Measure 76: There was a deal

Published: Saturday, February 26, 2011, 2:53 PM

By The Oregonian Editorial Board

If conservation groups renege on an agreement, they may start a fight they can't win

Some conservation groups are making us regret our strong support last year of Measure 76, which renewed a 15 percent dedication of Oregon Lottery proceeds to parks, water and wildlife programs.

The Oregonian and many others backed Measure 76 in no small part because conservation advocates had signed an agreement promising to support legislation that would ask voters to amend the measure, notably by adding a safety valve to allow lawmakers to override the dedicated funding in times of economic crisis.

But now that voters have approved Measure 76, some conversation groups seem bent on derailing the bill containing the promised fixes for the measure. At a hearing last week, spokespeople for The Nature Conservancy and other groups threw cold water on House Joint Resolution 29, which lawmakers hope to put on the ballot in May, in time, if voters approve, to allow some shifting of funds in the next state budget.

Late last week, the Oregon director of The Nature Conservancy backtracked and said his organization remains fully committed to the prior agreement. Too, the Oregon League of Conservation Voters and the Trust for Public Lands are standing by the deal to refer changes to Measure 76 to the ballot. In an email last week, Jon Isaacs, OLCV executive director, properly warned of the risks of getting crosswise with lawmakers, school advocates and others who lived up to their side of the deal by not opposing the conservation measure last fall.

There were then -- and still are now -- good reasons to worry that Measure 76's dedicated funding for lottery proceeds will keep money flowing into non-essential parks and wildlife programs even during brutal budget shortfalls that require cuts into core services such as the length of the school year and aid to needy families.

Moreover, the way Measure 76 is structured also sends a large percentage of lottery funds to nonprofits and others who work on conservation projects even as the state's core land, water and wildlife management programs are slashed in hard budget times.

This is not an argument that investments in parks and nonprofit entities that do great work to repair damaged rivers and other conservation projects are not important. And in all but the most difficult financial years, as we argued before the November election, it makes good sense to devote a stream of lottery money, now about $80 million annually, to parks, water and wildlife.

However, it seemed to us -- and to a lot of other people -- that the conservation community understood there were flaws in Measure 76 and agreed to support legislation that would allow voters to make some changes, including adding a sunset to the program in 2035. Instead, what we saw last week were conservation groups putting up roadblocks to the necessary legislation.

We suggest they think long and hard about their stance. Because if the worst comes to pass, and Oregon winds up slashing the school year and gutting its core natural resource agencies at the same time other water and wildlife programs skip off with a growing lottery fund, there will be a backlash.

We hope never to see it, but if Oregon voters are forced to choose -- education or parks and wildlife -- we have a good guess how that would turn out.