As the 2013 Oregon legislature inches toward adjournment
House Democratic leaders are looking for creative ways to raise revenue, i.e.
taxes, without any Republican votes.
Oregon’s Constitution requires that a “Super Majority”
approve bills that raise revenue.[1]
This session that means two Republicans have to join all Democrats in both the
House and Senate to approve tax increases.
The Democratic leaders most recent strategy, scheme?, is to
have the Joint Committee on Tax Credits end some previously approved but not
yet utilized tax credits and magically increasing taxes to offset the as yet,
unused, tax credits. Sound confusing? Reportedly legislative attorneys have approved
the plan.
These pseudo legal shenanigans are completely needless!
Raising more revenue and revitalizing rural communities would be two sure-fire results
of active forest management of Oregon’s State Forests.
Clatsop &
Tillamook State Forests
In northwest Oregon, the former Tillamook Burn forests have failed
the Counties that deeded the land to the state 80 years ago following the
fires. These World Class softwood forests are embroiled in a decade of changing
forest management systems. Meanwhile, these abundant forests with millions of
trees planted by school children in the black ash from fires in 1933, 1939 and
1945. The legislature has repeatedly tried to increase harvests from these
forests only to be thwarted by the past two Democratic Governors.
Elliott State Forest
The Common School Fund’s Elliott State Forest in southwest
Oregon has literally been shut down from a lawsuit environmentalists have filed
over the Marbled Murrelet, a seabird that spends that vast majority of its life
on the ocean. Although murrelets can fly over freeways, cities and towns at 60
miles per hour, the lawsuit claims the bird will give up and die if it
encounters a few harvested trees in the Elliott State Forest.
National Forests
The situation is even worse on federal forestlands in
Oregon. Governor Kitzhaber has earmarked $4.6 million to help U.S. Forest
Service Collaboratives in Eastern Oregon. The only way the Forest Service can
produce timber without ending up stymied by the courts is to utilize
collaboratives that include local community “Stakeholders”, environmentalists
and timber representatives to develop consensus forest heath restoration
projects that may or may not include cutting trees.
Restoring sanity, or scientific forest management, to
Oregon’s state and federal forests could alleviate the legislatures’ addiction
to more and more revenue while putting hundreds of rural Oregonians back to
work at family-wage jobs.
[1] From Greg Miller, Certified Forester:
Article IV. Legislative powers
Section 25. Majority necessary to pass bills
and resolutions; special requirements for bills raising revenue; signatures of
presiding officers required. (1) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (2)
of this section, a majority of all the members elected to each House shall be
necessary to pass every bill or Joint resolution.
(2) Three-fifths
of all members elected to each House shall be necessary to pass bills for
raising revenue.
(3) All bills,
and Joint resolutions passed, shall be signed by the presiding officers of the
respective houses. [Constitution of 1859; Amendment proposed by H.J.R. 14,
1995, and adopted by the people May 21, 1996]
