MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2019
Baker City, Oregon
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EDITORIAL
Congress
gets it
right on
co-ops
Bipartisanship seems to be more of a concept than
a reality these days in Washington, D.C., the lopsided
party-line votes on the two articles of impeachment
against President Donald Trump being only the most
prominent example.
It’s refreshing, then, to see that Congress remains
capable of passing sensible legislation with broad sup-
port from both parties.
A recent case in point — last week’s passage of the
RURAL Act, which Trump is expected to sign — was
an important victory for Oregon Trail Electric Cooper-
ative and its 31,000 members in Baker, Union, Grant
and Harney counties.
This bill corrects a fl aw in the 2017 federal tax cut
law that even its proponents concede wasn’t intended.
The issue is the tax-exempt status of member-
owned electric cooperatives such as OTEC. That tax-
exempt status saves the cooperative about $1 million
annually that it would otherwise have to pay in state
and federal taxes, said Anthony Bailey, OTEC’s chief
fi nancial offi cer.
“We’d just as soon return that money to our mem-
bers in capital credits refunds,” Bailey said.
Indeed, OTEC returned $3.5 million in such refunds
to its members this month.
To maintain tax-exempt status, OTEC and other
cooperatives must receive at least 85% of their rev-
enue from members. Prior to the 2017 tax bill, coop-
eratives could count, as member revenue, money they
received from federal grants — for instance, money
from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to
help make repairs to power lines following a wildfi re,
snowstorm or other natural event.
But the 2017 bill changed that, requiring coopera-
tives to count federal aid of that sort as nonmember
revenue. Bailey said that for OTEC, the new law
meant that if it received more than about $6 million in
federal revenue in a given year, it would have to either
take the money or lose its tax-exempt status and thus
incur the approximately $1 million in tax liability.
Although Bailey said natural disasters such as fi res
are worrisome because they’re unpredictable, those
aren’t the only circumstances in which a cooperative
might avail itself of federal money. Another example is
using federal dollars to expand broadband service or
other infrastructure designed to improve standards of
living or rural economies.
That this effect of the 2017 tax cut was unintended
is refl ected in the level of support for the RURAL Act,
including by Oregon’s congressional delegation, which
is made up of Democrats and one Republican, Greg
Walden, whose district includes OTEC’s service terri-
tory.
Both parties recognized that the federal government
shouldn’t force member-owned cooperatives to decide
between accepting federal aid to make repairs after a
disaster, and maintaining the tax-exempt status that
helps keeps their electricity rates down.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
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A fresh look at nuclear power
Go back to Sept. 26, 1963. Standing
before a crowd of 37,000, President John
F. Kennedy exhorted his audience to ex-
pand their defi nition of “conservation.”
The setting was unusual — behind him
stood the newly constructed N Reactor
in Hanford, Wash. Nuclear energy, he
said, fi t squarely into the defi nition of
conservation.
Such a suggestion would be anath-
ema to some today, confusing to others.
Thanks to the political correctness and
careful marketing of the last decade or
so, “clean” has most often meant tech-
nologies such as wind and solar.
Such a conviction persists in state re-
newable energy mandates, tax subsidies
and political fantasies such as the Green
New Deal. The World Bank and other
international fi nancing organizations
have loud and proud “clean energy”
portfolios that explicitly exclude nuclear
energy. And the EU is currently debat-
ing whether nuclear energy should be
included in the defi nition of green for
fi nance law.
But people today, as in JFK’s time,
should reconsider defi nitions. Conserva-
tion isn’t just what we traditionally have
understood as protecting and using re-
sources well, in the sense of not wasting
resources such as water and land.
President Kennedy argued it was
more — to use science and technology
to unlock access to new kinds of energy
and new ways to develop and use it.
Through innovation, we can get more
with less. Nuclear energy was a case in
point, he said, and he anticipated the
new millennium — when, he believed,
Americans would get half of their elec-
tricity from nuclear.
To an extent, he was right. Nuclear
energy is reliable, has an outstanding
KATIE TUBB
safety record, produces no air pollution,
is greenhouse-gas-free and requires
little acreage for the thousands of
megawatts a reactor generates. It’s also
effi cient.
Since 2013, only one new nuclear
reactor has come online in the U.S. while
nine others have closed. And yet ef-
fi ciency improvements have had the ef-
fect of increasing electricity production,
making 2018 a record-breaking year
for the nuclear industry. Waste, too, is a
solvable issue — while political dysfunc-
tion has overcome progress in America,
the nuclear industry in Finland is ac-
complishing the task.
In short, nuclear power has unlocked
opportunities unfathomable 60 years
ago in power generation and in indus-
tries as diverse as medicine, defense,
space exploration and food safety.
In other ways no one could have
foreseen, though, JFK was mistaken.
Rather than half, Americans today
get only 19% of their electricity from
nuclear power.
