Economy

Oregon Legislature proposes tight budget as COVID cash runs out

BY: - March 23, 2023

Updated on Thursday, March 23 at 1 and 3:30 p.m. Legislative budget writers plan to trim many state agency budgets while increasing overall spending in the next two years.  Co-chairs of the legislative budget-writing committee on Thursday shared the broad strokes of their $31.6 billion spending plan for the two years beginning July 1. It […]

With homeless bills headed to governor, Oregon Legislature shifts focus to housing

BY: - March 22, 2023

As a bipartisan $200 million package intended to help hundreds of homeless Oregonians find housing heads to Gov. Tina Kotek for her signature, state lawmakers say they’re shifting focus from triaging a homelessness emergency to building more homes.  The Senate passed House Bill 2001 and House Bill 5019 on Tuesday night, after the House approved […]

Oregon could tighten climate regulations for data centers, cryptocurrency farms

BY: - March 22, 2023

Lawmakers are trying to close a loophole for data centers and force some of Oregon’s biggest carbon emitters to move to cleaner sources of power. House Bill 2816, scheduled for a committee vote on March 27, would require every carbon emitter to follow the same rules as major utilities. A 2021 law set ambitious timelines […]

House passes bill to allow Oregonians to pump their own gas  

BY: - March 20, 2023

Oregon drivers who for decades have been banned from touching gas pumps could soon have the right to fuel their own cars, under a bill the state House approved Monday. 

COMMENTARY
Oregon Senate floor session

Time to shine the light on the taxes of big corporations 

BY: - March 16, 2023

In the current legislative session, as is the case every session, corporate lobbyists are hard at work trying to procure new tax breaks for their clients. These lobbyists representing many big corporations are going around waving a corporate-funded study claiming that business taxes in Oregon are too high.  If you are a lawmaker, you lack […]

An engineer examines a computer chip.

Lawmakers endorse $200 million Oregon CHIPS Act to boost semiconductor businesses

BY: - March 15, 2023

Eight months after Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act, a $280 billion boost to the U.S. semiconductor industry, a panel of state legislators on Wednesday endorsed the Oregon CHIPS Act to give local companies a leg up in competing for federal money.  The bipartisan, bicameral 14-member committee started its work in January with the […]

homelessness in Salem

Oregon House passes $200 million for housing and homelessness, calls it a start

BY: - March 15, 2023

Oregon is on track to spend $200 million to help homeless residents move into houses, give people who have fallen behind on rent more time to pay and create new goals for cities to build homes under a pair of measures approved Wednesday by the state House. 

Oregon farmers tell Chavez-DeRemer to advocate for their needs in farm bill negotiations

BY: - March 15, 2023

As Congress negotiates a new five-year farm bill, farmers from around Oregon asked U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer to make sure their needs aren’t overlooked. Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican who’s on the House agriculture committee, said Congress aims to pass a farm bill by September, though some fear negotiations could last until 2024. She met with agriculture […]

Secretary of State report finds pay inequities persist in state pay despite equity law, raises

BY: - March 14, 2023

Despite a 2017 pay equity law, two studies of the state payroll and two rounds of equity raises, women and people of color working for the state of Oregon still earn far less than white men, according to a report released Tuesday. An analysis by the Secretary of State’s Audits Division compared a 2015 Portland […]

COMMENTARY

Progressives advance a “mend it, don’t end it” approach to Oregon’s kicker

BY: - March 14, 2023

This is the year when progressives in Oregon stopped trying to abolish the state’s tax kicker and began to figure out how to live with it. Their ideas chart a path that could resolve the decades-long conflict over Oregon’s most loved and hated tax policy. Progressives at the Oregon Center for Public Policy have argued […]

artic oil drilling

Biden administration OKs Willow Arctic oil project on Alaska’s North Slope

BY: - March 13, 2023

The Biden administration on Monday approved Alaska’s largest oil and gas development in decades after a bipartisan lobbying effort by members of the state’s congressional delegation and the state Legislature. Though the project has broad support from elected officials in Alaska, it’s strongly opposed by environmental groups. Some are already planning a lawsuit to block […]

The U.S. House in Washington D.C.

U.S. Senate panel probes how crypto mining increases energy consumption

BY: - March 10, 2023

WASHINGTON — The so-called mining for digital assets, or cryptocurrency, consumes as much electricity as some entire nations, and U.S. senators explored the issue last week in what they said was their first-ever hearing focused on the energy implications of digital currency.   Crypto mining in both Nebraska and Pennsylvania was discussed in particular by the […]