THE BULLETIN • TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2021 A11
A11
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2021
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31,535.51 +603.14
BRIEFING
Bill would allow
human composting
A bill before the Leg-
islature would make Ore-
gon the second state to
allow human composting
as an alternative to tradi-
tional burial or cremation.
House bill 2574, spon-
sored by Reps. Pam
Marsh and Brian L. Clem,
would allow bodies to be
disposed of by alternative
processes, including nat-
ural organic reduction —
an accelerated decompo-
sition process that turns
bodies into soil within
weeks, KOIN reported.
It also clarifies rules
surrounding alkaline hy-
drolysis, known as aqua
cremation, and extends
other funeral industry
privileges and responsi-
bilities to include natural
organic reduction.
A public hearing for
the bill was set for Mon-
day afternoon in the
House Committee on
Business and Labor.
Almost 100 people
had submitted written
testimony as of Monday
morning, overwhelm-
ingly in support of the
bill. Most cited environ-
mental reasons for their
desire to be composted.
Cremation uses more en-
ergy than composting,
and traditional burial in-
volves harsh chemicals
and takes up land.
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Panel urges U.S. to boost tech skills
BY MATT O’BRIEN
The Associated Press
An artificial intelligence
commission led by former
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is
urging the U.S. to boost its AI
skills to counter China, in-
cluding by pursuing “AI-en-
abled” weapons — some-
thing that Google itself has
shied away from on ethical
grounds.
Schmidt and current exec-
utives from Google, Micro-
soft, Oracle and Amazon are
among the 15 members of the
National Security Commis-
sion on Artificial Intelligence,
which released its final report
to Congress on Monday.
“To win in AI we need
more money, more talent,
stronger leadership,” Schmidt
said Monday.
The report says that ma-
chines that can “perceive, de-
cide, and act more quickly”
than humans and with more
accuracy are going to be de-
ployed for military purposes
— with or without the in-
volvement of the U.S. and
other democracies. It warns
against unchecked use of au-
tonomous weapons but ex-
presses opposition to a global
ban.
It also calls for “wise re-
straints” on the use of AI tools
such as facial recognition that
can be used for mass surveil-
lance.
“We have to develop tech-
nology that preserves our
Western values, but we have
to be prepared for a world in
which not everyone is doing
that,” said Andrew Moore, a
commissioner and the head of
Google Cloud AI.
The report calls for a
“White House-led strategy”
to defend against AI-related
threats, to set standards on
how intelligent machines can
be used responsibly and to
boost U.S. research and devel-
opment to maintain the na-
tion’s technological advantage
over China.
Pooches
get trained
to sniff out
pathogens
and pests
U.S. construction
spending rises
Spending on U.S. con-
struction projects rose
1.7% in January as new
homebuilding continues
to lift the sector.
Last month’s increase
followed small revised
gains in December and
November.
Spending on residen-
tial construction rose
2.5% in January, with sin-
gle-family home projects
up 3%, the Commerce
Department reported
Monday.
Despite an economy
that’s been battered for
nearly a year because
of the coronavirus pan-
demic, historically low
interest rates and city
dwellers seeking more
space in the suburbs
and beyond has boosted
home sales. Last week,
the Commerce Depart-
ment reported that sales
of new homes jumped
4.3% in January, and are
19.3% higher than they
were last year at this time.
In a separate report,
the government reported
that applications for
building permits spiked
10.4% in January.
Manufacturing
hits 3-year high
U.S. manufacturing
expanded in February at
the fastest pace in three
years.
The Institute for Supply
Management reported
Monday that its gauge of
manufacturing activity
rose to a reading of 60.8%
last month, 2.1 percent-
age-points above the
January level of 58.7%.
It was the strongest
performance since Feb-
ruary 2018. Any read-
ing above 50 indicates
expansion in the man-
ufacturing sector. The
60.8% reading last month
matched a similar reading
in February 2018 and the
level in those months was
the highest since a read-
ing of 61.4% in May 2004.
