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Oregon News
CNBC ranks Oregon among most expensive states. Here’s why
KOIN 6 | By Michaela Bourgeois
CNBC released a list of states where inflation is hitting the hardest — naming Oregon among the most expensive states to live in.
POLITICS
ODOT Can’t Use Cash From Projects to Avert Layoffs
Willamette Week | By Nigel Jaquiss
When lawmakers unveiled the details of House Bill 2025 in early June, the long-awaited transportation funding package earmarked money for “anchor” capital projects. Those included the expansion of Interstate 5 at the Rose Quarter, seismic upgrades of the Abernathy/Interstate 205 Bridge, the Newberg-Dundee bypass, and the Center Street Bridge in Salem. The bill’s architects paired that funding with a stream of cash to pay for the agency’s routine operations and maintenance work.
After several versions of the bill, each less expensive than the previous one, failed to gain enough votes to pass, lawmakers adjourned June 27 with the Oregon Department of Transportation’s’ budget in a deficit position, resulting in the announcement of nearly 500 layoffs set for later this month.
The bill’s failure leaves ODOT in an odd position: It has already banked partial funding for each of the anchor projects, although far less than the agency needs to complete them. It has also received state and federal funds toward the replacement of the Interstate Bridge on Interstate 5 between Portland and Vancouver but, again, far less than enough to cover the project’s estimated $7.5 billion cost.
In a recent review of ODOT’s budget, the Legislative Fiscal Office noted that the department has $5.5 billion (in partnership with the state of Washington) for the Interstate Bridge project; $570 million set aside for the Abernathy Bridge; and $158 million for the Rose Quarter. (That last number was once $608 million, but President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill has at least temporarily cut a $450 million grant secured to cap I-5 at the Rose Quarter.) So the agency has money, just not enough to build the projects on its wish list.
Portland economist Joe Cortright, a leading ODOT critic, has written that such capital projects suffer from persistent cost increases and have such large funding gaps that they may not happen in the foreseeable future.
“The critical question is whether the funds allocated to the anchor projects fund are sufficient to cover these costs,” Cortright says. “Clearly, they are not.”
State lawmakers bailed on a constitutional climate amendment. Advocates will take it to voters
Oregon Capital Chronicle | By Alex Baumhardt
So many Oregonians supported a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right to a healthy and safe climate that the Legislature had to open a second hearing room just to accommodate all of the people who came to speak in support of it at its only legislative hearing this spring.
Mel Martin, an organizer with the Oregon Coalition for an Environmental Rights Amendment who worked with lawmakers on Senate Joint Resolution 28, was in one of the hearing rooms that day.
“The excitement around it led us to believe that it had legs and it was going forward,” she said.
It would have referred a ballot measure to Oregon voters in November 2026 to amend the state constitution, but it died without a vote in the Senate committee that heard it.
Martin and other organizers said they still don’t have a clear reason why.
In the wake of the bill’s death, advocates are instead petitioning to bring it straight to Oregon voters themselves.
Oregon, 20 other states challenge restrictions on Head Start for kids in the US illegally
Associated Press
A coalition of 21 Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the Trump administration’s restrictions on social services for immigrants in the country illegally, including the federal preschool program Head Start, health clinics and adult education.
Portland spent tens of millions of dollars during construction pause at filtration site
KATU | By Wright Gazaway
Portland spent roughly $80 million during a four-month pause on construction of the city's multi-billion-dollar water filtration site, according to Water Bureau estimates. That includes nearly $1.7 million in legal fees and site planning costs since December 2023, when a land use appeal process started.
Neighbors of the East Multnomah County site first appealed to the state’s Land Use Board of Appeals, or LUBA, in December 2023, and argued a Multnomah County hearings officer misapplied county code when the county gave the city approval to build the facility in 2023.
LUBA partially sided with the project's opponents in early 2025 and sent the land use decision back to Multnomah County. The city stopped construction shortly after that decision.
KATU dug into the costs of the delay and learned the city spent roughly $80 million on things like site security, permitting compliance, equipment rentals, and road maintenance. A Multnomah County hearings officer gave the city approval last month to resume construction with new conditions.
BUSINESS & ECONOMY
Oregon airports to receive $5M in federal grants for upgrades
Oregon Capital Chronicle | By Mia Maldonado
Six Oregon airports will receive $5.15 million in funding from the Federal Aviation Administration, members of Oregon’s congressional delegation announced in a news release.
Oregon’s pension fund bet big on private equity. That could be a problem
The Oregonian | By Ted Sickinger
For decades, Oregon’s public pension system has been kept afloat by a gusher of income from its investments in private equity, opaque private partnerships that typically buy companies, manage them, then try to sell them at some point for big profits.
The returns have played a meaningful role in maintaining the system’s financial health, routinely outpacing other investments and keeping a funding deficit caused by misguided benefit decisions decades ago from becoming even larger than the nearly $30 billion shortfall today.
Yet in the past several years, even as the stock market has been booming, that private equity gusher has slowed to a relative trickle. That’s undermining the system’s total investment returns, causing cash flow issues and, as of July, contributing to another rise in the punishing contribution rates that government employers are required to make to the fund.
HOUSING
Portland City Council votes to temporarily waive development fees to spur housing
The Oregonian | By Jonathan Bach
Portland homebuilders won’t pay fees on new construction for the next three years, a holiday the City Council bets will get developers off the sidelines amid a protracted slump.
In an 8-0 vote, the City Council last week approved an ordinance to temporarily exempt new residential projects from system development charges, from Aug. 15 through Sept. 30, 2028.
HEALTH CARE
CareOregon lays off 80 employees, eliminates vacant positions
The Oregonian | By Kristine de Leon
CareOregon, the state’s largest provider of Medicaid benefits, said it has laid off 80 employees and eliminated 70 vacant roles in an effort to confront mounting financial pressures.
Oregon Health Authority offering equity grant for community-led organizations
Oregon Capital Chronicle | By Mia Maldonado
The Oregon Health Authority is accepting grant applications from organizations focused on improving the health of Oregonians who historically faced challenges receiving health care.
The Public Health Equity Grant is available to nonprofit organizations that provide culturally sensitive public health services to seniors, people facing homelessness, communities of color, Native American tribes, people with disabilities, immigrant communities and LGBTQ+ groups in Oregon.
NATURAL RESOURCES & WILDFIRE
Oregon wildfire updates: Burdoin Fire destroys 14 homes, Cram Fire reaches 73% containment
Statesman Journal
A wildfire that ignited July 18 on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge has burned more than 10,000 acres, destroyed 14 homes and kept Washington Highway 14 closed in both directions.
The Burdoin Fire has brought level 3 “go now” evacuation orders for the entire town of Lyle, Washington, and the surrounding areas, and is threatening hundreds more homes, according to a July 21 morning report.
In Oregon, the Cram Fire, the state’s largest blaze, hasn’t grown for a few days and has reached 73% containment, while the fire burning south of Grants Pass reached 14% containment.
The Butte Creek Fire ignited and grew to 2,000 acres on the Warm Springs Reservation.
Cattle Battle: How wolves and livestock collide – and how one Idaho project offers solutions
Oregon Capital Chronicle | By Clark Corbin, Heath Druzin
Western ranchers say their livelihood is at stake after wolves were reintroduced into the Lower 48 30 years ago.
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