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State
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Bentz: Legislature should prioritize revenue, PERS reform
By Paris Achen
and Claire Withycombe
Capital Bureau
A prominent legislator
who helped shepherd a mas-
sive transportation package
through the Legislature earli-
er this year is meeting resis-
tance from leadership on his
calls to prioritize budget and
tax reform.
“Spending reform, tax
reform and (public pension
reform) are in another world
of complexity as compared to
the transportation package,”
said Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-On-
tario, in a meeting with the
Pamplin Media/EO Media
Capital Bureau Wednesday,
Sept. 13. “We should be start-
ing now.”
His comments came hours
after a coalition called Prior-
ity Oregon announced it had
filed an initiative petition to
make state and local public
agencies use excess revenues
to pay down unfunded obliga-
tions of the Public Employees
Retirement System.
The state faces potentially
dramatic shortfalls for Medic-
aid and PERS in the next two
years.
Instead, Gov. Kate Brown
and House Speaker Tina
Kotek, D-Portland, want to
focus on passing a “cap-and-
invest” carbon program in
the 35-day legislative ses-
sion early next year. The pro-
gram would set a limit on the
amount of carbon a business
could emit and put a price on
any excess. It would yield
an estimated $700 million
per year in revenue to invest
in projects to slow climate
change.
“If they pass cap and in-
vest to pull $700 million a
year out of our economy, are
we going to go back a short
year later and say we want
another $2 billion to address
PERS?” Bentz said. “How
much can our economy
stand?”
Wildfire fighting
costs hit $340 million
By Paris Achen
Capital Bureau
File photo
Rep. Cliff Bentz is meeting resistance from leadership on
his calls to prioritize budget and tax reform.
Bentz and three other law-
makers — Rep. Phil Barn-
hart, D-Eugene; Sen. Brian
Boquist, R-Dallas; and Sen.
Mark Hass, D-Beaverton —
convened in late August to
discuss a format for pursuing
revenue and spending reform.
The Ontario lawmaker
said he approached Brown
and Kotek about pursuing re-
form ideas now.
“What I have been told is
wait until March,” Bentz said.
Hass agreed that “cap and
invest” policy should wait un-
til 2019, when instead of 35
days, lawmakers have more
than five months to pass laws.
(The Oregon Legislature con-
venes for the shorter session
in even years and the longer
session in odd years.)
“Policies of that magni-
tude should be dealt with
in the long session, and the
short session should be to add
changes that require prompt
attention,” Hass said.
“I think it is fair to say we
can start a process to look at
that, but I think it is some-
thing we should pick up in
2019,” he added.
There are a few reasons
why leadership may want
to delay an overhaul of the
state’s interconnected budget,
public pension system and tax
structure.
For one thing, it’s unclear
how Congress may reform
health care and tax policies
that affect the state budget.
There’s talk that Medicaid
funding for states could move
to a block grant format, Bentz
said. That potentiality and any
changes to tax policy, such as
policies surrounding deduc-
tions, could affect the amount
of revenue Oregon brings in.
There’s also the complexi-
ty factor: simply put, tax pol-
icy is hard.
Hass, a consistent advo-
cate for tax reform, said last
month that legislators needed
to address tax reform sooner
rather than later, rather than
risk future fiscal crises.
The Beaverton Democrat
has advocated for an overhaul
to the state’s tax structure, a
move he believes could help
address the pension system’s
$24 billion unfunded liability
— the amount of money that
the state owes retirees that its
assets cannot currently pay.
Meanwhile, Gov. Brown
has convened an advisory
task force looking at ways to
reduce the unfunded liability
of PERS by $5 billion.
“Nobody disputes the need
to do this (revenue and spend-
ing reform); it’s just a ques-
tion of when to start,” Bentz
said.
Gov. Brown touts economic
development record in rural Oregon
By Claire Withycombe
Fighting Oregon wild-
fires this year so far has cost
state, federal, local, tribal
and private entities more
than $340 million and con-
sumed 678,000 acres, state
authorities said Monday.
All of that activity man-
ifested into smoke-filled air
and limited visibility for
many Oregonians.
The “sheer volume of
fires all at the same time and
continuous days of growth
up through Washington and
Idaho” created the oppres-
sive conditions, said Doug
Grafe, fire protection divi-
sion chief at the Oregon De-
partment of Forestry.
