Your Food, Your Legislature: A Decidedly Mixed Session for Consumers

With my left arm swaddled in a brace from fingertips to elbow for a week—not serious, just a careless slip with a knife—and my typing reduced to a single finger, I decided that in order to publish a timely roundup of the month-long legislative session that ended on Mar. 3, I needed some help. The following is an edited version of the 2016 Oregon Legislative Recap published by Friends of Family Farmers.

Regulation of Genetically Engineered Seeds and Crops (HB 4122):

[This bill would] allow local restrictions on genetically engineered (GE) crops in order to protect Oregon’s non-GE farmers from the risks of contamination of their seed and other crops [field of genetically modified canola, above].

Genetically modified sugar beet and field.

After more than two years of inaction by the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Legislature to chart out state-level farmer protections, [this bill was intended] to address the need for GE regulations in the state. As a reminder, in late 2013, the Legislature "pre-empted" local restrictions (with the exception of a GE crop ban already on the ballot in Jackson County). And along with that pre-emption came promises from then-Governor Kitzhaber and many legislators that Oregon would enact state-level GE rules to protect at-risk farmers.

Despite hearing a large volume of supportive testimony from farmers, organic industry representatives and sustainable agriculture organizations in favor of allowing local regulation of GE crops, the House Committee on Consumer Protection declined to let the bill out of committee with this language in it. Instead, in response to the recent federal approval of a fast-growing genetically engineered salmon, the committee modified the bill to require labeling of GE fish sold for human consumption in Oregon. While the House passed this bill in a 32-27 vote, it died in the Senate.

Minimum Wage Increase (SB 1532)

Facing proposals to raise Oregon’s minimum wage via ballot measure this fall, the Legislature decided to pass its own minimum wage increase. In order to accommodate rural and agricultural concerns, the bill phases in wage increases more slowly than the ballot measures would have, and creates three different minimum wages in Oregon, with the highest located in urban areas.

Under the new law, the minimum wage (currently at $9.25/hour) will go up in July 2016 by $.50 to $9.75/hour inside the urban growth boundary (UGB) at the edge of Portland, and up $.25 to $9.50/hour in several "mid-sized" counties including those in the Willamette Valley, the North Coast, and Deschutes, Hood River, Jackson, and Josephine Counties, and also in 18 more remote "frontier" counties. The minimum wage rate will continue to rise gradually until 2022 when it reaches $14.75 inside the Portland UGB, $13.50 in the "mid-sized counties," and $12.50 in the more rural "frontier" counties. As a result of the bill’s passage, campaigns to pass separate ballot measures for statewide $15/hour and $13.50/hour minimum wages have now been abandoned.

In the final few days of the session, proposals to create a tax credit for farms, agricultural, and food businesses to help them adjust to the minimum wage increases were discussed. However, efforts to limit these credits to smaller farm and food businesses were opposed by groups representing large food processors and large agricultural operations and the Legislature did not act on that item. This tax credit proposal will likely be discussed again by the Legislature in 2017 and, if carefully crafted, could help smaller farms that may struggle to meet some of the wage increases.

Urban Growth Boundary Expansion Pilot Project (HB 4079)

Complaints over a lack of affordable housing in Oregon were the impetus for a land use pilot project bill passed by the legislature in February. The legislation allows the Land Conservation Development Commission (LCDC) to approve two pilot projects for expanding urban growth boundaries (UGBs) by 50 acres each if developments are for the purpose of meeting identified affordable housing needs, one in a town smaller than 25,000 people, and a second in a city larger than that. Some counties are excluded altogether including Washington, Multnomah, Clackamas, Marion, and Polk, leading some to speculate that planned UGB expansions onto farmland under this pilot could happen outside Eugene or Bend. Many fear that high value farmland will be lost as these two 50 acre pilot projects are established. Farmland protection advocates will need to remain vigilant to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Manure Digester Tax Credit (SB 1507)

In the Legislature’s final days, a tax credit bill was revealed that included the extension of controversial payments for manure digesters (left). This expensive tax credit primarily flows to the state’s largest factory-scale dairy operation, Threemile Canyon Farms, in Eastern Oregon [link for more information on this controversial factory farm]. The tax credit, paid at $5 per "wet ton" for manure converted to energy in an anaerobic digester, was set to expire at the end of 2017. Since 2013, it has paid approximately $6 million in taxpayer funds to Threemile after they built a long-promised digester to handle manure from roughly half their cows. Under the bill the legislature eventually passed, the credit was reduced to $3.50/wet ton but extended for five more years, until 2022. If the credit remains unchanged and Threemile does not expand their digester any further, this one operation will receive approximately $9 million in additional taxpayer funds in coming years.

