Cascade CounterPoint

Should we breach Northwest hydropower dams to replenish native fish species on the Columbia or continue benefiting from hydro’s cheap and reliable power?

With the innovative Whooshh Fish Passage System, our region wouldn’t have to choose between the two. And, yes, the company is really called “Whoosh.”

The system is set up alongside dams to help fish reach their spawning grounds. It knows the fish better than their own moms. It figures out the fish’s size, whether it’s wild or from a hatchery, if it’s a native species, and whether it’s injured. The system then propels the fish through the appropriate tube to the other side of the dam. Whooshh also has machines available that focus on invasive species removal.

The technology has been tested at several Northwest dams and has proven to be safe without causing the fish stress. It also costs significantly less than a traditional fish ladder. While a fish ladder would take years to build and cost $50-60 million, Whooshh’s system could be built within a couple of months and cost $7-10 million.

Instead of breaching our region’s dams, Oregon officials should utilize new and innovative technologies that improve fish passage over them.

The president of the National Education Association recently said she does not expect schools to be back to normal in the fall. “We still have a lot of questions,” she concluded. For many Oregon parents, the thought of some form of distancing learning in the fall is the last straw, especially as school leaders hesitate to promise a full-time return.

Despite mounting pressure from parents, Oregon has trailed behind much of the country in offering hybrid learning. According to a national survey of 8,000 school districts, 94% of participating districts offered fully in-person or hybrid instruction when Governor Brown required Oregon schools to offer some form of in-person instruction by the end of March.

According to Return to Learn Tracker, Oregon is currently ranked the third most cautious state in returning to classroom instruction. For many parents, this extreme caution does not match up with the state’s low COVID-19 case counts and the CDC’s recommendations for full-time school.

Students have already lost a valuable year of classroom instruction, and with it, community, extracurriculars, and individualized support. Oregon’s school leaders should follow the example of states successfully ending distance learning and commit to the goal of full-time school in the fall.

Bad legislation often hides in “tweaks” and what sponsors call “housekeeping” measures. Oregon House Bill 2419 and Senate Bill 493 are two examples. With just a few words, the bills tweak Oregon’s formula for calculating prevailing wages throughout the state. Their results would increase costs for nearly every public works project in the state with no end in sight.

The prevailing wage is the rate of pay and benefits that contractors and vendors must offer their employees when a government agency funds the project. Currently, Oregon’s prevailing wages are based on an independent wage survey conducted by the state’s labor commissioner.

HB 2419 and SB 493 propose a radical departure from current policy. Every region’s prevailing wage will be based on the highest wage rate among collective bargaining agreements in the region. In other words, every contractor would have to pay the same wages as the highest collective bargaining agreement in each region.

As Oregon students return to the classrooms, watch out for a new fad that could make our state’s academic performance even worse.

That fad is known as the “four day school week.”

Oregon is one of only nine states that allows four day school weeks and more than 130 districts operate on a four-day schedule. Post-pandemic that number is sure to climb.

Many teachers and administrators like that it provides for a three day weekend every week.

Proponents push the four day week as a way to cut costs without harming academics. But this claim is only half true.

Moving to a four day school week does cut costs. But, it also cuts total instructional time.

Recent research on Oregon’s experience with the four day week finds that schools that moved to a four day week experience significant declines in reading and math achievement. Moreover, these declines worsen over time.

Everyone’s heard the old saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.” The same goes for Oregon’s faddish adoption of the four day school week. It’s claims simply aren’t true.

I am Eric Fruits, Vice President of Research at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market research organization.

Every student deserves access to a quality education. Despite the setbacks caused by closing public school buildings, many Oregon students were already struggling to succeed in the public school system before the pandemic. According to the National Association of Education Progress, only 34% of Oregon fourth-graders tested “proficient” in reading in 2019. Moreover, Oregon continues to have one of the lowest graduation rates in the nation.

Now, more than ever, students and families are demanding greater access to a quality education that fits their unique needs. A proven way of providing that access is by giving families control over their students’ portion of the state’s education funding.

Currently, more than half the states in the U.S. give families flexibility to direct their children’s education through scholarships, tax credits, and Education Savings Accounts.