More than 8,000 person-
nel from different agencies
have been deployed to fight
1,903 separate wildland fires
across the state. That’s more
than one-third of the per-
sonnel deployed to combat
wildfires nationwide, Grafe
said.
The most dangerous fires
started in late July and early
August. The region has been
dry since mid-June, with
no significant rainfall until
Sunday. Tens of thousands
of lightning strikes contrib-
uted to the severity of the
fire season.
Smoke had already cap-
tured the attention of most
of the state, when the hu-
man-caused Eagle Creek fire
sparked in the state’s scenic
gem, the Columbia Gorge,
Sept. 15, trapped 150 hikers
and threatened the city of
Portland’s water supply, the
Bull Run Watershed.
Fire crews kept the fire
from that crucial water sup-
ply and from the Multnomah
Falls Lodge, where flames
came within 40 feet of the
historic structure.
“A lot of what this fire
was doing was spotting out
ahead of itself within com-
munities, and they were just
having to go after it, and
catch it,” said Oregon Fire
Marshal Jim Walker. “They
did that hand-in-hand with
all of the resources, partner-
ing together.”
Rain on Sunday evoked
widespread excitement in
the Gorge, where firefighters
Capital Bureau
Courtesy photo/Oregon
Department of Forestry
A firefighter working on
wildfires in Southern
Oregon.
continued to battle flames
visible from Interstate 84.
“I think we are in a good
place with the rain and the
conditions,” Grafe said.
Gov. Kate Brown de-
ployed the Oregon National
Guard Aug. 2 to respond to
several severe fires. Na-
tional Guard helicopters
assisted with the rescue of
trapped hikers and poured
1.3 million gallons of water
on burning land and struc-
tures. ODF has released the
helicopters after 45 days
of duty.
The conditions on air
personnel are as bad, if not
worse, than combat, said
Dave Stuckey, deputy direc-
tor of the Oregon Military
Department.
The state placed 950 Na-
tional Guardsmen on state
active duty, a high for any
year since Hurricane Katrina
in 2005, when 1,979 Oregon
National Guard personnel
were deployed, Stuckey
said.
Fire crews have suf-
fered no fatalities, but there
have been about 34 injuries
among National Guard per-
sonnel and 23 among ODF
personnel.
The governor’s order to
deploy the National Guard
covered four fires: Eagle
Creek, Nena Springs, Milli
and Chetco Bar.
Those four fires alone
threatened 19,978 residenc-
es and destroyed 10. Nearly
8,000 people were evacuat-
ed in those areas. The cost
of fighting the fire was about
$15.3 million, said Oregon
Fire Marshal Jim Walker.
Oregon is one of the few
states with a wildfire insur-
ance policy, but that will
cover only 42,000 acres, or
about 6 percent of the affect-
ed areas in the state, Walker
said.
The annual Pendleton
Round-Up gave Oregon Gov.
Kate Brown a platform to tout
her accomplishments in East-
ern Oregon more than a year
before she is expected to run
for re-election.
Although Brown, a Port-
land Democrat who has held
the post since February 2015,
has not formally announced
her candidacy for 2018, her
political action committee has
been fundraising.
There are already official
contenders for the GOP nom-
ination, including State Rep.
Knute Buehler, R-Bend, who
was also spotted at the Round-
Up festivities this week.
In a political era character-
ized by ideological divisions
between rural residents and
urbanites, the governor on Fri-
day — clad in a western shirt
and cowboy hat — pledged
her commitment to stimulate
Oregon’s rural economies.
Brown, who has now at-
tended the annual Pendleton
Round-Up festivities every
year of her administration,
went to a VFW fundraiser
breakfast Friday morning and
rode a horse in the celebrat-
ed Westward Ho! Parade in
downtown Pendleton.
In a speech at an annu-
al governor’s luncheon at
Blue Mountain Community
College Friday afternoon,
sponsored by the college, the
Eastern Oregon Women’s Co-
alition and the Confederated
Tribes of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation, Brown said she
was aware that the economic
recovery had not fully reached
rural Oregon.
“So our focus has been
really making sure that our
communities that are strug-
gling have the tools and the
resources that they need to
make sure that their kids can
get an excellent education
in that community, and also
grow up and get a good-pay-
ing job in that community,”
Brown said.
The governor recalled
visiting Ontario, a town of
approximately 11,000 on the
Idaho border, after this win-
ter’s snowstorms devastat-
EO Media Group/E.J. Harris
Gov. Kate Brown gets
pancakes at the Cowboy
Breakfast on Friday in
Stillman Park while in
town for the Pendleton
Round-Up.
