The Oregon Natural Resources Report - Agricultural News from Oregon

Last chance Oregon farm bills

OFS Legislative Report
Oregonians for Food and Shelter

Legislative Update from Scott Dahlman and Paulette Pyle

Picture Becomes Clearer as Legislative Session Nears Finish

While March 9th is the constitutional last day for the 2014 Legislative Session, the buzz around the Capitol is that the legislature could adjourn “Sine Die” as early as next Wednesday, March 5th. Some legislators came to town in early February with visions of major policy bills moving forward, but as the deadline approaches there has been little in the way of major reforms. The one notable exception is a land use “grand bargain” that is making its way through the process in the waning days.

House changes pesticide bill, approves

By Daily Digger
Oregon Association of Nurseries

As reported recently in the Capital Press (Salem, Ore.), a proposal to reclassify neonicotinoids as “restricted use pesticides” has been removed from a bill currently before the Oregon Legislature. The classification would have meant that only licensed applicators could use the class of chemicals. Instead, the bill calls for creation of a Pollinator Health Task Force to address the issue.

The misuse of pesticides containing neonicotinoids last summer was blamed for a series of bee deaths in Wilsonville, Hillsboro and elsewhere. The compromise version of the bill has the support and participation of both the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, and the Oregon Association of Nurseries. “My goal all along has been to get a conversation started about how we’re going to address this,” bill sponsor Rep. Jeff Reardon (D-Happy Valley) told the newspaper.

600+ Ag & biz groups push immigration reform

By American Farm Bureau Federation

The American Farm Bureau Federation, as part of a multi-industry coalition of 636 business organizations – 154 of them agriculture-related – today urged Congress to move forward with immigration reform this year.

In a letter sent to House Republican leadership, the coalition noted that all of the signatories are “united in the belief that we can and must do better for our economy and country by modernizing our immigration system.” Further, “Done properly, reform will deter illegal immigration, protect and complement our U.S. workforce, better respond to changing economic and demographic needs, and generate greater productivity and economic activity, while respecting family unity.”

Good-bad Ag bills of 2014 Legislature

Oregon Farm Bureau

OFB Legislative Bill Update

The list below represents the bills still alive that Oregon Farm Bureau is monitoring.

Support

HB 4093: Creates public record exemption for written agreements relating to conservation of wild birds entered into voluntarily by owners or occupiers of land with soil and water conservation district.

STATUS: Alive; scheduled for a work session in the Senate Committee on General Government, Consumer and Small Business Protection.

HB 4101: Oregon’s Timber tax

HB 4101: Oregon’s Timber tax 
By Oregon Tax News

The current Legislative Session features a bill (Hb 4101) that seeks to punish victims of previous environmental policies problems with additional taxes.  HB 4101 creates a severance tax on timber production that would go to fund county government as well as distribute back to timber mills who paid the tax through a tax credit for milling logs.   The HB 4101 tax is a severance tax on  Oregon timber at a rate of $15 per thousand feet, board measure.

Over the past 30 years, environmentalists have aggressively pushed policies that have essentially shut down the use of Oregon’s forestlands for logging. While small amounts of timber still are harvested on private lands, logging on federal and state-owned lands in Oregon has virtually ended. Not surprisingly, these policies have led to epic unemployment in Oregon’s rural communities, where logging and other timber-related jobs were the mainstays of healthy local economies. Double-digit unemployment is common in formerly timber-dependent counties in Oregon, and even this doesn’t account for everyone who has lost a job and has given up looking.

Oregon Ag bills update

OFS Legislative Report
Oregonians for Food and Shelter

Legislature Hits First “Cutoff” of Session

While it may seem like we just started the 2014 Legislative Session, the first legislative cutoff came on Thursday. February 13 was the deadline for bills to be moved from their house of origin committee. For example that means that a bill assigned to the House Committee on Agriculture & Natural Resources must have been voted out of that committee by the end of the day yesterday, or it is effectively dead for the 2014 Session. The purpose of the cutoffs is to make sure the focus stays on the bills that actually have a chance of passing. There is a notable exception to the cutoff calendar– bills assigned to the Rules, or Ways & Means Committees are not subject to these legislative deadlines and remain alive until Sine Die. Since the legislature only meets for 35 days in even numbered years, you can expect the cutoffs to continue to come very quickly.

This first legislative deadline is where a majority of bills die in any given session. It gives us the opportunity to cross many items off of our list and begin to focus on the legislation that stands a chance of passing. This year for OFS it means that we are able to cross a couple of bills of concern off of our list but also know what challenges we face ahead. The next week will be focused on floor sessions, where measures are placed before the entire legislative body (House or Senate) for a vote. There will be virtually no committee hearings and our focus will be talking to legislators and counting votes. Here is how the OFS bills of interest have fared so far…

Senate moves crop donation tax credit

Senate approves crop donation credit
By Oregon Senate Republicans

A bill allowing food banks and farmers to put more food on kitchen tables was unanimously approved on Friday. Senate Bill 1541, containing a crop donation tax credit, is part of the Senate Republican Legislative Agenda, and now heads to the House of Representatives for approval.

“This bill is about helping people help people,” said Senator Chuck Thomsen (R -Hood River), the drafter and chief sponsor of the bill. “A lot of the world’s best food is grown here. With the quantity and quality of crops in Oregon, there is no reason anyone should be going to bed hungry.”

Our forests & communties are dying from neglect

By State Representative Sal Esquivel

When I returned to Oregon in 1970 after serving in the Vietnam War, I would spend my evenings pulling green chain at a lumber mill and earning $3.74 per hour in the process.

That might not sound like much, but if you adjust it for inflation, it would be around $22.50 in today’s dollars.

In my early thirties I landed a job as the general manager at a wood products company.

With those kinds of wages workers could truly live the American Dream. They were able to buy a house and car, could afford to support a family and eventually send their children off to college. Those kinds of jobs helped build our middle class.

Congress pressed for farming privacy

By American Farm Bureau Federation

One of the most important issues related to “big data” goes directly to property rights and who owns and controls farm-level data that may be collected, the American Farm Bureau Federation told Congress today. Risks to privacy that farmers face are of great concern, according to Farm Bureau.

“For years, farmers have used technology advances to better match varieties of seeds, production inputs and management practices with specific field characteristics,” said Brian Marshall, a farmer and Missouri Farm Bureau member testifying to the House Small Business Committee on behalf of AFBF. Further, noted Marshall, “While farmers have been experimenting for well over a decade, only now is the industry starting to consider all the uses of this transformative technology.”