Manufacturers are
benefiting from a shift in
spending, with Ameri-
cans spending money on
homes and other projects
rather than going out
to restaurants or risking
shopping indoors, Fiore
said.
— Bulletin wire reports
Ashley Rodgers/Courtesy of Texas Tech University via Capital Press
Nathan Hall said he hopes that detection dogs will eventually be able to save farmers many millions of dollars annually by sniffing
out agricultural pests and pathogens before they spread.
A
national research team is
starting a four-year project
that involves training dogs
to sniff out pests and pathogens, in-
cluding spotted lanternfly eggs and
powdery mildew.
For decades, people have trained
detection dogs to sniff out criminals,
drugs, explosives and diseases. Now,
with a $475,000 Agriculture and Food
Research Initiative grant, researchers
are studying whether dogs can detect
agricultural pests and pathogens.
Nathan Hall, Texas Tech University
assistant professor of companion ani-
mal science, said he hopes dogs even-
tually save farmers many millions of
dollars in damage annually.
“We’re hoping dogs can detect
threats early on, so farmers treat
things before they spread,” said
Mizuho Nita, extension and research
plant pathologist at Virginia Tech,
Hall’s co-researcher.
Detection dogs have been used in
agriculture before — to recognize cit-
rus greening disease, for example —
but only on a small scale.
When people hear of detection
dogs, Hall said, they typically imagine
expensive, purebred working dogs.
But Hall’s team will train 70 dogs rep-
resenting many breeds.
“We’re not going to be breed-spe-
cific,” said Hall.
BY SIERRA DAWN MCCLAIN
Capital Press
He said all breeds have excellent
noses. The question is not whether a
dog can detect scents, but whether it
wants to. Some breeds, and specific
dogs within breeds, are more moti-
vated.
In one experiment with a pug, Ger-
man shepherd and greyhound, the
pug performed best.
“The winner by far was the pug,
which shocked us,” he said.
Another misconception about
scent work is that it’s work. In fact, ca-
nine experts say, dogs appear to think
of scent detection as a game.
“We call it ‘work,’ but it’s not actu-
ally work for the dog. It’s play,” said
Hall.
In phase one of experimentation,
Nita, the plant pathologist, will supply
Hall with spotted lanternfly eggs and
vineyard clippings inoculated with
powdery mildew.
In the lab, Hall will train dogs to
recognize each scent. Like teaching
a dog to roll over, each time the dog
does what’s expected, it’s rewarded.
Erica Feuerbacher, also on the team
and assistant professor of applied an-
imal behavior and welfare at Virginia
Tech, said researchers will test dogs’
limitations. For example, they’ll test
how soon after inoculation and from
how far away a dog can recognize
scent.
Phase two will take place in farm-
ers’ fields. The researchers will part-
ner with the National Association of
Canine Scent Work, an organization
that teaches members, both profes-
sionals and amateurs, how to scent-
train.
According to Amy Herot, co-
founder, the organization has about
25,000 registered dogs.
“I think dogs’ skills are underap-
preciated and underutilized,” said
Herot.
If the project is successful, the re-
searchers say they’ll create curricu-
lum and certification tests.
Eventually, Hall envisions some
people becoming dog entrepreneurs
farms can hire; he also expects some
farmers will train their own dogs.
Feuerbacher said she hopes to see
nonprofits and volunteer groups.
The researchers are starting with
spotted lanternfly eggs and powdery
mildew, but they hope this will be
replicable for other crop threats.
“We have high hopes for it, but
we still don’t know. We’re just doing
proof of concept at this point, but I
think there’s a lot of potential,” said
Nita, the plant expert.
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Buffett says
he overpaid
for Precision
Castparts
BY MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
Warren Buffett stated plainly
Saturday what had been obvi-
ous for some time — he over-
paid, by a lot, for Precision
Castparts Corp.
“PCC is far from my first
error of that sort,” Buffett told
investors in his annual share-
holder letter. “But it’s a big one.”
