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On June 21 the Oregon House of Representatives voted 54-5 to establish the Oregon Education Investment Board, SB 909. The bill will now go to the Governor's desk for his signature.

The Oregon legislature is considering several key reforms that can improve student learning. No improvements matter more than those that help our students achieve. Please contact your legislator, thank them for their hard work, and ask them to keep working on a compromise to pass critical education bills. While every legislator may not like every part of every bill, doing nothing is the worst thing that we can do for the future of Oregon’s economy.

Gaining Access Bill Unjambs Highway Access Permitting From Associated Oregon Industries Leading Issues June 16, 2010 One of the better successful bills this session is the unheralded SB 264A – highway access permitting streamlining.

Yesterday the Joint Ways and Means Subcommittee on Transportation and Economic Development passed SB 5528, the biennial budget for “Business Oregon,” the Oregon Business Development Department. The Budget now heads to the full Ways and Means Committee for consideration. The budget includes some key provisions endorsed by Oregon Business Plan as major opportunities to lower Oregon’s stubbornly high unemployment and lagging personal income levels.

A little discussed provision in the Department of Forestry’s budget would have allotted $700, 000 to implement key recommendations of the Federal Forest Advisory Committee, a group of private and public stakeholders who met for over a year to figure out how to make our federal forests healthier for people, wildlife and jobs. Key to the committee’s recommendation is the treatment of thousands of acres of overgrown federal forests that put the forests at risk of wildfires and that could result in dozens of rural jobs. For every million dollar investment in treating overgrown federal forests, 17-23 jobs are created, according to a report by the University of Oregon. This is in addition to the public and environmental health and safety benefits of treatment. The Natural Resources Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee considered the $700, 000 request, which was included in the Governor’s budget, and decided against it. Legislators argued that given the budget constraints and the priority in the ODF budget on managing our state forest lands and supporting the implementation of the Forest Practices Act on private lands, that treatment of federal forest lands, while critical, would not be prudent.

Oregon’s disconnected system of education funding and policy-making treats early learning, K-12, and post-secondary education as separate silos rather than a continuous pathway that leads all Oregon students to a successful future. The result is a competition for resources, and a lack of coordinated policy making. Decisions are often made based on who controls the dollars—and not necessarily what’s right for students.

Two bills that will help promote job creation in Oregon went to the Governor’s desk for signature this week.

Yesterday the Education Subcommittee of Ways and Means sent SB 242 to the full Ways and Means Committee with a do-pass recommendation. SB 242, a huge priority for the business community, establishes a Higher Education Coordinating Council, giving OUS significantly more autonomy from the state legislature. Currently, the legislature votes on over two thousand line items in the higher education budget despite the fact that state funding for higher education has declined precipitously and now represents just a small portion of the Oregon University System Budget. SB 242 redefines the Oregon University System as a public university system with greater authority to manage affairs, operations and obligations.

SB 766 will accomplish two important goals on lands that are already planned and zoned for industrial use. First, the bill will speed up permitting processes for significant industrial projects (project developers will pay for the expedited process). Second, the bill will protect prime industrial lands from conversion to other uses and unnecessary overlays and restrictions, by designating at least 5 and up to 15 “Regionally Significant Industrial Areas.” The mechanism to accomplish both of these objectives will be an Economic Recovery Review Council that will consider projects for expedited permitting and designate Regionally Significant Industrial Area. The Review Council will include the heads of Business Oregon, ODOT, DLCD, DEQ and DSL. This bill is supported by business groups, labor groups and the Governor’s office. It’s not a panacea for Oregon’s industrial land problems, as it does not address the need for increased industrial land supply, infrastructure financing, land aggregation, brownfields and other key issues, but it does help Oregon do a much better job putting the industrial lands that it does have to use creating jobs. We applaud the Governor’s Office, Senator Beyer, the Senate Economic Development Committee, The Transportation and Economic Development Subcommittee of Ways and Means, and the Ways and Means Committee for their leadership in seeing this bill through so far, and strongly encourage members of the House and the Senate to vote in favor of this bill when it reaches the floor of each Chamber.

SB 99-A is on its way to the floor of the Oregon House of Representatives. SB 99-A would authorize the development of an Oregon Health Insurance Exchange, pending approval of a business plan in February when the legislature reconvenes.