Farm Bureau Legislative Update

Oregon Farm Bureau
Legislative Bulletin 2/12/2010

We’ve hit the halfway mark of the February special session. Thursday marked the last day a bill could pass out of the committee of the chamber of origin. This has substantially reduced the number of bill moving that your government affairs staff has been working. Of the major issues we highlighted in our last two issues, here is what’s left on our plate:

HB 3648 – Reserves 50/50 plan – The bill to curb the potential for aggressive growth of the UGB in the Metro region moved from House Ag to the House Rules committee on Thursday. The House Rules committee does not have the same restriction for moving bills as other committees have. As the Metro reaches its final decision with the area counties for the designations it is our hope that this bill will provide leverage to protect critical areas of ag land from conversion. Chairman Clem gave an excellent closing speech where said he would be interested in “pulling the plug” on the process if critical grounds were not protected. To hear the conversation click here:

SB 1060 – Navigability/Floatage
– The bill moved out of the Senate Environment Committee on Thursday. However, the current bill was amended to only creates a taskforce to address the issue during the interim. Farm Bureau will continue to be engaged in the issue.

HB 3653 – Gag Rule pt. 3 – The bill passed out of committee some time ago but has been hung up in paperwork due to an issuance of a minority report (a substitution of the original bill proposed by those members voting against a measure). The minority report asks for full repeal of the SB 519 (2009), “the employer gag rule.” OFB and other employer groups have joined together to oppose the original bill and support the minority report. However, we expect the bill to pass on a party line vote this morning.

OFB continues to work with a large coalition to overturn SB 519 in federal and state court. HB 3653 will have little impact on the legal challenge. If you would like to contribute to the legal work and help overturn this egregious law, please contact Shawn Cleave at 503.507.3833 or [email protected]


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