A Message from
Representative Whitsett
At last count there are 38
bills relating to PERS
introduced this session.
Republican legislators have
introduced 36 of those
bills. I believe that all of
the bills have been referred
to the Rules committees in
each chamber. The
significance of that
referral is that the bills
can remain in those
committees until the
Legislature adjourns without
action or can be scheduled
for a hearing up until the
last day. To date the
Democrat leadership in each
chamber has failed to
schedule a single PERS bill
for a hearing.
The Co-Chairs’ budget
proposes to make more than
$400 million in unspecified
PERS reductions, postpone or
collar the liability on
another $350 million, and
make up the rest with tax
increases apparently from
eliminating tax
expenditures. To my
knowledge they have
introduced no bill that
would make those changes.
The Governor’s plan is to
cap the COLA for all PERS
recipients at the first
$24,000 of benefits, and to
eliminate the out of state
tax benefit reducing PERS
costs by about $855 million.
Those reductions are
inculcated throughout his
Recommended Budget. To my
knowledge the Governor has
introduced no bill that
would make his proposed
changes.
SB 754 includes the
Governor’s reductions as
well as eliminating the
ability to “spike” final
ending salary, reducing the
annuity calculation from 8%
to 4%, and redirecting the
IAP to the Trust Fund. Total
savings to the taxpayers
would be between $1.8 and
$2.0 Billion. The bill also
creates direct appeal to the
Oregon Supreme Court, has a
clause that makes each
section severable from all
other clauses, and a clause
that creates standing for
any Legislator to appeal to
the United States Supreme
Court.
The Senate Republicans have
pledged 14 votes, and there
appears to be adequate
Democrat votes to pass SB
754 in the Senate. However,
that cannot happen until the
bill is scheduled for a
hearing and passes out of
the Rules Committee without
being amended.
The bill is unlikely to be
allowed to be scheduled for
a hearing in the House,
which is also controlled by
a Democrat party majority.
Other bills are largely
dealing with the six percent
pick-up and do not appear
likely to have hearings at
this time.
I believe that Senator
Whitsett is either chief
sponsor or co-sponsor of
nearly twenty of the PERS
bills. He was one of the
primary architects of SB 754
working with the Oregon
School Boards Association
and both House and Senate
Republicans.
Spotlight On: HB 3323
Every week I will be
focusing on one of the bills
I have introduced this
session.
Last
week's
focus was breast density
notifcations (HB
2015).
This week's spotlight is on
HB
3323,
which would prevent Oregon’s
Department of Environmental
Quality from implementing
rules and regulations which
exceed the Environmental
Protection Agency’s (EPA)
federal standards for Clean
Air and Clean Water.
In 1974, the US government
under the Richard M. Nixon
presidential administration
instituted guidelines for
cleaning up our airsheds and
waterways. Over the ensuing
40 years the Clean Air (CAA)
and Clean Water Acts (CWA)
have become more
restrictive, imposing
extreme conditions and
regulations on states,
counties, municipalities and
private landowners in the
US.
Nixon is also the president
that brought us the
Endangered Species Act
(ESA), which has devastated
Oregon’s forest industry and
created the Klamath Basin
water problems as a result
of the USF&W Biological
Opinions on the spotted owl,
and conflicting listings for
salmon and sucker fish.
Oregon’s Department of
Environmental Quality (ODEQ)
has been the regulatory
agency charged with
enforcing the CWA and the
CAA in Oregon. In 2009, the
ODEQ arbitrarily elected to
write proposed rules for
water quality toxics that
are about ten times more
restrictive than the Federal
EPA requires anywhere else
in the United States. The
Oregon Environmental Quality
Commission (EQC) adopted
those proposals into
administrative rules that
have the full force of law.
Republican lawmakers
carefully negotiated a
bipartisan bill that would
have largely exempted
agriculture from having to
comply with those draconian
regulations. The bill passed
in the House with broad
bipartisan support (42-18).
When the bill was referred
to the Senate committee on
Environment and Natural
Resources, it was
immediately amended to make
it less than worthless. The
bill was then allowed to die
in committee.
HB 3323 has the potential to
be a job saver for Oregon.
What business or industry
would chose to locate or
re-locate to a state with
the nation’s strictest
non-scientific and
unjustified natural resource
laws?
We do not have any idea how
much of Oregon’s present
unemployment could have been
prevented by not having
passed or implemented these
stricter standards.
As legislators we must not
be a party to passing
additional statutes which
will drive businesses and
private tax paying citizens
from the state, with
capricious and unnecessary
rules and regulations that
exceed the already stringent
federal requirements.
To date my House Bill 3323
has not been scheduled for,
nor received a hearing.
Best regards,
Representative Gail Whitsett
House District 56
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