 * “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
Let me begin with thanks to all who came to our February 2 Town Hall to help weigh the pros and cons of imposing a moratorium on new licenses to cultivate hemp. The idea has struck some people as strange…isn’t hemp now a legal crop across the country, one that holds the possibility of all kinds of economic and environmental benefits? Why restrict farmers who want to start growing it? Because one of the biggest hurdles to dealing effectively with the immense organized-crime cannabis grows is the stunning abundance of cannabis plants spreading across the landscape, with hemp indistinguishable from THC marijuana. Law enforcement has implored us to temporarily pause the spread of cannabis acreage to improve their ability to identify and deal with the bad actors.
In its original form, SB 1564 would have blocked the issuance of new hemp cultivation licenses for 2022 and 2023. That wasn’t received well by a fair number of farmers across the state; Jackson and Josephine Counties might have a crisis that warrants this kind or measure, they argued, but why extend it to parts of the state that don’t? I found that a fair question and decided that local officials should make the call in their own jurisdiction. I amended the bill so that any Board of County Commissioners that declares a relevant state of emergency can instruct the Oregon Department of Agriculture to withhold new hemp licenses for the 2022 season, and then again, with a new declaration, for the 2023 season. Then the moratorium expires. We also decided that anyone who held a valid hemp license with a clean record in 2020 or 2021 could renew their license and keep growing. The changes reduced most of the opposition we heard but not, per this report, all of it.
A well-developed hemp industry could be a great asset for the Rogue Valley, and I don’t much like restricting people from getting into it. But what I like a lot less is the network of huge illegal grows that are devastating rural parts of our county, and a two-year effort to “flatten the curve” on cannabis growth is an acceptable price for getting on top of this crisis.
…and I mean short; it began a mere two weeks ago, and as I write we’ve reached the halfway point. Difficult or complex bills are falling by the wayside daily. Some of the interesting ones still in play:
—The two historic forestry bills I wrote about recently, both products of intense negotiation between the timber industry and environmentalists, are steaming along. SB 1501, the Private Forest Accord, widens streamside buffer zones and lays the foundation for habitat conservation plans. SB 1546 creates the Elliott State Research Forest, resolving a long, long battle over the future of the crown jewel of Oregon’s state forests. I’m confident both will get across the finish line. It’s hard to overstate how dramatically these pacts change the ‘timber war’ dynamic that’s fractured our state since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. I’m eager to see what lies ahead.
—HB 4002 would mandate overtime pay for most farmworkers in Oregon, as California and Washington State have done. Agricultural workers have traditionally been exempted from mandatory overtime. Some say that’s simply the reality of farm work, which often demands more than 40 hours a week for harvest and other seasonal functions. Others see a strong thread of racism in the mix. In any case, this bill has emerged as the session’s main lighting rod, an intense battle between social justice advocates and the corporate farm lobby. I’ve heard both support and opposition from smaller community-based farmers, many of whom habitually compensate their workers as generously as they can. My hesitation over the bill comes completely from the struggle I’m seeing Rogue Valley farmers endure these days: drought and water theft, crop-frying heat spells, smoke damage, threats from nearby illegal cannabis grows, costly COVID precautions, all on top of the perennial challenge of competing with huge-volume corporate growers. It’s kind of a miracle that they stay in business through it all, and we’re coming to a point where some of them aren’t. Adding another financial burden to the mix is troubling, because if more of them fail we’ll be a much poorer community.
To address that bind, the bill sets out a long timeline to ease the transition. Talks to set the exact numbers are still going on. In the current draft, overtime will initially kick in after 55 hours in a week, tapering down over five years to forty hours. In the first year, farmers with fewer than 25 workers qualify for a state tax credit that pays 75% of overtime costs (60% for farms with over 25 workers), with the percentage dropping each year until the credit expires in 2028 (2026 for the larger farmers). So essentially we’re having taxpayers temporarily share the load of overtime payment to the workers most responsible for putting food on our table—people who have rarely if ever been compensated at a level that reflects their importance to our lives.
