A5
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2021
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BRIEFING
Portland company
Innovyze is sold
A low-profile Port-
land software company,
Innovyze, had a very
high-profile sale this
week.
California-based Au-
todesk will pay $1 billion
for Innovyze, integrating
the Portland company
into Autodesk’s portfolio
of product design soft-
ware.
Privately held In-
novyze, based in south
Portland’s Johns Landing
neighborhood, makes
software for designing
and operating water in-
frastructure. It’s a niche,
but a big one given the
universality of water
treatment and distribu-
tion systems.
Founded in 1996, In-
novyze had previously
been owned by Swedish
private equity firm EQT.
Autodesk said it plans to
offer jobs to all 250 In-
novyze employees, about
two-dozen of whom
work in Portland.
Consumers boost
spending 2.4%
Bouncing back from
months of retrenchment,
America’s consumers
stepped up their spend-
ing by a solid 2.4% in
January, the sharpest in-
crease in seven months
and a sign that the econ-
omy may be poised to
sustain a recovery from
the pandemic recession.
Friday’s report from
the Commerce Depart-
ment also showed that
personal incomes, which
provide the fuel for
spending, jumped 10%
last month, the biggest
gain in nine months,
boosted by cash pay-
ments that most Amer-
icans received from the
government.
The January spending
increase followed two
straight monthly spend-
ing drops that had raised
concerns that consumers,
who power most of the
economy, were hunkered
down, too anxious to
travel, shop and spend.
Last month’s sharp gain
suggests that many peo-
ple are growing more
confident about spend-
ing, especially after re-
ceiving $600 checks that
went to most adults last
month in a federal eco-
nomic aid package.
— Bulletin wire reports
PEOPLE ON
THE MOVE
• Tyler Hague has been
hired by
SELCO
Com-
munity
Credit
Union
as a fi-
Hague
nancial
advisor for Investment
& Retirement Services.
Based in SELCO’s Old
Mill Branch in Bend,
Hague will manage cli-
ents across Central and
Eastern Oregon.
• Zak Boone has been
named
to the
board of
directors
of Bend
2030,
a non-
Boone
profit
founded in 2007 to
educate, engage and
empower members of
the Bend community.
Boone is the chief ad-
vancement officer and
executive director of the
Central Oregon Com-
munity College Foun-
dation.
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bendbulletin.com/business
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Proposed bill would allow workers U.S. advisers
to enforce Oregon labor regulations endorse J&J’s
S&P 500
3,811.15 -18.19
NASDAQ
13,192.34 +72.91
BY MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Workers could enforce regula-
tions and recover fines on behalf of
Oregon labor agencies under a bill
that’s alarmed the agriculture and
timber industries.
While business groups fear
House Bill 2205 will result in a
cascade of new litigation against
employers, proponents claim the
legislation will help the state gov-
ernment become more efficient.
30-YR T-BOND
2.18% -.13
GOLD
$1,728.10 -46.30
CRUDE OIL
$61.50 -2.03
Lawmakers have enacted numer-
ous statutes intended to ensure the
“dignity and respect” of workers in
recent years, such as requiring paid
sick leave and predictive sched-
uling, said Rep. Barbara Smith-
Warner, a Portland Democrat.
“Passing these laws is import-
ant. And it’s even more important
to make sure they’re enforced. Our
state agencies do work hard and
their staff are extremely dedicated,
but they cannot be everywhere at
once,” she said during a recent leg-
islative hearing.
The coronavirus pandemic has
exacerbated problems with wage
theft, health and safety violations
and other workplace abuses, but
state regulators aren’t keeping up
with the record number of com-
plaints, Smith Warner said.
“When the state fails to enforce
those laws, companies rarely face
penalties,” she said.
ONLINE
Those 65 and older
are
Lynnette White uses her tablet Feb. 16 to shop
on Amazon. The pandemic has sparked a surge the
Jeff Chiu/AP
of online shopping across all ages as people
stay away from physical stores, but the biggest
growth has come from those 65 and older.
I
n November, Paula Mont did something
new: The 86-year-old, who hasn’t left her
New Jersey senior living community in
nearly a year, went shopping — online.
Mont used an iPad, equipped with a stylus
to help her shaky hands, to buy a toy grand pi-
ano for her great-granddaughter. She picked it
out from more than a dozen versions of the in-
strument on Amazon.
“It is like a wow feeling. I found it!” Mont
said.
The internet has become a crucial link to
the outside world during the pandemic, one
that millions of people still don’t have access
to. Among older adults, the lack of internet has
even impeded their ability to get vaccinated.
But the pandemic has motivated many who
have been isolated at home or unable to leave
their senior communities to learn something
EURO
$1.2079 -.0105
single-shot
virus vaccine
See Labor / A6
Pandemic propels
some older shoppers
BY ANNE D’INNOCENZIO
The Associated Press
SILVER
$26.40 -1.24
they may have resisted until now: how to buy
groceries and more online.
