A8
State
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Senate passes bill to raise smoking age to 21
By Paris Achen
Capital Bureau
The Oregon Senate Thursday
passed a bill to raise the smoking
age to 21. If the House concurs,
Oregon would become the third
state in the nation to prohibit the
sale of tobacco to people younger
than 21.
“This is pure and simple a pub-
lic health bill,” said the bill’s chief
sponsor, Sen. Elizabeth Steiner
Hayward, D-Beaverton.
The bill passed 18-to-9, with all
Democrats and two Republicans,
Sens. Jackie Winters of Salem, and
Sen. Bill Hansell of Athena, voting
in favor. Winters and Democrat
swing vote Sen. Betsy Johnson of
Scappoose changed their votes.
A Republican, Rep. Rich Vial of
Scholls, co-sponsored with Stein-
er-Hayward. Both lawmakers have
said they lost loved ones to tobac-
co-related diseases.
Sen. Alan Olson, R-Canby, ar-
gued the bill looked like the work
of a “nanny state.”
“I appall smoking,” Olson said.
But the senator said he felt people
have the right to make that choice
for themselves.
Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day,
said people who are old enough to
serve in the military ought to be
able to decide whether they want to
smoke. He said the law change would
create a new illicit market for people
between the ages of 19 and 21.
Steiner Hayward, who is a fami-
ly physician, retorted that states have
prohibited people younger than 21
from drinking alcohol and that alco-
hol is less addictive than tobacco.
Recent research, including some
from the U.S. Surgeon General’s Of-
fi ce, shows that brains under age 26
are more susceptible to addiction.
The legislation would impose
fi rst-time civil penalties of $50 for
clerks and $500 for managers who
sell to minors.
“We made a conscious decision
not have criminal penalties because
we know that tobacco companies
tend to target low-income communi-
ties who can least afford it,” Steiner
Hayward said.
Taking 18- to 20-year-olds out of
Advocates, legislators seek
more money for veteran services
By Claire Withycombe
Capital Bureau
Oregon veterans’ groups
have been up in arms since
the governor’s budget re-
duced allocations to the Or-
egon Department of Veter-
ans’ Affairs from the state’s
general fund and backfilled
it with most of the lottery
fund dollars set aside for
veterans’ services by a vot-
er-approved ballot measure.
Now they’ve brought
their concerns to a Legis-
lature busy trying to fill a
$1.6 billion shortfall.
Ballot
Measure
96
amended the state’s consti-
tution to allocate 1.5 per-
cent of state lottery net pro-
ceeds to direct services for
veterans.
Advocates have been
vocal about what they say
is a need for more support
— such as for veterans’ ser-
vices officers, who help re-
turned veterans sign up for
federal benefits.
Byron Whipple, a vet-
erans’ services officer in
Union County, told legisla-
tors last month that in his
area of northeastern Ore-
gon, veterans face problems
accessing travel to get med-
ical care.
In February, community
members housed a 75-year-
old veteran with dementia
for five days because local
agencies could not arrange
services for him sooner,
Whipple wrote in testimo-
ny to the Ways and Means
Subcommittee on Transpor-
tation and Economic Devel-
opment.
“We do not have local
missions and shelters that
certain cities and counties
have,” Whipple wrote. “We
do not have the extra tax
dollars to fund these emer-
gencies. Last November, we
did have hope.”
In December, Gov. Kate
Brown released a budget
that decreased the amount
of general fund dollars for
veterans’ services from $10
million to $2 million, pro-
voking the ire of veterans’
advocates, who said that the
ballot measure was intended
to supplement, not supplant,
current state funding for
veterans.
The Governor’s Office
said in a statement this week
that at $19.8 million, the
governor’s budget reflected
the intent of Measure 96 by
increasing the overall budget
for the Oregon Department
of Veterans’ Affairs.
Although $19.8 million
would be a near doubling
of funding for veterans’
services in the next budget
cycle, veterans groups’ say
it’s not enough, and that the
governor’s plan may meet
the letter, but not the spirit,
of Measure 96.
The co-chairs of the Joint
Ways and Means Committee,
the legislative budget-writ-
ing committee, proposed
$23.5 million in combined
lottery and general funds for
veterans’ services as part of
their preliminary spending
framework in January.
Some legislators have
called for boosting the
amount higher still.
State Rep. Paul Evans,
D-Monmouth, is one of
them.
Evans acknowledged in
a statement Thursday that
state legislators were facing
an “extraordinarily difficult
budget environment.”
“Now we have to find
a way to increase funding
to a level where we can
do some real good for the
men and women we’ve sent
into harm’s way, while also
strengthening our schools,
providing quality health care
and investing in other criti-
cal services,” Evans said.
Freshman Rep. Ron No-
ble, R-McMinnville, wants
to bump the amount of mon-
ey the veterans’ services
program gets by amending
the agency’s funding bill,
bringing the total to about
$30 million for veterans’
services.
Noble says he wants to
obey the will of the voters.
According to the Oregon
Secretary of State’s Office,
83 percent of Oregon voters
voted in favor of Measure
96.
However, according to
the nonpartisan Legisla-
tive Fiscal Office, the mea-
sure did not require that the
amount of money allocated
to veterans’ services in the
general fund be maintained.
