A5
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021
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BRIEFING
Plans scrapped for
Washington plant
A company backed
by the Chinese govern-
ment Friday ended its
seven-year effort to build
one of the world’s largest
methanol plants along
the Columbia River in
southwestern Washing-
ton, following a series of
regulatory setbacks.
Northwest Innovation
Works proposed a $2.3
billion project to take
fracked natural gas from
Canada and convert it into
methanol, which it would
then ship to China to
make ingredients for plas-
tics used in everything
from iPhones to clothing
to medical devices.
The state Department
of Ecology denied a key
permit for the project in
January, saying it would
create too much pollution
and have negative effects
on the shoreline. On Fri-
day, the company noti-
fied the Port of Kalama it
was terminating its lease.
Economic develop-
ment officials in southwest
Washington blasted the
state for dooming the proj-
ect, saying that the com-
pany’s methods of making
methanol from natural gas
would have been cleaner
than making it from coal,
as is done elsewhere.
Judge pauses loan
forgiveness plan
A federal judge has
halted a loan forgiveness
program for farmers of
color in response to a law-
suit alleging the program
discriminates against
white farmers.
U.S. District Judge
William Griesbach in Mil-
waukee issued a tem-
porary restraining order
Thursday suspending the
program for socially dis-
advantaged farmers and
ranchers, the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel reported.
The program pays up
to 120% of direct or guar-
anteed farm loan balances
for Black, American Indian,
Hispanic, Asian American
or Pacific Islander farmers.
President Joe Biden’s ad-
ministration created the
loan forgiveness program
as part of its COVID-19
pandemic relief plan.
Conservative law firm
Wisconsin Institute for
Law and Liberty filed suit
in April arguing white
farmers aren’t eligible,
amounting to a violation
of their constitutional
rights. The firm sued on
behalf of 12 farmers from
Oregon and other states.
Man convicted of
insider trading
A Washington state
man who admitted using
inside information from
his wife about Amazon
to trade the company’s
stock has been sentenced
to 26 months in prison.
Viky Bohra, 37, re-
ceived the sentence
Thursday after pleading
guilty last year to securi-
ties fraud, said Acting U.S.
Attorney Tessa Gorman.
Bohra admitted he
made profits of $1.4 mil-
lion between 2016 and
2018 with information
provided by his wife, Gor-
man said. She had access
to confidential informa-
tion about Amazon rev-
enue and expenses, and
because of her work.
Bohra’s wife, Lak-
sha Bohra, will not face
charges as a result of her
husband’s plea agree-
ment with federal prose-
cutors. Bohra and his fam-
ily have paid $2.6 million
in penalties and interest
in the case. . Laksha Bohra
was suspended from her
job in October 2018 and
resigned soon after that,
court records said.
— Bulletin wire reports
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Hitachi plans semiconductor
research facility in Hillsboro
BY MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
Japanese electronics con-
glomerate Hitachi plans to
build a large semiconductor
research facility in Hillsboro,
expanding its existing presence
there to work with manufac-
turing clients in the U.S. to de-
velop new technologies.
Hitachi didn’t say what it will
spend on the facility or how
many it will hire, but the two-
story, 219,000-square-foot fa-
cility could conceivably employ
hundreds when it opens in
August 2022. Hitachi has had
a small operation in Hillsboro
since 2014; it’s not clear how
many people it employs now.
Though the facility wouldn’t
manufacture chips itself, Hi-
tachi appears to be betting on
growth in U.S. semiconduc-
tor production in the coming
years. Most chipmaking has
shifted to Asia over the past
two decades, but national com-
petition with China and global
semiconductor supply short-
ages have both Democrats and
Republicans calling for more
production in the U.S.
A bill passed by the U.S.
Senate this week would allo-
cate $50 billion in incentives
to support domestic semicon-
ductor manufacturing. Intel
and Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Co. have com-
mitted to spend billions of dol-
lars to build new factories in
Arizona.
See Hitachi / A6
Wellspring of
water worries
Most new Oregon wells are being
drilled in areas of groundwater concern
BY MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI • Capital Press
Most new wells in Oregon are
drilled where groundwater is already
at risk of depletion, potentially aggra-
vating conflicts among irrigators, ac-
cording to state water regulators.
In the past decade, about 80% of
applications for groundwater permits
were in “areas of concern” or “signif-
icant concern” for declining aquifers
and other groundwater problems, an
agency study found.
Roughly 80% of those applications
were approved by the state’s Water
Resources Department, the study
said.
One-third of the “significant con-
cern” areas identified in the OWRD’s
analysis aren’t currently subject to
regulatory groundwater restrictions,
the report said.
The report’s findings were recently
met with consternation by some mem-
bers of the Oregon Water Resources
Commission, which oversees the
agency.
The problem is reminiscent of fall-
ing chinook salmon populations in
the Willamette River, which some
consider the “best studied extinc-
tion ever,” said Joe Moll, commission
member and executive director of the
McKenzie River Trust.
“I kind of fear we have a similar
situation where we’re watching some-
thing get worse. We’re kind of work-
ing but we’re somewhat limited, i.e.
helpless,” Moll said during the com-
mission’s most recent meeting.
Under Oregon water law, regula-
tors are limited in their ability to reject
permits for new wells, said Justin Iver-
son, OWRD’s groundwater section
manager.