Americans 65 and older rang up an average
of nearly $187 per month online last year, up
60% from a year earlier, according to market
research firm NPD Group’s Checkout Track-
ing. They still spend less than the average $238
per month by the total population, but they
are the fastest-growing group of online shop-
pers by age group.
The biggest online spenders were people
ages 35 to 44 who spent an average of $306 per
month online last year, up 40% from the previ-
ous year, according to NPD.
Shopping is one of a slew of activities that
older Americans now have to do over the in-
ternet, like doctor’s appointments and social-
izing via digital video like FaceTime. Such be-
havior was forced by necessity — older people
face the biggest risk of infection, so it’s more
dangerous for them to go out.
See Shoppers / A6
Johnson & Johnson via AP, file
A pharmacist preparing to give an experimental
COVID-19 vaccine in September 2020.
BY LAURAN NEERGAARD AND MATTHEW PERRONE
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — U.S. health advisers en-
dorsed a one-dose COVID-19 vaccine from John-
son & Johnson on Friday, putting the nation on
the cusp of adding an easier-to-use option to fight
the pandemic.
The Food and Drug Administration is expected
to quickly follow the recommendation and make
J&J’s shot the third vaccine authorized for emer-
gency use in the U.S. Vaccinations are picking up
speed, but new supplies are urgently needed to
stay ahead of a mutating virus that has killed more
than 500,000 Americans.
After daylong discussions, the FDA panelists
voted unanimously that the benefits of the vaccine
outweighed the risks for adults. If the FDA agrees,
shipments of a few million doses could begin as
early as Monday.
More than 47 million people in the U.S., or 14%
of the population, have received at least one shot
of the two-dose vaccines from Pfizer and Mod-
erna, which the FDA authorized in December.
But the pace of vaccinations has been strained by
limited supplies and delays due to winter storms.
While early J&J supplies will be small, the com-
pany has said it can deliver 20 million doses by the
end of March and a total of 100 million by the end
of June.
J&J’s vaccine protects against the worst effects
of COVID-19 after one shot, and it can be stored
up to three months at refrigerator temperatures,
making it easier to handle than the previous vac-
cines, which must be frozen.
One challenge in rolling out the new vaccine
will be explaining how protective the J&J shot is
after the astounding success of the first U.S. vac-
cines.
The two-dose Pfizer and Moderna shots were
found to be about 95% effective against symptom-
atic COVID-19. The numbers from J&J’s study
are not that high, but it’s not an apples-to-apples
comparison. One dose of the J&J vaccine was 85%
protective against the most severe COVID-19. Af-
ter adding in moderate cases, the total effective-
ness dropped to about 66%.
Some experts fear that lower number could
feed public perceptions that J&J’s shot is a “sec-
ond-tier vaccine.” But the difference in protection
reflects when and where J&J conducted its studies.
J&J’s vaccine was tested in the U.S., Latin Amer-
ica and South Africa at a time when more conta-
gious mutated versions of the virus were spread-
ing. That wasn’t the case last fall, when Pfizer and
Moderna were wrapping up testing, and it’s not
clear if their numbers would hold against the most
worrisome of those variants.
Importantly, the FDA reported this week that,
just like its predecessors, the J&J shot offers strong
protection against the worst outcomes, hospital-
ization and death.
See Vaccine / A6
Bovine manure tax credit encounters opposition
BY MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
EO Media Group file
A methane digester collects gas from decomposing cow manure at a
dairy and uses it as fuel to generate electricity. Oregon lawmakers are
considering a bill to extend a tax credit for collecting cow manure.
A proposal to extend Ore-
gon’s tax credit for collecting
cow manure for energy has
come under fire from critics
who say it’s mostly beneficial
to large dairies.
The tax credit of $3.50 per
wet ton of bovine manure col-
lected is intended to promote
the construction of methane
digesters that produce renew-
able energy. It’s slated to end
in 2022.
Senate Bill 151, which would
change the sunset date to 2028,
is supported by the Oregon
Farm Bureau and Oregon
Dairy Farmers Association.
“Manure digesters provide
very clear environmental,
renewable energy, and eco-
nomic benefits to the dairy
industry and the public,” the
groups said in written testi-
mony.
Oregon currently has three
methane digesters in opera-
tion, one of which annually
sequesters 136,000 metric
tons of carbon dioxide — the
amount emitted by about
29,000 cars, the groups said.
Extending the tax credit
helps ensure these digesters
will remain online and may
encourage others to invest in
the technology, the letter said.
However, critics of the tax
credit claim it amounts to a
subsidy for the largest “con-
fined animal feeding opera-
tions,” or CAFOs, in the state.
The biggest benefactor of
the tax credit is a dairy with
70,000 cows, and digesters
are only economically fea-
sible for facilities with well
over 500 cows, said Amy Van
Saun, an attorney with the
Stand Up to Factory Farms
Coalition, which opposes
major CAFOs.
The bill creates a “perverse
incentive” to continue siting
major CAFOs in Oregon at
the expense of rural commu-
nities, she said.
See Tax credit / A6