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Best Wishes for 2025
Happy New Year! I am looking forward to the upcoming session and the work we’ll continue to do to address the challenges we face in Oregon. I appreciate the apprehension some have about what may happen at the Federal level, but that should not distract from our efforts here in our State.
Town Hall: To get the year started and prepare for the upcoming session, please join me and the Lane County Delegation for a Town Hall scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 11th, from 2pm to 4:00pm pm at Eugene City Hall (500 E 4th Ave.). You will get a chance to hear about the upcoming session, some individual priorities, and an opportunity to ask questions. You can submit questions in advance here: 2025 Session Preview with Rep. Nathanson, Rep-Elect Fragala, Rep. Lively, Rep. Fahey, Sen. Prozanski, and Sen. Manning
2025 Session: Organizational days are next week on Jan 13, 14 and 15. On the 13th all members will be sworn in, the first reading of pre-session filed bills will take place, and the Governor will address a joint session of the House and Senate to outline her vision for the next two years. The first day of the actual session is on Tuesday, Jan. 21st.
Since it’s a long session a large number of bills will be introduced. In the past that number exceeded 3,000 bills total, while less than 1,000 were likely to be adopted. In the House the Clerk’s Office has already processed 1,218 House Bills, 50 budget bills plus many House Joint Resolutions and House Concurrent Resolutions. This is an all-time record for pre-session filings, beating the previous number of 1,043 in 2023.
My committee work: My assignments for this session include chairing the House Committee on Climate, Energy and Environment. In addition, I will serve on the House Committee on Economic Development, Small Business, and Trade and on the Ways and Means Sub-Committee on Natural Resources. Serving on the Climate, Energy and Environment Committee and on the Sub-Committee on Natural Resources are both new assignments for me this session, hence, much to learn. I have served on committees related to Economic Development for most of my legislative career.
Key issues: Energy supply (long-term) and escalating costs is certainly one area to be addressed. Others include solar energy development, transmission challenges, battery storage and handling, developing micro-grids, and consumer protections around installing alternative energy sources in the homes. In addition, changes are being proposed for our bottle redemption program, rebates to encourage moving to battery powered equipment for lawn maintenance, consideration for applications of small nuclear and much more.
For me personally I am working on legislation regarding Recreational Liability, prohibiting people that win lottery tickets from selling them on a second-hand market to dodge child support or other delinquent taxes, additional funding to support horse racing at county fairs, opening Oregon’s primaries and a bill that would allow DEQ to hire consultants to help work on processing of permits to speed up the system.
New money to pay for our Transportation System, additional stable funding for Wildfire Suppression, mitigation and preparation, more funding to address our housing crisis, additional investments in infrastructure at the State, County and local levels and many more areas will take up a lot of time in the session and be critical in any final budget decisions.
As before, you can follow all the work from home by logging on to the Oregon Legislative Information System (OLIS) to view the committee schedules, agendas, status of bills and much more. You can also sign up to testify either in person or remotely. Here is a link to OLIS: Oregon Legislative Information System. You can contact my office if you need help navigating the system.
I am very fortunate to have Andrew Hickerson returning as my Chief of Staff and Gianluca Scoppa returning as a Legislative Assistant. Any success I have is directly related to the work of the staff, and I have one of the best.
Always feel free to stay in touch by email, by phone or coming to the office. You can send emails to rep.johnlively@oregonlegislature.gov or call 503-986-1407.
Sincerely,
email: Rep.JohnLively@oregonlegislature.gov I phone: 503-986-1407
address: 900 Court St NE, H-481, Salem, OR, 97301
website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/lively
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