TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
4A
Write a letter
news@bakercityherald.com
OUR VIEW
Progress in
improving
child welfare
in Oregon
The reports from the Department of Human Ser-
vices Critical Incident Review Team are some of the
most heartbreaking things that the state of Oregon
produces.
The team reviews child fatalities when there is a
connection to the state’s child welfare department
within a year of the death. The CIRT reports aim to
understand what happened and consider what, if
anything, can be learned.
A CIRT report from 2020 looked into what may
have been a suicide or accidental overdose by a
16-year-old in December.
Rewind back to 2016. DHS received a report about
the child. The child was then 12 and struggling with
mental health and self harm. That investigation was
closed because no evidence was found of parental
abuse or neglect.
Then in December 2019, DHS received a report
when the child was 15. The allegation: The child
was struggling with suicide and it was not being
adequately addressed by the parents. There was also
information that the parents let the child drink at
home.
The parents initially denied the caseworker access
to the home. Later, the caseworker was able to meet
with the parents and learned they were aware of the
child’s problems. The mother told the caseworker
that the school had contacted her with concern about
a social media post from the child in December 2019.
The mother said she stayed home with the child to
ensure the child’s safety.
The family had no health insurance. They did have
resources through the child’s school to access coun-
seling. The caseworker interviewed multiple other
people including school staff, family members and
the child’s therapist. They did not report concerns.
Based on the investigation, the allegations of neglect
were ruled unfounded. The parents seemed to be
taking appropriate action. A year later the child was
dead of suicide or accidental overdose.
In child abuse and neglect, there are often missed
chances to intervene or help. It’s hard to point fi ngers
and know for certain what more could and should
have been done in this case, at least from the detail
in the report. It doesn’t really answer that.
Some, perhaps most, child abuse is preventable.
What can make a difference is giving families in
need the support — economic, mental health and
more — they need to stay together and prevent chil-
dren from being harmed.
A twinkle of hope comes from the Family First
Prevention Services Act. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden,
a Democrat, worked on and got it passed in 2018.
Child welfare advocates had long complained that
the federal government was getting child welfare
funding wrong. Federal money was available, though
the majority of it was only available once a child was
removed from a family. Shouldn’t the government
put more effort into giving families what they need
to succeed? The Act enabled Oregon and other states
to get reimbursed for services outside of foster care.
The state of Oregon just received permission from
the federal government to move ahead with its
version. That is very welcome news. Oregon’s plan in-
cludes offering families programs for mental health,
addiction and recovery, resources for pregnant and
parenting teens and residential treatment require-
ments. Will it prevent more child abuse? We don’t
know. We hope so. There is more work to be done by
Oregon’s DHS to ensure it succeeds and that fewer
CIRT reports must be written.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker City Herald.
Columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions
of the authors and not necessarily that of the Baker City Herald.
Speak out against B2H power line
By Fuji Kreider
People ask, “Is that still going on?”
Yes, it’s true the massively destructive
Boardman to Hemingway (B2H) trans-
mission project is still under review.
Each time we’ve asked folks to speak
out, it’s more critical that they do.
Thursday, April 15, is the fi nal hear-
ing at the Oregon Public Utilities Com-
mission on Idaho Power’s 2019 energy
plan, which features B2H. The OPUC
commissioners have been impressed
with the number of public comments
already received, and now is the most
important opportunity to speak out
with your reactions to Idaho Power’s
power play.
Building the line will guarantee
them cost recovery and a hefty 7.6%
profi t based on the project’s $1.2 billion
cost. Good for them. Bad for us.
In 2015 when I started tracking
these plans (integrated resources
plans), the Idaho Power Company
claimed it needed 351 megawatts
of energy by 2026 to replace energy
from coal plant closures. Rather than
building its own resources to satisfy
this need, the company wanted to buy
energy from the Mid Columbia energy
trading hub and transmit it hundreds
of miles away. That’s where the B2H
comes in.
Closing coal plants is defi nitely
worth supporting. But destroying
hundreds of miles of private and public
lands, habitats and sacred places — in
addition to us footing the bill — is not
the way. Contrary to the company’s
green-washing narrative, there are
many ways for it to get or make the
energy it may need.
Now, after six years and three IRPs,
the “need” has been reduced from 351
MW to 42 MW — and in the Idaho’s
PUC review, the company states the
need will be only 5 MW by 2029! This
reduction has been occurring even with
Idaho Power actively resisting more
solar and wind contracts, battery stor-
age or building any of its own energy
resources. It has discouraged renew-
able energy projects through state leg-
islation and is de-incentivizing rooftop
solar among customers. The industry’s
innovations, appliance and building
effi ciencies, and people’s own conserva-
tion, continues driving down the need.
That’s right — 42 or 5 MW of energy
need by 2029? They can easily make
that up with a small solar farm or sim-
ple energy effi ciencies, respectively. My
point is: There is plenty of energy and
energy generation potential in Idaho.