Berkshire Hathaway, Buf-
fett’s investment firm, paid $37
billion for the Portland com-
pany in 2016, the year the sale
was completed. It’s the largest
sum ever paid for an Oregon
business, and it remains Buf-
fett’s largest outright acquisi-
tion ever.
But Precision Castparts’ rev-
enues stalled in the years fol-
lowing the deal, then plunged
29% last year. The pandemic
and Boeing’s 737 MAX crisis
took a profound toll on aero-
space manufacturing, one of
Precision Castparts’ key mar-
kets.
The Portland company re-
ported $7.3 billion in sales for
2020, according to financial
results Berkshire Hathaway
released Saturday, Precision
Castparts’ lowest revenue since
2011.
Last year, Berkshire Hatha-
way wrote down the value of
the 2016 deal by $10 billion
and Precision Castparts elim-
inated 13,000 jobs worldwide,
40% of its total workforce. The
company laid off 717 Oregon
workers in the spring. Its Red-
mond facility, PCC Schlosser,
employed more than 450
people in 2109, according to
Economic Development for
Central Oregon’s 2019 Central
Oregon profile.
As a whole Precision Cast-
parts remains among the state’s
largest industrial employers.
“No one misled me in any
way — I was simply too opti-
mistic about PCC’s normalized
profit potential,” Buffett wrote.
“Last year, my miscalculation
was laid bare by adverse devel-
opments throughout the aero-
space industry, PCC’s most im-
portant source of customers.”
Precision Castparts makes
large metal components for
aircraft, electrical generators
and other heavy industry.
There’s some cause for op-
timism in the months ahead.
Boeing’s 737 MAX, grounded
for 19 months after two deadly
crashes, is again flying and the
company is delivering new
jets. And with the pandemic in
steep decline across the U.S.,
air travel is poised to pick up
this year.
“No one misled me in
any way — I was simply
too optimistic about
PCC’s normalized profit
potential.”
— Warren Buffett, in his
annual shareholder letter
As women drop out of the workforce, moms call for more aid
BY JULIA FANZERES
Bloomberg News
As women have left the U.S.
workforce in droves, in what
some economists have deemed
the first female recession, calls
for structural changes to sup-
port them are growing louder.
Since the pandemic took
hold, more than 2 million
women have dropped out of
the workforce. The crisis has
exposed the burdens on work-
ing women but also provided
an opportunity for substantive
change, according to Reshma
Saujani, founder and chief exec-
utive officer of Girls Who Code.
“The infrastructure of child
care is broken,” Saujani said
recently at the Aspen Insti-
tute’s RE$ET Conference with
Bloomberg Economics. “No-
body can afford it and it’s not
seen as something that we sim-
ply need in our society — and
that has to change.”
Saujani has spearheaded an
effort calling on the Biden ad-
ministration to enact a “Mar-
shall Plan for Moms.” It presses
for short-term monthly pay-
ments depending on needs and
resources and advocates for
policies like paid family leave,
affordable child care and pay
equity.
A group of 50 high-profile
women publicly signed on to
the effort in January, and last
week the founder of Craigslist,
Craig Newmark, announced
a $500,000 donation to Girls
Who Code in support of the
plan.
“Mothers are facing the
brunt of this pandemic, and it
is on all of us to step up and en-
sure that we are providing them
with the relief and compensa-
tion they deserve,” said New-
mark. “That is why I’m making
an investment in the Marshall
Plan (for) Moms so that we can
continue to raise awareness and
call on our elected leaders to
take action now.”
Women were hard hit in this
economic recession because
it was the first led by the ser-
vice sector, Betsey Stevenson,
an economics professor at the
University of Michigan, said
at the Aspen event. That com-
pares with the 2008 financial
crisis when many of the jobs
lost were in goods-producing
industries, which are more
male dominated, she said.
“If we think about things like
education, and health services,
78% of those jobs are held by
women,” said Stevenson. “And
that got hit really hard in this
pandemic.”