For example, wells must generally
be within a mile of a stream or river
to trigger concerns about substan-
tially interfering with surface waters,
he said.
Similarly, new wells are only con-
sidered to interfere with existing ones
in limited circumstances, Iverson
said. “There is a fairly high threshold
for finding injury.”
Applicants are often “savvy”
enough to know which locations are
more likely to be approved for drill-
ing, he said.
“The statutes say that we’re going
to presume that a new application is
in the public interest, but that’s a re-
buttable presumption,” Iverson said.
Permitting entities must always
make decisions based on “imperfect
information,” but the study indicates
that Oregon may not have the correct
standards for approving groundwater
applications, said Meg Reeves, retired
general counsel for Oregon State Uni-
versity and the commission’s chair.
“This does raise the questions for
me as to whether we have drawn the
line in the right place as to whether
we would act to limit further appro-
priation,” she said.
The analysis will also help prior-
itize aquifer monitoring and may
indicate where the agency should re-
evaluate the boundaries of ground-
water restricted areas, Iverson said.
For example, some wells next to the
Mount Angel Groundwater Limited
Area are showing declines similar to
those within its boundaries, said Ben
Scandella, OWRD’s groundwater data
chief.
See the
map on A6
This does
raise the questions
for me as to
whether we have
drawn the line
in the right place
as to whether
we would act
to limit further
appropriation.”
— Meg Reeves,
Oregon Water
Resources
Commission chair
See Groundwater / A6
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U.S. issues
COVID-19
rules for
health care
workers
BY CHRISTINA JEWETT
Kaiser Health News
Labor Department officials
on Thursday announced a
temporary emergency stan-
dard to protect health care
workers, saying they face
“grave danger” in the work-
place from the ongoing coro-
navirus pandemic.
The new standard would
require employers to remove
workers who have COVID-19
from the workplace, notify
workers of COVID-19 expo-
sure at work and strengthen
requirements for employers to
report worker deaths or hospi-
talizations to the Occupational
Safety and Health Adminis-
tration.
“These are the workers who
continue to go into work day
in and day out to take care of
us, to save our lives,” said Jim
Frederick, acting assistant
secretary of Labor for occu-
pational safety and health.
“And we must make sure we
do everything in our power
to return the favor to protect
them.”
The new rules are set to take
effect immediately after pub-
lication in the Federal Regis-
ter and are expected to affect
about 10.3 million health care
workers nationwide.
The government’s statement
of reasons for the new rules
cites the work of Keiser Health
News and The Guardian in tal-
lying more than 3,600 health
care worker COVID-19 deaths
through April 8. Journalists
documented far more deaths
than the limited count by the
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, which through
May tallied 1,611 deaths on
case-reporting forms that were
often incomplete.
The Lost on the Frontline
project documented early calls
for better respiratory protec-
tion for health care workers
than loose-fitting face masks,
noted serious complaints to
OSHA from hospital workers
that went unaddressed and re-
vealed repeated employer fail-
ures to report dozens of worker
deaths. It also found that
health care employers were of-
ten remiss in notifying workers
about exposure to the corona-
virus on the job.
The new standard would ad-
dress some of those problems.
The rules require work-
ers to wear N95 or elasto-
meric respirators when in
contact with people with ei-
ther suspected or confirmed
COVID-19. They strengthen
employer record-keeping re-
quirements, saying employers
must document all worker
COVID-19 cases (regardless
of whether they were deemed
work-related) and report
work-related deaths even if
they occur more than 30 days
after exposure.
See Health care/ A6
House proposes bills that could break up Big Tech
BY MARCY GORDON
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A
group of House lawmakers
put forward a sweeping leg-
islative package Friday that
could curb the market power
of Big Tech companies and
force Facebook, Google, Am-
azon or Apple to sever their
dominant platforms from
their other lines of business.
The bipartisan propos-
als are the culmination of a
15-month investigation by the
House Judiciary Committee’s
antitrust subcommittee, led by
Rep. David Cicilline , D-R.I.
It concluded that the four
tech giants have abused their
market power by charging ex-
cessive fees, imposing tough
contract terms and extracting
valuable data from individu-
als and businesses that rely on
them.
“Right now, unregulated
tech monopolies have too
much power over our econ-
omy,” Cicilline said in a state-
ment. “They are in a unique
position to pick winners and
losers, destroy small busi-
nesses, raise prices on con-
sumers and put folks out of
work. Our agenda will level
the playing field and ensure
the wealthiest, most powerful
tech monopolies play by the
same rules as the rest of us.”
The proposed legislation
targets the structure of the
companies and could break
them up, a radical step for
Congress to take toward a
powerful industry.
Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado,
the senior Republican on the
antitrust panel, is pushing
the legislation with Cicilline.
Many Republican lawmakers
denounce the market dom-
inance of Big Tech but don’t
support a wholesale revamp of
the antitrust laws.
The proposals also would
prohibit big tech compa-
nies from favoring their own
products and services over
competitors on their plat-
forms. The House antitrust
investigation found, for exam-
ple, that Google has monop-
oly power in the market for
search, while Facebook has
monopoly power in the social
networking market. The sub-
committee said Amazon and
Apple have “significant and
durable market power” in the
U.S. online retail market, and
in mobile operating systems
and mobile app stores, respec-
tively.
See Big Tech / A6