Many things occurred in between
that challenged nuclear energy’s role.
Among them is a narrow notion of
“clean” energy baked into big-govern-
ment programs.
Very often, presidential candidates,
government offi cials at all levels and
sometimes voters have equated clean
energy with renewable energy, rather
than considering the actual environ-
mental results of energy choices. De-
ployed in regulatory schemes, mandates
and big-government handouts, such
narrow defi nitions have actually shut
out nuclear power from providing af-
fordable, reliable electricity. As usually
happens in the energy sector, politics
muddles things.
Take California, one of the states
providing supposed leadership on clean
energy. It has aggressive mandates to
reduce carbon dioxide emissions 80% by
2050, and acquire 60% of its electricity
from renewable energy sources by 2030.
Yet despite producing no greenhouse-
gas emissions, nuclear power doesn’t
count toward the mandate. The state’s
only nuclear power plant will shut down
early because it must run uneconomi-
cally to make room for mandated solar
and wind.
On the opposite coast, add to that list
Vermont Yankee, which closed in 2014,
and Indian Point, which services New
York City and will close in 2020-2021.
Neither closed for safety reasons, but fell
to political pressure levied by extreme
environmentalists who bullied gover-
nors long enough.
In other words, California, Vermont,
New York and others have confused the
means for the end they seek. They have
equated “clean” with “wind and solar
technology.” And they have, intention-
ally or not, used the force of government
to push out nuclear power despite its
capability to provide vast amounts of
clean energy.
Nuclear energy still has that potential
to improve our environment and make
the world better with clean energy. All
the more reason to adopt President
Kennedy’s defi nition of conservation.
Katie Tubb is the senior policy analyst for
energy and environmental issues in the Roe
Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The
Heritage Foundation (Heritage.org).
OTHER VIEWS
Get on with the impeachment trial
Editorial from The Chicago Tribune:
We reckon that what you think about
the impeachment of President Donald
Trump is infl uenced greatly by your
opinion of the man and his leadership
capacity. If you previously were in-
clined to oppose him, you likely support
Trump’s impeachment and removal
from offi ce. If you previously supported
— or at least tolerated — him, you prob-
ably still do.
We’re not reading minds. We are read-
ing polls.
On Wednesday night, the Democrat-
led U.S. House approved two articles of
impeachment against Trump in near-
unanimous party-line votes: Dems for,
GOP against. The Republican-majority
Senate likely will acquit Trump at trial.
A RealClearPolitics polling average
shows the country split evenly on
impeachment and removal, 47% in favor
and 48% opposed. A Wall Street Journal/
NBC poll found that 90% of Republicans
oppose impeaching Mr. Trump and
removing him from offi ce, while 83% of
Democrats favor it.
These are not fi nal judgments on
Trump. They are snapshots refl ecting
the bitterly partisan tenor of American
political life. The president is polarizing.
His approval rating has climbed since
the House began impeachment hearings
but hasn’t reached 50%, according to
Gallup.
Safe to say impeachment isn’t chang-
ing many minds on Trump so much as
distilling opinions.
No wonder Thursday in Washington
brought friction rather than collabo-
ration. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
unexpectedly withheld transmitting
the impeachment articles to the Senate.
Instead, she traded barbs with Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
If there is to be a trial in January, as
the American people have been led to be-
lieve, we expect House and Senate lead-
ers to get past their pregame jawboning
and deliver on their responsibilities. We
anticipate arguments regarding trial
rules, each side seeking the advantage.
The two sides tussled Thursday over
Democratic insistence that Senate
Republicans call witnesses, including
White House offi cials who have declined
to participate.
Go ahead and tussle, Speaker Pelosi
and Leader McConnell. Negotiate, if you
can. Then try the case. The impeach-
ment trial shouldn’t be held up indefi -
nitely for a continuation of arguments
from the impeachment inquiry. The
American people are waiting.
Speaking of the American people: Our
focus since the impeachment inquiry
began has been on the voters who elect
presidents to four-year terms. The House
debate involved a decision whether to
remove Trump from offi ce because of the
seriousness of his misconduct, or leave
Trump’s fate in the hands of voters. That
is, to overturn the 2016 election — or not.
Our view is that Trump deserves
censure, not impeachment and removal
from offi ce. He committed serious mis-
conduct by attempting to shake down
the president of Ukraine for personal
political gain. Trump abused presiden-
tial power. But his misdeeds regarding
Ukraine did not threaten the security
and integrity of American governance.
We’ve said often that voters should be
the ones to judge Trump’s fi tness to
continue in offi ce. The Senate trial, even
if it changes few minds, will provide the
public with the fullest account of the
impeachment allegations, including
Trump’s defense.
Then it will be on to Election Day,
when Americans will vote for president,
U.S. House members and one-third of
the Senate. All, including Trump, will
be rewarded or punished for their job
performances, related to impeachment
and beyond.