Give 'em hell, Charlie!

Just wait to see how hard it is to fund state services when our cars are abandoned where they run out of the gas we can no longer afford.

Then there is the cost of fighting those global warming stoked forest fires, and the further collaspe of salmon runs due to high water temperatures.

"As the leading environmental advocate in the Senate..." Charlie Ringo's the best we've got. Oh, crud. Charlie Ringo, who pushed a Measure 37 bill that would have gutted Oregon's land use laws, and was only forced to take it back into Committee when the people revolted?

Glad to know that Ringo's standing up for something, but please, don't make him our hero.

This was a brilliant "trade" and smart and skillful execution by the Senate D leadership. Not only do we get a bunch of important environmental programs and victories, but the Governor gets to veto the clean-car prohibition language. In the end, progressives and environmentalists win all around and Republicans and Big Oil lose. Ringo's criticism of his party's leadership is misguided.

Do you ever see Republicans slamming their leadership for smart tactical moves, NO! Democrats should take a lesson from their colleagues, and quickly...if they want to maintain control in the Senate and pick up a majority in the House.

Right on Jesse O. Despite a long relationship with enviros, I don't think Ringo's record this year gives him any right to be this harsh on enviro issues. If he's so worked up about this, maybe he should have stepped up a bit sooner.

JTT--brilliant trade? I beg to differ. I don't see that we got a "bunch of environmental programs and victories" out of this deal. A mostly gutted pesticide use reporting program, more logging, and a TMDL program for the Willamette that is already required by federal law?? Where's the environmental progress, exactly? I'd bet that any you could mention are more than trumped by a prohibition on fighting global warming pollution.

JTT,

If the Gov vetoes it, I owe you a congratulatory slap on the back.

Kirk: you make it sound like a "weakened" working and funded pesticide program is worse than have a "great" program that isn't funded or operational and the same for the Willamette clean up program. Hey, the money is there and now the public can actually start know what kind of pesticides are being used in their communities, rather than blind doom-saying and we can start the Willamette clean up study. But progress is progress. I'll ask you again to read my previous post. Don't be blinded by the politics or the strategy, pay attention the goal and result. Don't let special interest groups tell you that Senate Ds somehow sold-out to the auto industry. The leadership is smarter than that.

Additionally, if it truly is unconstitutional to have policy provisions in budget bills: then even if the Governor doesn't veto it--the courts could throw it out.

So put everything on the scales and I think you'll find that Oregon enviros come out pretty well this session.

Tom: when you get around to it, don't slap too hard. :)

JTT: The idea that has always been central to the fight for the pesticide use reporting program is that the data be specific enough to be useful for health research and water quality protection...not to mention for people concerned with which pesticides are used (in what quantities) in their communities. What we will have now is of far less utility, and this kind of weakening has been a major goal of the pesticide industry lobby for several sessions.

I can't help repeating again that the funding for Willamette TMDL is merely implementing what is required by federal law...and was not a priority for the environmental community. How about doing something proactive like closing the toxic loophole?

On clean cars, it is pretty risky (and bad precedent) to have to rely on a gubernatorial veto and/or a court case when we could have instead had environmental leadership in the legislature.

This just in, from 1000 Friends via OLCV: The Governor is pushing for the passage of SB 1037 that allows Measure 37 waiver transferrability.
friends.org for more info.

With friends like this, no wonder some in the environmental community vote Pacific Green.

WTF? Seems like a backroom, back-door deal, in more ways than one.

Sadly, 1037 in its current form lacks even Ringo's basic "protections". Now, it is nothing but a giveaway to land speculators -- waiver transferability, etc. Even Hunnicutt is "proud" of the bill. Why on earth is Kulongoski lobbying for this bill?! Talk about flip-flopping! Perhaps a final parting shot from our smug 1-term governor?

Last session, the 20mph school speed limit 24/7 seemed like a GREAT idea. At least until legislators talked to the folks back home.

I was at the capitol Saturday. Few people even know what is in the SB 1037 D bill. One Senator who did said it had turned into a horrible bill, nothing like the original. One lobbyist who understood it said he wasn't the only person in the building who understood it and "there are good things in it".

As I understand what happened in the House Saturday, the votes were not there for suspension of the rules to vote on it in the House on Saturday.

I found receptiveness from several people to the idea, "This is the D version, it was the B version which passed the Senate. Do you really want to vote in the last days of the session on a bill few people understand and just hope there is nothing in there that people will get angry about a couple months from now when everyone has time to read and understand it?".

I suspect that if the bill does progress due to influence from the Gov. that it will be the 3rd strike for some of his supporters--in some cases the other 2 strikes this year have been the AuCoin nomination and the "where's Waldo" style of leadership.

But before anyone gets too excited about that, where is the alternative candidate who talks about a vision for the future and how to implement it? What I hear is people in both parties saying "Voters are tired of all 3: Mannix, Saxton, Kulongoski". Where is the person who agrees with the Oregonian editorial which is a play on "Sweet Home Alabama"--about a state with poorly funded education system but by golly lots of tax breaks--which lost a major employer that went to a place with lower tax breaks but better education system?

For all the talk about the glories of anti-tax and the need not to seem "soft on crime", what if the big issues next year are things like quality control and rejecting people who are "soft on details"?

For instance, if there are multiple programs to help veterans but there are also veterans in severe need not being helped, where is the brave politician who says it is time to dump the slogans? That it is time to make sure that money is being spent appropriately to deliver services, that personnel are doing what they are supposed to be doing, that stated goals are being achieved? What if voters are tired of "hot button social issues" and start asking what exactly incumbents are doing to earn their salaries?

As far as R and D leadership are concerned, what if a nonpartisan ballot measure gets on the ballot and passes? Lots of esp. House members won a smaller number of votes than the number of voters registered in their districts but outside a major party. What if the independents demand representation and an end to this nonsense that everyone must choose to be either a member of the R team or a member of the D team, and that being a member of that team means your "leaders" are infallible and the other party is the enemy? What if voters start demanding solutions instead of polarization?

It has happened at other levels of government. I once knew a Democrat who won a County Commission seat in a rural Republican county. Among other things, he found there were lots of questions about country road crews. So he went and talked to every county road crew, and could then say in speeches/ debates "When I talked to the road crew members, what I learned was...". He defeated an incumbent by 97 votes.