celebration in 2119.
Chris Lozier
Enterprise
concerns about potential liability
for farmers and residents in a sim-
ilar situation.
That is what SB 290 seeks to
address. It states that a person
who voluntarily joins the effort
will not be held civilly liable for
injury resulting from the “good
faith performance” of fi refi ghting
activities. Professionally trained
fi refi ghters are not covered by the
legislation.
Blake Rowe, CEO of the Ore-
gon Wheat Growers League, said
he is pleased with the bill to pre-
vent farmers from being sued for
trying to do the right thing.
“Anytime you’re talking about
limiting liability for somebody
who does something out on the
landscape, or responds to an acci-
dent, we want to protect them
if they’re acting in good faith,”
Rowe said.
Without wheat farmers on the
front lines, Rowe said the Sub-
station fi re probably would have
been worse.
“There were places where
farmers were able to disc lines,
slow things down and get some
equipment in front of the fi re that
actually helped slow the spread,”
Rowe said. “Farmers bring equip-
ment and skills to the party that
some of our rural (fi re) districts
just don’t have.”
The new law will become
effective on Jan. 1, 2020.
“This is a great, positive bill
for rural Oregon,” Hansell said.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman
Frank Pallone, Jr., D-New Jersey, and
Republican leader Greg Walden, R-Ore-
gon, teamed up to stop robocalls.
The pair Thursday unveiled bipartisan
legislation, the Stopping Bad Robocalls
Act, to end illegal robocall practices.
“Americans deserve to be free of the
daily danger and harassment of robocalls,”
Pallone and Walden said in a joint state-
ment. “It’s time we end the robocall epi-
demic and restore trust back into our phone
system. We’re pleased to announce we’ve
reached a deal on comprehensive biparti-
san legislation to stop illegal robocalls.”
Open July th
4
House
9am-3pm
Last year, an estimated 47.8 bil-
lion robocalls were placed nationwide,
according to the news release from
Walden’s offi ce, an increase of 17 billion
calls over the previous year. The illegal
calls affect American life in increasingly
harmful ways, from scams to disrupting
the health care system.
The legislation requires phone carriers
to implement call authentication technol-
ogy so consumers can trust their caller
ID again, with no additional line-item
for consumers, and includes a process to
help rural carriers implement the tech-
nology. The act also allows carriers to
offer call blocking services with no addi-
tional line charge on an opt-out basis.
“Americans should be able to block
robocalls in a consistent and transpar-
ent way without being charged extra for
it,” the pair stated. “Our legislation also
gives the FCC and law enforcement the
authority to enforce the law and quickly
go after scammers. We look forward to
moving this bill through the Communi-
cations and Technology Subcommittee
next week.”
The new bill also includes provi-
sions from the Support Tools to Obliter-
ate Pesky (STOP) Robocalls Act, which
Republic Reps. Bob Latta of Ohio and
Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania introduced
earlier this year. Latte and Doyle, the
chair of the Communications and Tech-
nology Subcommittee, are co-sponsors
of the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act.
12
Annual
June
28/29
2019
th
A
Schola C r J s D h
Fundraise ip
r*
CHIEF JOSEPH DAYS
RANCH RODEO
Friday
602 West 1st Street Wallowa, Oregon 97885
(541) 886-8000
Saturday
2:30PM Trail Ride
2:00PM Ranch Rodeo
Meet at Harley Tucker Rodeo Grounds
Harley Tucker Rodeo Grounds
6PM Dinner & Auction
Social Hour @ 6PM
Beef Dinner @ 7PM
Auction Calcutta
$15 per person
$7 5-10 years
4 & under FREE
Rodeo Tickets
$5 Adults
$3 5-10 years
4 & under FREE
Tickets available
at the gate
*Proceeds go to the CJD Scholarship