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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 18, 2019)
STATE MyEagleNews.com Wednesday, December 18, 2019 A7 Senators reworking cap and trade concept By Claire Withycombe Oregon Capital Bureau The environmental plan that launched a thousand log- ging trucks is getting a make- over in the Oregon Senate. Private negotiations among state senators have led to a new legislative concept. It’s the skeleton of what could be a new system to gradually clamp down on greenhouse gas emis- sions from Oregon companies. The Senate president’s office has been soliciting feed- back from interest groups in recent days. The Oregon Cap- ital Bureau obtained the con- cept, dated Dec. 11. A previous effort to control emissions and impose signifi- cant fees collapsed in the 2019 Legislature. That proposal, which set up a market system to encour- age businesses to reduce their carbon emissions and would have connected Oregon to cap and trade systems in Canada and California, passed in the House. But it prompted ire from Senate Republicans, who even- tually fled the Capitol to pre- vent a vote on the bill. They maintained the proposal would hurt their largely rural districts. House Bill 2020 also sparked a protest from tim- ber companies and logging truck drivers, who spent a day in June encircling the Capitol, blowing horns to exhibit their discontent. The timber indus- try would have been exempt from regulation under the plan, however. But Democrats are adamant they’ll get a policy through next year to address the grow- ing threat of climate change. Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, a leading advocate for a climate policy, stressed on Friday that the concept is “extremely preliminary,” and that he hopes another, updated version will become public in about a week. “It’s very much a work in progress,” Dembrow said. The new proposal creates a staggered system to reduce carbon emissions. It provides most polluters with emissions allowances. The allowances would scale back over a mat- ter of years. The allowances can be traded among those busi- nesses covered by the policy so that firms who don’t use all their allowances could sell the excess to those that don’t have enough. Unlike the earlier proposal, Oregon would be flying solo, rather than connecting to cap and trade programs in other places. “The limit, broadly speak- ing, is on our state emissions, and it’s got to come down each year gradually in order to get to where we need to be in the future,” Dembrow said. “And industries or sectors that can’t be below that amount will have to purchase allowances to continue to emit above that amount.” The earlier proposal would have created a new state bureaucracy to manage the program. The current concept, instead, puts the oversight role under the Department of Envi- ronmental Quality, Dembrow said. It also takes a different approach to a major point of contention last year: its impact on prices at the gas pump. Republicans argued rural Ore- gonians would feel the effects of a carbon policy more acutely because of the longer distances they must drive to get to work, school and to other duties of everyday life. Fuel suppliers would have faced added costs under the original proposal that would have been passed on to consumers. The new proposal would instead mean that companies importing gas into the state would only adhere to the emis- sions system in the Portland area at first, starting in 2022, and then, three years later, metro areas with populations of 30,000 or more. “That’s a big change,” Dembrow said. While the details aren’t “quite there yet,” he added, it’s generally an idea he supports. “I think it really does address a lot of the concerns that we heard that the bill would put inordinate costs on our rural residents,” Dembrow said, “so delaying the imple- mentation for the most rural parts of the state is an acknowl- edgement that we’re trying to address those concerns.” Dembrow said the cur- rent concept doesn’t include what he feels are import- ant aspects of last year’s pro- posal, such as worker retrain- ing for those who could be impacted by economic changes wrought by a new climate policy. The Oregon AFL-CIO, a federation of unions repre- senting about 300,000 Oregon workers, issued a rejoinder to the draft on Friday. Graham Trainor, Ore- gon AFL-CIO president, said the current draft doesn’t help workers whose industries could be affected by a climate policy and doesn’t direct pro- ceeds from the policy to cre- ating “family wage, quality jobs.” “We have always believed that workers must be at the center of policy when debat- ing how their work could be impacted, and especially in a cap and invest program that has the potential to produce major shifts in Oregon’s economy,” Trainor said in a written state- ment Friday. “Any climate action that leaves behind workers and communities disproportion- ately impacted by the effects of climate change is a policy and a process that should be rejected,” Trainor said. Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton, considered to be a point person for Senate Republicans as they negotiate a new climate policy, couldn’t be reached for com- ment Friday afternoon. Sen. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, who is resigning to run for Congress in early January, has taken a step back from his pre- viously front-and-center role in carbon policy for Republicans, and said when reached Friday that he hadn’t seen the latest proposal. Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. of Grants Pass said he hasn’t been involved in the discus- sions over the policy, and said he hadn’t gotten very far into reading the 60-page proposal Friday. But he said that it was “madness” to consider sweep- ing climate legislation during the five-week legislative ses- sion. The session starts Feb. 3. “We think that trying to run these huge policies that’ll affect every Oregonian in five weeks is craziness,” Baertsch- iger said. Brad Reed, a spokesman for Renew Oregon, a coali- tion of businesses and non- profits pushing for state pol- icy to address climate change, emphasized the concept is an early “starting point.” But Reed said the concept is missing “key components” that the group pushed for last ses- sion, and doesn’t go far enough to make all major polluters pay or invest in moving the state to a clean energy economy. “I want to stress that we consider this as where they will start negotiating,” Reed said. “This is not a piece of leg- islation that the Renew Ore- gon