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Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle |
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This week was dominated by environmental news, and Alex Baumhardt was all over it – from dire warnings that wells will run dry if Oregon doesn’t change its water permitting system, to news that the Environmental Protection Agency will consider calls from tribes to investigate a chemical that’s killing salmon, to Oregon State University dropping out of a plan to manage the largest research forest in North America. She also brought readers an in-depth look at plans for an “agrovoltaic” project in Linn County. Proponents see agrovoltaics as an efficient way to combine agriculture and clean energy production – solar panels share land with crops, producing both electricity and farm goods. But critics worry it will take away farmland, and Oregon’s 50-year-old land use laws didn’t anticipate solar energy. Oregon lawmakers got more good news from state economists on Wednesday, Ben Botkin reported. The state’s finances are stable and lawmakers have about $335 million available to spend during the 2024 short session. But House Republican Leader Jeff Helfrich saw warning signs in the state’s population trends – more people left Oregon than moved here in 2022, and continuing to lose residents will cost the state long-term. Meanwhile, parents are still struggling to find child care for the state’s youngest residents. Grant Stringer reported on the budget shortfall facing the state’s Employment Related Day Care program, which helps low-income families pay for child care, after a record number of families signed up for the subsidies. And in 2024 election news, Air Force veteran and Republican Monique DeSpain plans to challenge U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle. DeSpain, an attorney who works for state Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, and joined him in an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit over former Gov. Kate Brown’s clemency actions, plans to focus her campaign around public safety and hammering Hoyle over her ties to a troubled cannabis company and failure to turn over records from her time as labor commissioner. |
