 * “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
—Helen Keller
It’s damp and foggy and gray outside the window this morning, not the kind of day that makes you think of drought. But drought continues to be a stark reality, with rainfall totals much lower than we’d like at this point in the season. What will that mean for us this summer, and in years to come? How can we be more prepared?
 That’s the focus of our pending water forum, now scheduled for January so that the most informed people we know can be there for answers. We should also know more by then about how state resources will take on this crisis, because Governor Brown is planning to offer the legislature an ambitious drought package in our December 13 special session.
Struggling to find good news these days? Try this. The corporation pushing to build a fossil gas shipping terminal on the coast at Jordan Cove, to be supplied by a massive pipeline through Klamath, Jackson, Douglas and Coos Counties, has given up on the project. This thing is over.
For fifteen years a succession of major energy corporations, laser-focused on shipping Rocky Mountain gas to more lucrative Asian markets, pretty much said “We’re building this thing no matter what you think about it.” And for fifteen years, thousands of Oregonians across the political and economic spectrums said no. Many of you were among them. You said no to laying a 36” pipeline for volatile gas across 230 miles of forest and farmland, laying it beneath literally hundreds of waterways along the route. You said no to the story that “natural gas”—methane, before PR consultants came along—burns so cleanly that it doesn’t impact climate, because you understood that leaked methane from fracking and other points in the supply chain damages the atmosphere even more than CO2. You said no to wildly inflated job-creation numbers. You said no to the prospect of seizing private property to serve corporate shareholders instead of the public interest. You said no, most of all, to digging our deep hole of fossil fuel dependence even deeper, because project financiers wanted guarantees that the gas would be conveyed and burned for forty years, long past our deadline for kicking the fossil fuel habit altogether.
 You said that no again and again, in peaceful protests, in testimony to regulatory agencies, in petitions to the Governor and other decision-makers, in legal briefs, in letters to the editor and powerful video posts, in countless meetings that brought longtime ranching and logging families together with passionate environmentalists. Prospects looked bleak from time to time, but you would not give up.
So now look what you’ve done. It brings to mind a quote attributed to countless people over the years: Whether you believe that you can or that you can’t...you’re right. Deep thanks to all of you who knew you could.
By now you’ve read plenty about the illegal cannabis grows that spread across Jackson County this year and the damage they’ve done to farmlands, water resources, the agricultural work force and public safety in our rural areas; if not, this new 20-minute video lays out what’s happened and how we got here. You may have noted last week’s news of a busted operation near White City that staggers the imagination.
County government has asked the state for $7.5 million over the next year to hire enough law, code and water enforcement personnel to mount a proportional response. Because of the lead time needed to recruit, hire, train and initiate those personnel, we can’t wait for the coming legislative session in February to secure that commitment; if we do, 2022 will be as grim as 2021 in rural Jackson County.
So for weeks my #1 goal has been finding a faster path. I think we have one. Wednesday the Governor called for a special legislative session beginning December 13, a week from Monday, for issues that can’t wait until the 2022 session. A looming eviction crisis tops that list, but yesterday I got confirmation that a slot to take up Jackson County’s request will be included. So chances just became very good that the county will soon be funded to hire the staff it needs to begin turning the tide on these massively devastating grows. We can’t wait, and it finally seems that Salem knows it.
Most of the special session spotlight will be on housing. The central challenge we’ve faced for a year and a half—heading off a flood of additional homelessness by preventing evictions for non-payment of rent—is still with us. More than 10,000 Oregonians face eviction in coming weeks if we don’t act to extend the grace period for making good on back rents racked up through the pandemic.
If you’re thinking you’ve heard all this before, there’s a reason. State and federal governments have extended renter protection—and protection for rental providers from foreclosure if they’re not receiving rent revenue—again and again. Landlords are losing patience and I don’t blame them. Even if they’re protected from losing their properties to their lenders, many have ongoing bills to pay that depend on rent receipts. They were told the rent moratorium would last for a few months, not years. This has stretched beyond what anyone imagined, thanks to COVID’s repeated spikes combined with snafus in federal and state agencies unaccustomed to crises of this scale.