coalition would be able to support.” Oregon lawmakers prepare for 2020 short session By Claire Withycombe Oregon Capital Bureau While many Democrats are eager to tackle big-ticket issues like climate change in the approaching legislative ses- sion, legislators also have other ideas they want to push. During short sessions, which take place every even-numbered year and last no more than 35 days, sena- tors can introduce one piece of legislation and representatives two. Their concepts are already being submitted ahead of the session. State Rep. Cheri Helt, a Bend Republican, is teaming up with state Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson, D-Gresham, to ban flavored vaping products and flavored e-cigarettes, after a rash of deaths this year con- nected to vaping. “Oregonians should not be a laboratory for the vaping industry to determine the dan- gers of these products,” Helt said in September, as deaths headlined national news. “We need to learn more and have stronger legal protections to protect the lives and health of Oregonians.” In November, the Oregon Court of Appeals struck down an executive order by Gov. Kate Brown to temporarily halt the sale of flavored vaping products. The vaping ban is likely to have some support from both parties. Rep. Janelle Bynum, D-Clackamas, and Rep. Rachel Prusak, D-Tualatin/West Linn, have said they would join Helt to support the ban. Some lawmakers view the short session as a chance to resuscitate proposals that didn’t make it through the arduous slog of this year’s long session. Rep. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale, is re-introducing legislation to stop the suspen- sion of driver licenses for those who have unpaid traffic fines. Rep. Jeff Barker, D-Aloha, introduced the bill last year. Gorsek said that suspend- ing licenses makes it harder for people to get to work and make enough money to pay the fine. He said people can be held accountable in other ways, such as garnishing wages or retaining tax refunds. “This bill really is just about saying, let’s use other mech- anisms, but let’s not make it harder for those folks …let’s BARGAIN MATINEE IN ( ) Adults $7 ALL FILMS $6 ON TIGHTWAD TUESDAY MOVIE SCHEDULE DEC. 20 - DEC. 26 JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL (PG-13) Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart. The gang is back, but the game has changed. FRI - SUN (1:00) (4:00) 7:00 9:40 MON-THURS (4:00) 7:00 9:40 *No Late Show on Christmas Eve st 1 y od B o t Choice Au preventative medicine for HIV, known as PrEP, without a pre- scription from a physician — similar to how patients can now get birth control directly from a pharmacist in Oregon. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a similar bill in October. Doherty is working with the Cascade AIDS Proj- ect, which tests thousands of people a year for the disease, to provide ID cards that show a patient has tested negative for HIV before being prescribed the medication, which can sig- nificantly reduce the risk of getting HIV, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We will be open everyday from 9am - 6pm Except Sunday 10-3 until Christmas Merry Christmas everyone! 700 S. Canyon Blvd., John Day 541-575-1786 or 541-575-1785 S159631-1 LITTLE WOMEN (PG) Opens Christmas Day! Four sisters come of age in America in the after- math of the Civil War. WED & THURS (3:45) 6:45 9:35 and hard liquor. “You can get pot delivered to your house, but you can’t get alcohol,” Doherty said. Deliverers would need a server’s permit and to check the purchaser’s age, Doherty said. It would be optional for liquor stores and grocery stores to participate. A legislative work group will meet in Janu- ary to finalize the proposal. “What we’re talking about is more, I’m having a Super- bowl party and I ran out of beer, so I want to order a case of beer, that kind of thing,” Doherty said. Another of Doherty’s bills would let pharmacists dispense Holiday Hours 1809 First Street • Baker City • (541)523-5439 STAR WARS: RISE OF SKY- WALKER (PG-13) The surviving Resistance faces the First Order once more in the final chapter of the Skywalker saga. FRI - SUN (12:30) (3:30) 6:30 9:30 MON-THURS (3:30) 6:30 9:30 *No Late Show on Christmas Eve not make it harder for them to comply with the law,” Gorsek said. The legislation passed out of the House Judiciary com- mittee on a 10-to-1 vote earlier this year, but it died in the bud- get committee. “Lots of things, unfortu- nately, end up going there to die,” Gorsek said. Rep. Margaret Doherty, D-Tigard, has two priorities this session: allowing same- day alcohol delivery and expanding access to medicine that can reduce the risk of get- ting HIV. For the alcohol, she envisioned something like a GrubHub but for beer, wine S s av t o r e w i i off ngs 2 de pri reg 0% ula (so ced r me i t ma excl ems y a u si on . p S159907-1 $9 Adult, $7 Senior (60+), Youth pl y ) s Special Thank You Given to Dr. Keith Thomas and Cyndy Fox I remember the day in 2004 that Dr. Keith Thomas and Cyndy Fox walked in to my office at Blue mountain Hospital for an interview and what became a 15-year-long surgical tenure with Blue Mountain Hospital and Grant County. av e We h ith w . items % of i f le 5 7 - 50% e items wh Dr. Thomas and Cyndy over the past 15 years have worked tirelessly developing and maintaining a surgery practice and surgical clinic in John Day. Both have been huge supporters of the hospital, Blue Mountain Health Care Foundation and Grant County in general. Patients were never turned away when they were in need and Dr. Thomas was always available, indicating “if he was around or in town, he would be available for surgery at any time.” (Sal I enjoyed working with Dr. Thomas and Cyndy for over 10 years at BMH. They were both professional, ethical and dedicated to their patients, our staff and hospital as well as Grant County. They were more than work colleagues; they were friends and our family will miss them. Grant county owes the Thomas’ a debt of gratitude and as much as we hate to see them go, we must wish them well and much success in their new challenges in Colorado. t he y las t.) Come in and draw for a 50% off coupon on any $30.00 to $40.00 any regular priced item. Thank you Keith and Cyndy and good luck. Remember, you are still a member of our foundation Golf Tournament Foursome! Bob & Denise Houser and Family Save $25-$50 or more on sale price TV, and/or computer. Come and check them out! Sign up for a drawing on 12/23/2019. 137 E. Main St., John Day •541-575-1637 S160161-1 S159477-1
