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www.ORtrucking.orgIssue 1, 2016
LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
In the meantime, Senator Edwards is developing a
comprehensive cap and trade bill. He says that if the utilities
come to agreement with the environmentalists than his
bill will have to wait until 2017. However, if there is no
agreement, Sen. Edwards intends to move his cap and
trade bill forward in February. To nobody’s surprise, the
utilities and environmentalists reached an agreement. The
environmentalists agreed to drop their ballot measures
and the utilities agreed to aggressively phase out coal and
increase their use of renewables. The only issue is that
the agreement will significantly increase utility rates for
consumers and businesses. This promises to be an exciting
discussion and it will be interesting to see if we end up with
a ballot measure, cap and trade or the agreement between
the utilities and environmentalists. I’m betting on the
agreement.
Then, there is the mother of all ballot measures sponsored
be the public employee unions that would impose a
gross receipts tax on corporations with revenues over of
$25 million per year. The tax rate is $30,000 plus 2.5%
on revenue over $25 million and would raise about $2.5
billion in new tax revenues per year. Senator Hass has been
working on a bill that would increase taxes on corporations
but not to the same extent. So far, none of the proposals
would extend to Chapter S corporations, LLCs or other
types of business entities. While, the Governor, Senate
President and Speaker have all said that state government
needs more money, there is no agreement at this time on a
compromise. My guess is that business, still stinging from
Measures 66 and 67, will not find an acceptable solution.
This one will likely be fought at the ballot box. While early
polls show that this measure can be defeated, it is estimated
to cost upwards of $15 million.
When Senate President Courtney proposed annual sessions,
he said the purpose of the short session was to rebalance
the budget and fix any errors that occurred during the
long session. In reality, it has turned out to be something
entirely different. It is an opportunity for groups that are
aligned with the current Democrat majority—like the
public employee unions and environmentalists—to coerce
a willing majority of the Legislature to give them what they
want with very little public scrutiny. With the short session
limit of 35 days, there is simply not enough time to properly
vet these huge changes in public policy. Regrettably, to the
detriment of all Oregonians, that appears to be the current
strategy.