A5
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 2021
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General Motors on
Friday issued a new re-
call that expands to all
Chevrolet Bolt EVs and
the new EUV for fire risk
and will provide custom-
ers with an eight-year
warranty on new battery
modules for the affected
cars.
The high voltage bat-
teries used in the Bolts
are made by LG Chem’s
Ochang, South Korea,
facility though GM dis-
covered manufacturing
defects in certain battery
cells produced at LG man-
ufacturing facilities be-
yond the Ochang, Korea,
plant, GM said.
Last month, GM re-
called 68,600 of the
model year 2017-19
all-electric Bolt hatch-
backs for the second
time in less than a year
because of a potential
fire risk.
Until customers in the
new recall population re-
ceive replacement mod-
ules, they should:
• Set their car at a 90%
state of charge limitation
using Target Charge Level
mode or have their dealer
do it.
• Charge their vehi-
cle more frequently and
avoid depleting their bat-
tery below 70 miles of re-
maining range.
• Park their vehicles
outside immediately
after charging and do
not leave their vehicles
charging indoors over-
night.
COFFEE
BUZZ:
Dutch Bros seeks to
raise $100M in IPO
BY MIKE ROGOWAY • The Oregonian
D
utch Bros formally filed for its initial public offering
Friday afternoon, with the Southern Oregon coffee chain
reporting that it hopes to raise $100 million by selling
stock on Wall Street. The company said it will use the proceeds to
pay down $192 million in long-term debt.
‘Jeopardy!’ host
steps down
Mike Richards stepped
down Friday as host of
“Jeopardy!” following re-
ports of a number of in-
appropriate comments
he made on a podcast
several years ago, bring-
ing more turmoil to the
iconic TV game show.
Richards, the executive
producer of the iconic
quiz show, announced
the change in a memo
shared by the show’s pro-
duction company Sony
Pictures Television. He
will remain in his produc-
tion role.
As a result, the pro-
gram will continue to
search for a permanent
host to replace Alex
Trebek, who died in No-
vember. But the ongoing
controversies surround-
ing the process of finding
a successor has tarnished
a broadcasting institution
beloved by several gener-
ations of viewers.
— Bulletin wire reports
SILVER
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Emergency
protection for
workers put
farms to test
BY GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
SALEM — Farmworker
advocates are so far pleased
with emergency rules ad-
opted by Oregon OSHA to
protect workers from ex-
treme heat and wildfire
smoke, though they say more
education is needed to make
sure everyone is aware of the
new mandates.
On July 8, the state’s work-
place health and safety
agency announced a rule re-
quiring employers to provide
sufficient shade and drinking
water when the heat index
exceeds 80 degrees Fahren-
heit, and regular rest periods
when the heat index exceeds
90 degrees.
The rule came on the heels
of a “heat dome” that envel-
oped the Pacific Northwest
in late June, with tempera-
tures above 100 degrees. One
farmworker, 38-year-old Se-
bastian Francisco Perez, died
of an apparent heat stroke in
104-degree weather June 26
at Ernst Nursery and Farms
in St. Paul, Ore.
Oregon OSHA wasn’t done
there, adopting two more
rules on Aug. 2 establishing
safeguards for workers in
heavy smoke and high heat in
employer-provided housing.
The smoke rule requires
farms and businesses to pro-
vide outdoor workers with
N95 masks when the Air
Quality Index, or AQI, ex-
ceeds 201. AQI is a measure
of air particle pollution using
a scale from 0 to 500 — any-
thing below 50 represents
good air quality, and any-
thing above 300 represents
hazardous air quality.
As for worker housing,
farms must provide cooling
areas for workers if they can-
not maintain an indoor tem-
perature of 78 degrees or less.
All rules are temporary
and will remain in place for
180 days. An advisory com-
mittee is now working with
Oregon OSHA to adopt per-
manent heat and smoke pro-
tections.
Reyna Lopez, executive
director of the farmworkers
union Pineros y Campesi-
nos Unidos del Noroeste, or
PCUN, said the rules are hav-
ing a positive impact.
During the week of Aug.
9, which brought another
multi-day, triple-digit heat
wave, she said they did not
hear of any more heat-related
fatalities or injuries.
“The tone was just a lot
more positive than it was that
week of the heat dome,” Lo-
pez said.
See OSHA / A6
Mark Graves/The Oregonian
A “broista,” as the baristas at Dutch Bros Coffee are known, makes coffee at a
Portland location in July.
The offering has been in the works
for months, but Friday’s filing spells
out details of its plans and previously
secret details about the company and
its financials. Dutch Bros, based in
Grants Pass, didn’t estimate how Wall
Street will value the business, though,
or set a timetable for going public.
Dutch Bros did report that its sales
totaled $327.4 million last year — up
27% from the year behind. The busi-
SOUTHERN OREGON
ness booked $5.7 million in profits
last year amid rapid growth. Prior re-
ports had indicated that investment
banks hoped Dutch Bros would be
worth $3 billion on the public mar-
kets.