The “need” can be easily canceled. So
without a need, why the B2H? For Ida-
ho Power it’s all about profi ts. Not only
through the guaranteed return on in-
vestment on the capital project (B2H),
but the company can continue to gain
profi ts through transmission tariffs. At
the Oregon Public Utilities Commis-
sion the discussion has evolved into
“regional grid capacity and resiliency,”
and “costs to the ratepayers.” (Since the
BPA is currently a partner in the B2H
that means that we, as Oregon Trail
Electric Cooperative members, are also
ratepayers in this arrangement.)
I’ve asked for an analysis on upgrad-
ing and reconductoring the three lines
that go from the Mid Columbia Hub
to Idaho, from 230-kilovolt to 345-kV
lines. The increased capacity of these
three lines could yield a total of 345
kV more capacity. These lines could be
fi re-hardened; they could be digitized
and the corridors could be cleared
out — all benefi ting actions bringing
much more security and resiliency
into the current system while reduc-
ing fi re risks.
If Idaho Power really needed the
capacity in the future — which is
questionable — the Oregon PUC (the
regulators in this case) should order
the company to study upgrading be-
fore planning and building new!
There won’t be another opportunity
to infl uence the OPUC for at least
another year, and by then much more
work will be completed in the permit-
ting process. Not good. Therefore, we
need to tell the OPUC: Do not acknowl-
edge this project any longer! We can’t
afford it and it is not needed. Write
now (before April 15) to puc.publiccom-
ments@state.or.us. For more info, check
out www.stopb2h.org.
Now is the time to act!
Fuji Kreider has lived in La Grande
34 years and is a member of the local
nonprofi t Stop B2H Coalition.
OTHER VIEWS
Restore limits to media ownership
Editorial from The Seattle Times:
The U.S. Supreme Court last week
upheld the Federal Communications
Commission’s wrongheaded decision
to allow more media consolidation.
This comes amid a crisis in local
journalism, an epidemic of misinfor-
mation and growing division under-
mining America’s democracy. Media
consolidation and the resulting disin-
vestment in local news are worsening
these problems.
The FCC, as reconfi gured by
President Joe Biden, should revisit
the issue and restore limits on cross-
ownership of media outlets.
Specifi cally, the agency should
restore rules preventing media com-
panies from owning both a newspaper
and radio or TV stations in a single
market, and limiting the number of
radio and TV stations a company can
own in one market.
These rules, adopted in the 1970s,
are needed to preserve the diversity
of local media and prevent further
consolidation.
They were whittled away starting
in the 1980s and fi nally discarded by
the FCC in 2017, prompting a federal
lawsuit by Prometheus Radio Project,
a Philadelphia-based advocacy group.
An appeals court upheld the FCC’s
decision but found it didn’t adequately
consider the effect on minority and
female ownership of media outlets.
On April 1, the Supreme Court
unanimously upheld the FCC decision
and accepted its ownership-diversity
analysis. Justices decided that even if
the FCC’s diversity data wasn’t great,
its decision wasn’t capricious and
the commission still had authority to
change the rules.
“In assessing the effects of the rule
changes on minority and female own-
ership, the FCC did not have perfect
empirical or statistical data,” the court
wrote. “But that is not unusual in day-
to-day agency decision making within
the executive branch.”
Ugh.
Also disheartening was the FCC
argument, restated in the ruling, that
the rise of cable and internet outlets
meant these ownership rules “no lon-
ger served the agency’s public interest
goals of fostering competition, localism
and viewpoint diversity.”
Actually consolidation has resulted
in less local news to inform voters,
as shown by researchers at Stanford
University and others, and reduced
the diversity of media viewpoints.
The proliferation of websites and
cable channels is not increasing
reporting. Total investment in journal-
ism declined, with newsroom em-
ployment across all media types and
information services falling 23% from
2008 to 2019.
It’s worse among newspapers, the
source of most original reporting,
where newsroom jobs fell by half over
that period. That occurred as waves
of consolidation left 25 companies
controlling around two-thirds of daily
papers in the U.S.
As trustworthy local news outlets
fade, Americans turn to social-media
sites riddled with falsehoods and cable
channels stoking division and doing
little to inform voters of local issues.
The silver lining is that the Su-
preme Court ruling affi rmed the FCC
has authority to help make things
right.
“The way I read it, that means the
FCC has broad discretion to enact
substantive, meaningful ownership
rules,” said Michael Copps, a former
FCC member now advocating for
diversity in media ownership.
This should be a priority for Presi-
dent Biden’s choice to fi ll an open seat
on the commission and selection of its
permanent chair. Biden’s interim FCC
chair, Jessica Rosenworcel, is a strong
proponent of media diversity, competi-
tion and localism.
Much has changed since the FCC
embraced media consolidation in 2017.
The Prometheus decision, and the
local news and misinformation crises,
should prompt a new assessment of
market conditions, public interest in a
diverse media ecosystem and restora-
tion of cross-ownership rules.