Add to this mix uncertainty over how temporary this temporary tax subsidy will turn out to be. What happens if when 2026/2028 arrives, efficient farmers committed to high-quality practices just can’t afford the overtime differential? Will a future legislature repeal the overtime requirement, or sign up permanently to foot part of the bill with tax dollars? Both are hard to imagine. With no good crystal ball available, and after talking to a few Jackson County growers and workers, I lean strongly towards Yes on HB 4002. If you have a clear view, I’d like to hear it at sen.jeffgolden@oregonlegislature.gov before the bill reaches the Senate floor in the next week or two.
 —SB 1536 responds to last summer’s deadly heat dome—not the last of its kind that we’ll see—by overcoming obstacles to installation of air conditioning in rental housing and supporting the purchase of heat pump units by qualified buyers. We passed it out of Senate Housing and Development on Monday. Its path forward looks to be clear; legislators have come to see this as the life-or-death issue that it is.
—SB 1566 would dramatically raise legislators’ pay. I’ll go out on a limb and call it a hot topic. I asked for your thoughts on this one a couple of newsletters ago and got a very mixed bag. The bill’s proponents make a valid and vital point—click here. At $32,839 per year, the current salary effectively excludes a lot of people from the legislature: young adults (especially with children), people without much savings or other income sources, people generally with very limited household budgets. The result is a legislature that largely doesn’t look like Oregon, a problem for representative democracy. We hear all the time of talented, dedicated people who can’t afford to run, and accomplished legislators forced to leave service to meet their obligations.
This bill would lift that $33,000 salary to about $57,000, keyed to the average compensation of Oregonians as a whole. Fair? I think so; this is serious, rigorous work, and we should pay people enough to be able to do it. But I don’t believe that’s my call to make. In a healthy organization, employees are able to make a straight-up case to employers for more compensation, and then it’s the employer’s call. There’s a way to follow that path in this instance. We can put this proposal on next November’s ballot for voters—our boss—to decide. If we do that, I well may be out there making the case for a raise. But I can’t see ignoring what the boss says to take it on our own, just because we can.
A number of other bills deserve attention, but many will fall by the wayside in coming days. I’ll report next time on the survivors. It might be a short list.
More good news on the forest front. Some of the grants from last session’s omnibus wildfire bill, SB 762, are landing in our valley’s foothills. And the thoroughly amazing Butte Falls Community Forest is moving fast from creative concept to reality.
 Photo from Gary Halvorson/Oregon State Archives
I have a soft spot for this one. From 1976-1980 I lived on forestland just outside Butte Falls (Cobleigh Road, for those who know their lower Cascades geography), one of Jackson County’s prettiest and most traditional towns. If there’s a community with people prouder of where they live, or more resourceful in adapting to rough transition as the logging they depended on declined, I don’t know which it would be. This project is loaded with immense possibilities that I can’t wait to see develop. The residents of Butte Falls have earned them.
I won’t even guess what the next two and a half weeks will bring. The pressure’s intense and the mood’s not great. I’m writing this on the Senate Floor, as a computer voice quickly reads the entirety of SB 1527, “Relating to elections”. This is an official requirement for the third reading of bills, the last one before we can vote. In practice the full reading rarely happens, because both parties agree to suspend the rules to get on with business. But it’s become more and more common in recent sessions, a minority party tactic to run down the clock to our fixed adjournment date so that fewer bills get the time they need to pass. The House has been forced to fully read the bills for a few days now, but this morning, Tuesday, is the first time this session that the requirement’s been invoked in the Senate.
 Word has it that the minority party’s fierce discontent with the agriculture overtime bill is the source of this time-killing reading gambit, with rockier days likely to come. I hope not. Stay tuned to see how this all plays out. For now, take good care—
 Senator Jeff Golden, Oregon Senate District 3
At-home COVID tests
Jackson County Fire District 3 is now delivering at-home COVID-19 tests. For more information, visit their website.
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