The company said it intends to
trade on the New York Stock Ex-
change under the ticker symbol
“BROS.”
See Dutch Bros / A6
Oregon labor leader elected
1st woman to head AFL-CIO
BY JEFF MANNING
The Oregonian
PEOPLE ON
THE MOVE
• Dr. Connor King has
joined
the
Center
Ortho-
pedic &
Neuro-
surgical
King
Care &
Research, a provider
of orthopedic, neuro-
surgical and physical
medicine and rehabili-
tation care. Dr. King is a
fellowship trained joint
replacement surgeon
specializing in treating
patients with conditions
of the hip and knee.
• Dr. Poornima Rao has
joined Summit Health
today announced the
addition of board-certi-
fied, fellowship-trained
surgical oncologist spe-
cializing in gastrointes-
tinal malignancies and
common cancers.
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OREGON OSHA | NORTHWEST HEAT WAVE
BRIEFING
GM expands recall
to all Chevy Bolts
GOLD
$1,781.00 +.80
Shuler
Liz Shuler, an Oregonian who rose
quickly through the ranks of U.S. orga-
nized labor, was elected president of the
AFL-CIO Friday.
She is the first woman to hold the
post, generally considered the top job
in American unions. The AFL-CIO is
a federation of 56 unions with 12.5 mil-
lion members.
“It’s still settling in,” Shuler said. “It’s
bittersweet.” The election was staged
earlier than originally planned because
Richard Trumka, longtime president of
the federation, died unexpectedly early
this month.
See Labor / A6
Investigators suspect
human trafficking,
forced labor at pot farm
BY SOPHIA PRINCE
Jefferson Public Radio
The Josephine County
Sheriff’s department raided
a ranch in Southern Oregon’s
Illinois Valley this week as
part of an investigation into
illegal cannabis cultivation,
involuntary servitude, human
trafficking and forced labor.
The raid was part of a
larger investigation that be-
gan with the death of a man
from a different suspected
illegal cannabis farm, located
in Cave Junction.
In that case, the man was
driven to a Chevron gas sta-
tion in critical condition and
left there. The man later died
in an ambulance on the way
to the hospital. Within two
days of his death, that Cave
Junction farm had been har-
vested, and the workers had
moved to the Illinois Val-
ley ranch raided this week,
which goes by the Q Bar X
Ranch.
The allegation of human
trafficking followed multiple
911 hang-up calls that came
from the property, as well as
information from a source
who is remaining anony-
mous for their own safety. Jo-
sephine County Sheriff Dave
Daniel said that on these
farms, which have the ear-
marks of a cartel, the workers
are often victims.
“We’ve heard of the threat
of harm to your family if
you don’t go with us,” Dan-
iel said.
See Pot farm / A6
Climate risk becomes urgent issue for insurance industry
BY KEITH LEWIS
CQ-Roll Call
Climate risk, a growing fo-
cus for environment, social
and governance-minded in-
vestors, has morphed into an
urgent issue for insurers as
wildfires ravage the U.S. and
Europe and natural disasters
destroy property and cost lives
worldwide.
In the U.S., more than 2.4
million acres have burned in
more than 100 large fires and
complexes in 12 states this year,
according to the National In-
teragency Fire Center. Wild-
fires also are raging across
Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain,
Russia and Lebanon, fueled by
some of the hottest tempera-
tures in recorded history.
A report this month from
the UN Intergovernmen-
tal Panel on Climate Change
found that human-produced
greenhouse gas emissions are
responsible for the rise in ex-
treme weather, heat waves and
drought.
On the hook for more claim
payouts, the insurance indus-
try should be doing more to
prepare for climate-related
risk, according to Dave Jones,
California’s insurance com-
missioner from 2011-19. Jones
is now director of the Climate
Risk Initiative at the Center
for Law, Energy and the En-
vironment at the University
of California, Berkeley Law
School.
“The role of insurance com-
missioner is to protect con-
sumers and supervise the fi-
nancial stability of insurance
markets,” Jones said .
Insurance is essential for
consumers and businesses,
but the industry faces cli-
mate-driven physical risk to
covered assets as well as transi-
tion risk in their reserve port-
folios, he said.
The risks include invest-
ments in fossil fuel compa-
nies and other greenhouse gas
emitting industries that are
expected to decline amid the
carbon transition and could
become stranded assets, he
said. During his tenure in Cali-
fornia, he was the first financial
regulator to evaluate insurance
companies’ reserve portfolios
for climate risk.
As commissioner, Jones
asked companies to voluntarily
divest holdings in thermal coal
based on economic indicators
that projected its decline. He
mandated that insurers within
the state disclose investments
in oil, gas, coal or utilities that
are more than 50 % derived
from those sources.
“As an insurance regulator,
one of my responsibilities was
to ensure companies were in-
vesting in assets that retain
value, so they have adequate
reserves to pay claims,” Jones
said.
See Insurance / A6