EO Media Group/Kathy Aney
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown rides with members of the
Oregon Mounted Governor’s Guard during Friday’s
Westward Ho! Parade in Pendleton.
ed the primarily agricultural
community.
“I asked folks there, I said,
‘What can we do to make this
community better?’” Brown
said. “They said, we need a
transloader facility. And you
know what, Democrats and
Republicans in the state legis-
lature and everybody came to-
gether and said, ‘We’re going
to fund a transloader facility
for Ontario,’ and that’s exact-
ly what we did.”
While overall, Oregon is
adding jobs quickly and its
GDP is growing, the state’s
rural areas are just starting to
see the benefits of an econom-
ic recovery that has taken off
in Portland and other metro
areas of the state.
Generally, urban econo-
mies tend to be more diverse
than rural ones, and as a result
bounce back more quickly
from economic dips such as
the Great Recession. Recent
advances in technology and
broader economic condi-
tions have also fundamental-
ly changed rural businesses,
such as increased automation
in timber and agriculture.
But rural Oregonians can
also be heard complaining
of a Portland-centric govern-
ment that, from a regulatory
perspective, fails to acknowl-
edge the needs of farther-flung
corners of the state.
For example, State Rep.
Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, whose
district spans about a third of
Eastern Oregon, this week
expressed concerns about the
effects of a proposed cap-and-
invest program on rural Ore-
gonians, who typically must
drive farther to get to work,
school and shopping.
His fear is that a cap-and-
invest program, which would
place limits on the amount
of carbon dioxide that busi-
nesses could emit every year,
would lead to higher prices
at the fuel pump and directly
affect pocketbooks and com-
merce in rural Oregon.
In a brief interview Friday
morning, Brown countered by
saying that she hopes the pro-
gram can be tailored to sup-
port renewable energy proj-
ects in Eastern Oregon, where
sun and wind are abundant.
The cap-and-invest pro-
posal, still in the early stages,
is backed by Speaker of the
House Tina Kotek, D-Port-
land, and various other Dem-
ocrats in the legislature.
This year’s legislative ses-
sion did bring some victories
for rural Oregonians.
Lawmakers were able to
agree on a $5.3 billion trans-
portation funding package
and on $10 million in funding
for economic development
projects on the Oregon side
of the border with Idaho. On
Friday, Brown also touted in-
vestments in housing and wa-
ter infrastructure.
Chuck Sams, communica-
tions director for the Confed-
erated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation, who in-
troduced the governor before
she made remarks at the lun-
cheon, said his community
was pleased by the success
of the transportation package
and the renewal of a special
economic development zone
on the reservation.
Sams said the tribes mon-
itored more than 300 bills
this legislative session, and
while he keeps a close eye
on gun-related legislation
and wishes there was more
funding for mental health
treatment in the region, he
was mostly pleased with pol-
icymakers’ recent handling of
issues affecting rural Oregon.
For all of their political and
cultural differences, rural and
urban Oregon do face some
common challenges, such as a
dearth of affordable housing.
Brown, a former legislator,
concluded her speech Friday
on that note, with a recollec-
tion that State Sen. Ted Ferr-
ioli, R-John Day — now the
Senate Minority Leader — at-
tended her wedding in 1997.
For Ferrioli, that meant a five-
or six-hour drive.
“It doesn’t matter where
you live,” Brown said. “It
doesn’t matter who you voted
for. We all think that Oregon
is special, and I know that
by working together, we can
keep it that way.”
THE JUNIPER ARTS COUNCIL
& JOHN DAY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH PRESENT
KERRY GROMBACHER
in concert
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2017, 7 PM
AT THE JOHN DAY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
“Kerry Grombacher is the best kind of songwriter, with lyrics that
take us on journeys to places we’ve never visited before, and melodies
so pure and true that they seem to rise up from the plains…”
- Nalini Jones, Newport Folk Festival
The Juniper Arts Council is pleased to bring this modern-day
troubadour back to Grant County for an encore concert.
“There is no truer example of a troubadour than Kerry Grombacher.”
Dave Stamey, 2016 Inductee, Western Music Hall of Fame
The concert is free
and open to the public.
The Juniper Arts Council will accept
donations for its scholarship fund.
In 2017, the JAC gave three $500
scholarships to Grant County graduates.
06092
541-523-6377
541-963-6577
541-573-6377
541-576-2160
06145