“There’s nothing in the
Love Your
Smile
bill that says you cannot
supplant the dollars,” No-
ble said. “But I think that’s,
I’m going to be blunt, I think
that’s just a chicken way
out.”
Noble did not have spe-
cific proposals Thursday as
to where he’d cut back else-
where in the state’s general
fund to increase veterans’
services.
He said the state could
be more efficient, and that
he is preparing to provide
more details at future meet-
ings of the Ways and Means
Subcommittee reviewing the
ODVA budget, of which he
is a member.
Supporters of more fund-
ing, such as Noble and State
Rep. Julie Parrish, R-Tuala-
tin/West Linn, argue that an
up-front investment in di-
rect services will bring more
revenue to the state down
the line by increasing the
amount of federal benefits
Oregon’s veterans receive.
They claim it will also less-
en the burden on other areas
of the state budget, such as
health care and housing.
Parrish was behind the
legislative proposal that
was referred to voters, and
said in a phone interview
Thursday that it was not her
intention to backfill a lower
general fund budget with the
lottery funds.
Furthermore, she believes
the state has the resources to
pay for the veterans’ services
that advocates want.
She said she was work-
ing on a bill to curtail
the costs of healthcare
for
public
employees.
“We have the money,” Par-
rish said, “We’re just not
holding state agencies ac-
countable for how we’re
spending it.”
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Irrigators criticize $100 water
rights fee proposal
A proposed $100 annual fee on all Oregon water rights has
met with criticism from irrigators who say it would contribute to
already mounting fi nancial burdens.
Farmers overwhelmingly testifi ed against House Bill 2706,
which aims to raise money for water management, during a
March 22 hearing before the House Committee on Energy and
Environment.
Members of the Klamath Water Users Association, for exam-
ple, are already paying steep costs to comply with the Endangered
Species Act and engage in water rights adjudication in the region,
said Dave Jensen, a farmer and representative of the group.
For irrigators with multiple water rights, the bill would cap
total fees at $1,000 a year, while municipalities could pay up to
$2,500 a year.
The money raised would pay for the administrative, technical
and fi eld duties performed by the Oregon Water Resources De-
partment, which oversees 89,000 water rights in the state.
The bill would effectively impose a discriminatory tax on ir-
rigators and other water users, said Curtis Martin, a rancher and
chair of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association’s water resources
committee.
Opponents also argue that electricity costs have continued ris-
ing, adding to the cost of pumping water, and irrigators would
have to pay the management fee even if they didn’t fully use their
water rights.
House Bill 2705, a companion proposal requiring the instal-
lation of water measurement devices at irrigation diversions, also
drew objections from irrigators at the hearing.
Complying with the requirement would be expensive and the
Oregon Water Resources Department doesn’t have enough staff
to analyze the new information anyway, said John O’Keeffe,
president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.
“Additional data for the sake of data does not solve any prob-
lem,” O’Keeffe said.
It would be more realistic to ensure that watermasters — who
can already order water measurements when necessary — are
properly equipped to do their jobs, he said.
Installing water measurement devices also isn’t practical for
farmers who rely on fl ood irrigation and divert water directly
from streams onto fi elds, according to opponents.
Farmworker housing operations
tax credit progresses
A proposed tax credit to compensate farmers for half the
operational costs of providing worker housing has made some
headway in the Oregon Legislature.
Senate Bill 1, which is supported by a coalition of agricul-
ture and housing groups, has moved out of the Senate Commit-
tee on Finance and Revenue. The impacts to Oregon’s revenues
and budget from SB 1 have yet to be determined.
While the bill will now move to the Joint Committee on Tax
Credits, which includes members of both the House and Senate,
it was referred out of the committee without recommendation
as to its passage.
It’s common for the Senate Committee on Finance and
Revenue to move bills without a recommendation at this stage,
since various tax credit proposals must still be prioritized, said
Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, the committee’s chair.
Under Senate Bill 1, farmers would be able to obtain tax cred-
its for half the amount of repairs, maintenance, insurance and
other costs associated with farmworker housing during the year.
Oregon lawmakers consider
banning livestock discrimination
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the legal market would result in an es-
timated loss in tobacco tax revenue of
$1.6 million every two years, accord-
ing to a projection by the Legislative
Revenue Offi ce.
An increase in the tobacco tax
proposed by Gov. Kate Brown could
offset some that loss.
In 2015, Hawaii became the fi rst
state in the nation to raise the smok-
ing age to 21. California followed
suit last year. An additional 210
cities and counties, including New
York City and Boston, have similar
laws.
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An incident of prejudice against pigs near the state capital
has Oregon lawmakers contemplating a broader prohibition
against livestock discrimination.
A landowner in West Salem is facing a prohibition against
raising pigs on properties smaller than 10 acres due to a spe-
cies-specifi c regulation by Polk County’s government.
The dispute has caught the attention of Rep. Paul Evans,
D-Monmouth, and Rep. Brian Clem, D-Salem, who have pro-
posed a bill that would ban county ordinances that generally
allow livestock but forbid certain animals.
“It’s weird to exclude one particular species,” Evans said
during a March 23 hearing on House Bill 3016.
The Association of Oregon Counties opposes HB 3016 due
to its “all or nothing” approach to local livestock regulations,
said Mark Nystrom, policy manager of the Association of Or-
egon Counties.
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