Oregon is one of 29 states to have introduced legislation this year to fund students directly. Senate Bill 658 would establish an Education Savings Account (ESA) program for Oregon parents who want to opt out of their government-assigned public schools for other options, such as private school or homeschool. The program “allows participating students to obtain grants from education savings accounts to fund attendance at specified types of schools or education programs.”

Not every child is going to thrive in the public school system. It’s time for Oregon to provide equal opportunities for a quality education by funding students, not systems, through such legislation as SB 658.

For 30 years, the Portland metro region has dutifully followed Oregon’s Transportation Planning Rule. By attempting to “manage demand” instead of building new capacity for automobiles, the region has some of the worst congestion in the country.

Learn more at cascadepolicy.org.

It’s a bad sign when businesses need to fortify their storefronts to survive. But after the pandemic and lockdowns shuttered many Portland businesses, spiraling crime rates added to the damage. The Portland Police Bureau reports burglary and vandalism are up 35% over the past year. Reported arsons doubled.

Eager to re-open, many businesses are trying to beef up security by installing gates and more lighting. But Portland’s lengthy and costly design review process has stood in the way. In response, the city council exempted lighting and security gates from design review to help what they call the “green shoots” of our economy.

It’s encouraging to see the City of Portland recognize some of the harmful effects of design review laws. City council should treat its recent decision to relax rules as the first step toward removing all of its design review requirements. So often, the best way for government to allow green shoots to blossom into gardens is to simply get out of the way.

I’m Vlad Yurlov from Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market think-tank.

Last week, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum’s office reached a settlement with four hotels over price gouging during last year’s wildfires. The hotels have to pay more than $100,000 to the state. In addition, they have to reimburse more than a hundred families for their hotel costs.

Laws against price gouging are about as old as the price system itself. But these laws miss the entire point of the price system—to allocate resources. There are many ways to allocate resources, but nearly all of them are inferior to the price system. These hotels weren’t “gouging” they were working toward ensuring that their scarce resource—namely hotel rooms—were allocated to those who valued them most.

Without the higher prices how should the rooms have been allocated? First come, first served? Lottery? How are those methods any more fair than the price system? Short answer: They’re not.

After thousands of years of prices and thousands of years of anti-price gouging laws, you’d think we’d have finally realized they simply don’t work. Let’s get rid of these silly laws and let our attorney general work on prosecuting real criminals.

In 1991, Oregon adopted a goal of reducing vehicle miles traveled by 20% over a 30-year period. Proponents claimed that such a reduction would improve air quality, increase demand for public transit, reduce the rate of global warming, lower traffic-related fatalities, and help improve the livability of cities.

Listen to Vlad Yurlov's presentation of the Transportation Planning Rule as well as a discussion about the future of transportation in Oregon. 

Oregon has always been a national leader in providing clean energy to ratepayers due to our hydroelectric dominated energy portfolio. In 2018, around 54% of Oregon’s electricity use resource mix was zero-emitting.

The current renewable portfolio standard (RPS) does not reflect this reality.

Oregon’s RPS was established in 2007 and created a requirement for how much of our electricity must come from “renewable” sources. The target for 2020 was 20%, even though over half of the electricity Oregon consumes is renewable. In 2016 the RPS target was raised to 50% by 2040. Currently, only PGE, PacifiCorp, and EWEB are required to be compliant with the law.

Eligible resources for Oregon’s RPS include: wind, solar, wave, tidal and ocean thermal energy, geothermal, biomass, and hydroelectric built after January 1, 1995. Notably missing from this list are nuclear and legacy hydroelectric. Unlike intermittent solar and wind resources, nuclear and hydro are reliable and do not need to be curtailed or backed up by baseload power as solar and wind often are.

Senate Bill 540, sponsored by Senator Fred Girod, would change that. This bill specifies that all electricity generated by a hydroelectric facility, no matter the facility’s age, can be used to comply with the RPS.

Oregon’s RPS needs to account for the region’s legacy hydroelectric resources and the deep decarbonization already in place in most rural areas in Oregon. Legislators should vote yes on SB 540.