If you’re one of the landlords who’ve urged me to oppose any further relief to tenants, I’m on track to disappointing you with my special session vote. It’s not just that I think it’s wrong to sit back and watch 10,000+ Oregonians tossed onto to the winter streets (signing us all up for the costs of massive social and police service to deal with resulting problems) when an alternative’s available. It’s also that the current proposal, as I understand it at this point, is the most likely and perhaps the only way for you to recoup the rents you’ve foregone through the pandemic. With all the delays, it’s easy to understand why you might doubt that, but reimbursing your losses is a central part of this plan.
 The gist of some of my email is that this impulse to expand taxpayer subsidy of rents looks like it goes well beyond the COVID crisis—that there’s no end in sight. I think that’s right. As in so many areas, the pandemic laid bare a systemic failure more than it caused it. I wrote about that in the last newsletter. This is important enough to run it again:
This brings us to a hard conversation. Because rents have risen dramatically higher and faster than wages, millions of Americans and thousands of Oregonians were on the brink of eviction before we’d even heard of COVID. The ravages of the pandemic and the imperative to slow the spread convinced us we had to do whatever it took to prevent them from surging unsheltered onto the streets. But over time the problems people have scraping their rent together have less and less to do with COVID. At its core what we have here is a wealth and income gap that won’t stop growing.
So now what? Does the responsibility to help people who can’t afford a place to live, however hard they might work, fade away with the pandemic? And beyond the moral issue of increasing houselessness in the world’s richest country is the economic reality that houselessness generates a matrix of social problems so expensive that we can’t afford not to address it now.
So the big question is no longer how we to get rent-burdened people through the pandemic. It’s whether we continue the newly-expanded government role in housing people on the economic margin, and how we move to an economy where more people can support themselves and their families...just tiny questions like that. Questions that a special session wouldn’t begin to address.
 A couple months ago, after observing that constituent email on vaccine mandates was overwhelmingly in opposition, a number of pro-mandate folks told me I shouldn’t take that as a reflection of citizens in the District as a whole. They’re right. As a general rule, the more heated the issue, the less I can count on my inbox as an indicator of overall opinion.
With that in mind, I’d like your take on the latest pandemic argument in our district. The Oregon Health Authority is rolling out a plan to collect COVID vaccine information in an online data base. While OHA stresses that it’s completely voluntary—nobody’s information will be included without their consent—I’ve received dozens of emails from people whose concerns run from unease to terror.
Some worry that it will be used in ways described in this article. Others worry that if their names aren’t in the data base of vaccinated people, they might not be able to qualify for a job or enter certain businesses or venues. While that’s no different from the substance of today’s information-sharing—employers and businesses are already checking for proof-of-vaccination cards—the proposed technological shift has some people seeing a path to 1984-style totalitarianism. Meanwhile people fully comfortable with the vaccine tend to see this as a common-sense improvement and wonder what the fuss is about.
I’d appreciate it if you’d read the article and drop a line to sen.jeffgolden@oregonlegislature.gov with your opinion. This won’t be a scientific survey either, but will likely reflect the vast diversity of thinking that runs through this District (on most big issues, actually) better than random email. You’ll be helping me navigate coming chapters of this maddening pandemic, whatever they may be.
Thank you. Take good care of yourself and those around you. Stay safe.
 Senator Jeff Golden, Oregon Senate District 3
COVID-19 resources:
Food resources:
- If you are experiencing food insecurity, there is a network of food pantries across Jackson County with shelf stable and fresh food. Visit Access' page to locate a food pantry near you. Before visiting one of these pantries, call Access to verify the hours of operation: (541) 779-6691
- For more information about food assistance programs in Oregon, visit this page.
| 