[The opposition to] the manure digester tax credit [was] because it has very limited to negligible environmental benefits, and primarily benefits larger (including Oregon’s largest) confinement livestock operations, that have manure disposal problems not faced by smaller pasture-based producers. A tax subsidy this lucrative could even serve as a recruitment tool for new factory farms to set up shop in Oregon.

[This bill was passed on a vote of 53 ayes to 6 nays, and Gov. Kate Brown signed it into law on Mar. 10. It will take effect June 2, 2016.]

Your Food, Your Legislature: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The following is an edited version of an original report that was published on the Friends of Family Farmers' Muckboots in the Capitol blog. The numbered title of each bill (in bold) is linked to an overview on the state website.

The Good

House Bill (HB) 3239: The "Aggie Bonds" bill was introduced with bipartisan co-sponsorship on February 27. It builds on 2013’s Beginning and Expanding Farmer Lending Program (aka Aggie Bonds) by expanding the definition of "lender" to include both NW Farm Credit Services and what are called seller-carried financing contracts, when a landowner agrees to carry the loan for the beginning farmer. This bill will help provide lower interest loans for qualifying beginning farmers.

HB 2446: The raw milk advertising bill would repeal the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s (ODA’s) ban on advertising legally available raw milk. Oregon allows small batch raw milk production if it is sold directly to consumers on-farm, but prohibits advertising of this legally available farm product, which severely limits farmers' ability to reach consumers.

The ODA had been directing some farmers to remove information about raw milk from their website, threatening them with penalties. Cast Iron Farm in McMinnville sued the ODA with help from the Institute for Justice, arguing that the advertising ban was an unconstitutional restriction on the First Amendment right of free speech. ODA settled the suit and agreed to not enforce the ban and introduced HB 2446 to repeal it.

The Good and Bad

Senate Bill (SB) 341: Similar to laws on the books in over 20 other states, this bill would protect agritourism providers—farmers and ranchers—from lawsuits and legal liability when customers come onto their property and are injured through no fault of the owners. This is based on the customer's presumed acceptance of the "inherent risks" of being on a farm or ranch.

The bill requires posting of clear signs, inspection of equipment and other steps to ensure baseline safety standards are being met. The goal is to help support agritourism activities in Oregon, which can be an important "value-added" source of income for farms, and it includes actives like U-Pick, harvest-your-own, pumpkin patches and educational activities.

On the "bad" side, this bill was firmly opposed by the powerful Oregon Trail Lawyers Association during the committee hearing. That means there will be a lot of extra work to do to ensure it gets a full public hearing rather than the lower-level "informational hearing" it received, and a committee vote.

HB 2674 and HB 2675: These two bills would give the ODA authority to set up "control areas" and other designations to keep genetically engineered (GE) crops from contaminating non-GE crops. The bills would also require that ODA gather information on the use of genetic engineering in agriculture in Oregon to fill in substantial data gaps that make responsible management difficult.

The bill got a generally cool reception from the House Rural Communities, Land Use and Water Committee, including from legislators who voted for a bill in 2013 that put ‘exclusive regulatory power’ over GE crops in the hands of the state, while preventing local communities from enacting their own GE regulations. The committee chair announced he would form a ‘work group’ to see if any ideas from the legislation can garner enough support to move forward and pass the committee.

The Ugly

SB 25: This bill would exempt a number of counties in Oregon from the statewide land use planning system, including requirements for citizen involvement and protecting farmland from development. This could lead to a loss of valuable farmland and make it harder for farmers to compete for land against developers and other interests when land prices are driven up. The bill received a hearing in the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee on February 23.

HB 2449: This bill would extend the sunset on bioenergy tax credits and amend a number of the credits. The Oregon Department of Energy has proposed a significant reduction in the amount of tax credit that would be available to animal manure digesters. These tax credits have primarily benefited large factory farms, providing an unnecessary and costly taxpayer subsidy for these operations in the name of "green energy."

Unfortunately, this proposed change has not gone unnoticed by the the large-scale dairy operations that benefit most from the current tax credit. Several amendments to keep the tax credit high for manure digesters have been proposed and, if adopted, may not only support existing factory-scale farms that have significant manure management and air pollution problems, but would amount to a taxpayer handout for new large-scale factory farms that may want to set up shop in Oregon as long as they install a manure digester.

On March 5, the House Energy and Environment Committee heard testimony on this bill, which Friends of Family Farmers, among others, supports as written without the amendments.

Click here for more information on the bills that are coming up before the Legislature this session. Find your legislators and let them know what you think. And stay tuned for further updates as the 2015 session progresses!

Read the other posts in this series, Opening Salvos, The Personal Gets Political and The Fight Takes Shape and Hanging in the Balance.

Photos: Evan and Rachel of Boondockers Farm; raw milk from Cast Iron Farm; manure digester from Farm Energy Images.