Expanding Oregon’s Bottle Bill

SB 707 will be signed by the Governor next Thursday, in a combined ceremony with HB 2626.  The NY Times Magazine ran a great article this weekend about Oregon’s bottle bill and other bottle bills throughout the country.  An article well worth the read.

Protecting Oregon’s Coastal Ecosystems

SB 790, which places a moratorium on offshore drilling for oil, gas or sulfur off of Oregon’s coast until 2010 and allows the Governor to rescind the moratorium if there is an oil embargo against the United States, is on this list of the many bills scheduled for a vote on the House floor.

Protecting Oregon’s Farmland and Special Places

As we reported last week, the Senate Environment and Natural Resources committee passed a well amended HB 2723 (it actually happened this week, not last week). HB 2723 gives cities and counties the ability to create a process that legalizes illegally divided lots or parcels that were purchased without knowledge of the legal status of the land.  It also creates safeguards to put a stop to the sale of illegal lots to unsuspecting purchasers, which protects natural resource lands from inappropriate fragmentation and provides certainty in the real estate market.  It is now on the Senate floor and will need to go back to the House for concurrence.

The Metro sponsored bill, SB 1011, passed out of the House Energy and Environment committee and is headed to the House floor.  SB 1011 allows for better long term planning, by streamlining the process for communities to designate rural and urban reserves outside of the UGB.  This provides longer term planning certainty for both the agricultural sector, and for urban expansions, by requiring there to be rural reserves earmarked when the urban reserves are identified through the streamlined process.  It’s companion bill, HB 2051, which grants Metro a 2 year extension to complete the inventory and analysis for urban and rural reserves has already been signed by the Governor.

The House gut and stuffed the bad bill, SB 508, which would have allowed hospice facilities in exclusive farm use (EFU) zones. This was special legislation designed to give a windfall to a chain of facilities around the state and was stuffed with an agro-tourism bill. Health care facilities should not be located near industrial agriculture operations, where conflicts about noise and farm practices can occur and where they are far away from essential health services.  It is now more than likely dead.

HB 3337 was scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor today.  HB 3337 is the bill which divides the Eugene/Springfield UGB into two UGB’s for the purpose of inventorying buildable lands. This takes away the ability to adequately plan growth for the region as a whole.

SB 336 is a bill we haven’t reported on yet, which incorporates the consideration of schools when land use planning decisions are made.  This good bill passed the House Education committee on Tuesday and is awaiting a vote on the House floor.  It will need to go back to the Senate for concurrence.

Another new bill is SB 514, which provides property tax breaks for conservation easements – providing another tool for conservation groups to protect important farm and forestland. SB 514 allows land presently subject to farm and forestland special assessment to be transferred to a conservation easement without payment of additional taxes, making it more attractive for landowners to utilize conservation easements.  SB 514 passed the Senate on May 11^th and had a hearing today in the House Revenue committee.

Protecting Oregon’s Wildlife

HB 2971 passed the Senate Environment and Natural Resources committee yesterday (not last Thursday as previously reported) and is headed to the Senate floor then on to the House for concurrence. HB 2971 allows the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to appoint individuals (sport hunters) to act as agents of the state to hunt cougars and bears with dogs as part of the Cougar and Bear Management Plans. Although many OCN groups are not happy about the passage of this bill, there is optimism that the legislature will want to re-visit the Cougar and Bear Management Plans to see if they are adequately protecting these animals in future sessions.

Natural Agency Budgets

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Budget was heard this week.  There are concerns among OCN groups that there are some budget notes included in the budget that are policy and not budget related.  For example, there is a budget note providing money to fish hatcheries that tie the hands of the department from doing anything related to the hatcheries without coming back to the legislature.  There were also some good performance measures missing from the final bill.

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