Cap & Trade amendments not impressing small business
State Director Anthony Smith reports from Salem on the small-business agenda for legislative activity through March 30
March 30 marked Day 68 of the 160-day Oregon Legislative Session, and NFIB is still in the process of going through the massive number of committee agendas that were posted on Thursday and Friday in advance of the session’s first major legislative deadline of the year.
- Legislative Deadlines: March 29 marked the deadline for bills to be posted for a work session. With a few exceptions, bills that haven’t been scheduled for a possible committee vote in their chamber of origin are now officially dead.
- Paid Family Leave: Two public hearings on several bills relating to paid family & medical leave occurred March 25. NFIB members did a great job submitting written testimony and sending letters to their lawmakers on this issue!
- Cap & Trade Amendments: The highly anticipated amendments to House Bill 2020, the Cap & Trade bill, were finally released for public consumption March 25. Unfortunately, the amendments do very little to address the underlying problem with the bill –skyrocketing energy costs.
First Chamber Deadline Passes, Next Big Deadline is Tuesday, April 9
The first major legislative deadline has come and gone. By Friday, March 29, policy committees had to schedule any remaining first chamber measures (House bills in the House, Senate bills in the Senate) for which they intend to hold work sessions (for a possible committee vote.) This deadline does not apply to joint committees, revenue committees, and rules committees, but a significant number of bills will not be moving forward in 2019 – and many more will die if they are not passed out of committee by the next big deadline on Tuesday, April 9. You can read more about chamber deadlines here via The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Unfortunately, most of the big-ticket controversial bills NFIB is tracking are still in play, but a few bad bills died, like HB 3374, which would have more than doubled the current federal overtime-exempt salary threshold in Oregon, similar to an Obama-era U.S. Department of Labor proposal that NFIB helped stop at the national level in 2017.
NFIB Members Weigh-In on Paid Family & Medical Leave
Two public hearings were held March 25 on several proposals to implement a new paid family and medical leave program in Oregon. NFIB was invited by the House Committee on Business and Labor and the Senate Committee on Workforce to testify on these proposals. A written version of NFIB’s testimony can be found here.
But more important than that, NFIB members made sure that the voice of small business was heard loud and clear in the Oregon Capitol. Hundreds of letters were emailed to individual legislators from NFIB members and 53 members submitted written testimony to the committees opposing employer-paid family and medical leave legislation.
Two bills that would have created a 100 percent employer-funded system died with the first chamber deadline, but several bills are still alive that would create a new payroll tax on employers and employees. NFIB will be working hard between now and the end of session to defeat these proposals.
Cap and Trade Amendment Fails to Address Key Concerns
Key excerpts from a March 27 statement from NFIB’s partner organization, The Partnership for Oregon Communities:
“On Monday, lawmakers released their much-anticipated amendment to the cap and trade bill. The amendment is supposedly the result of hours of public testimony lawmakers received during hearings held in the Capitol and in communities across the state. Unfortunately, the amendment offers little more than lip service to the thousands of Oregonians who testified and submitted comments on the bill.
“Chief among Oregonians’ concerns has been the increased cost of fuel under a cap and trade. DEQ has estimated the cost of the program at 16 cents per gallon in just the first year, with additional increases every year after. That increase, combined with the recent 10 cent gas tax increase and the clean fuels tax already paid by consumers, would leave Oregonians paying the third highest gas prices in the entire country.
“The amendment also fails to protect Oregonians and businesses from drastic natural gas rate increases. NW Natural has previously estimated residential rate increases as high as 53%, with industrial customers seeing increases of more than 100%. Lawmakers said Monday they were still working on ways to provide rate relief while offering little in the way of details. With hundreds of thousands of Oregonians relying on natural gas to heat their homes and businesses across the state utilizing natural gas in their manufacturing processes, this area of the bill needs significant work if working families and employers are to be protected in the final version of the legislation.”
On a Final Note …
Oregon once again has a secretary of state. Gov. Kate Brown selected former state legislator Bev Clarno (R-Redmond) as Oregon’s new secretary of state. Clarno is a former speaker of the State House and Senate Republican Leader. She was also appointed by President George W. Bush as Director for Region 10 of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. You can read more here from The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Previous Reports from the State Capitol
March 15—Pushback on Governor’s SAIF-Cracking Plan
March 4—Oregon’s Workers’ Compensation System Under Legislative Attack
February 3—Will the Small Business Tax Cut be Eliminated
January 18—Oregon State Legislature Opens 2019 Session
