Cascade CounterPoint

Why is “affordable housing” so expensive? Many politicians, bureaucrats, and affordable housing advocates treat the question as one of life’s many mysteries. But it’s really not that mysterious. Many regulations governing public projects add up, piece by piece, to affordable housing’s staggering price tags.

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Oregon is home to NuScale Power, the nation’s leading small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) developer. However, our state isn’t able to take advantage of NuScale’s innovative technology because it is illegal to site a nuclear plant in Oregon. Three bills being considered in Oregon’s current legislative session could change that.

HB 2332 would repeal current legal provisions requiring that there be a permanent storage site for waste and that voters approve the proposal before a nuclear power plant could be issued a site certificate.

Instead of repealing these provisions, HB 2692 would carve out an exemption for SMRs and would require the Oregon Department of Energy to develop a program to educate the public about the new technology.

SB 360 would also offer an exemption for SMRs. However, cities or counties first would have to approve the siting of SMRs in their jurisdiction before they could be located there.

While HB 2332 would grant the most amount of freedom for siting nuclear plants, any of these three bills would be a step in the right direction for our state.

Recent blackouts in California and Texas demonstrate that the grid needs baseload energy resources capable of backing up renewables when they fail to produce power. If Oregon officials are serious about operating the grid with 100% renewable power, they need to bring SMRs into the discussion. Legislators should vote in favor of these three bills to bring reliable power to Oregon.

For Cascade Policy Institute, I'm Rachel Dawson.

If you thought hospital food was bland now, get ready to hear this. The Oregon Legislature is considering a bill that bans hospitals from serving bacon and every other salted, smoked, or cured meat. Because House Bill 2348 also requires hospitals to make plant-based food available, proponents argue that this is simply about promoting good health. But who’s to say that a room full of legislators knows more than a hospital full of doctors?

Being stuck in a hospital bed is bad enough. Patients need to eat to keep up their strength. And comfort food is one secret that gets people eating and happy to be alive. So if the bedridden want bacon, give them bacon.

Politicians are ready to trade your range of choices for their own agendas, especially if they don’t have to eat the results. So let’s save the health food kick for home. If the “bacon ban” passes, buying comfort food from a hospital will only be harder for those that could really use some comfort.

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

Oregonians blame Californians for many of our state’s woes. They drive up our housing prices, crowd our roads, and import nanny-state policies like banning plastic bags, plastic straws, and styrofoam cups. Many Oregonians wish they’d just go back home.

But what if the Golden State stopped sending us their residents?

The short answer: We’re toast. Over the past two years, Californians accounted for about half of Oregon’s population growth. Their college degrees hide Oregon’s dismal public education system. The business they bring with them fuels employment growth. And, their incomes provide the tax revenues for Salem’s never-ending expansion.

If all that stopped, Oregon would be done for. But will it stop? It might. Oregon’s a nice place to live, but nice only gets you so far. They’re moving here because California has gotten so bad. If Oregon continues to fall into Golden State levels of dysfunction, Californians looking to leave may decide Texas, Arizona, or Nevada are better places to raise their families and grow their businesses.

I fear that day may come sooner than we’d like. Oregon taxes have skyrocketed, our public schools have stagnated, and the public sector has rolled back crucial services. Oregon lawmakers should enact public policies that promote economic opportunity at all income levels, increase choices in education for Oregon parents, and foster a robust culture of entrepreneurship. That will make our state a great place to visit, live, and work for our current and future residents. If we don’t make Oregon the opportunity state, we’re toast.

With teachers’ unions slow-walking the governor’s guidance for reopening schools, it is looking more likely that many of Oregon’s largest school districts will not return to full-time in-person instruction for all students this year.

Since 2015, Portland City Council has declared continuous housing emergencies. We’re now into the sixth year, and the City’s housing and homelessness crises are still in full swing. Yet nobody even knows where or how many shelter beds are available in the metro area. Cascade Policy Institute released a new report that offers straightforward solutions to the growing number of unsheltered homeless in the Portland region. It’s time to get back to the basics. And what is more basic than knowing where homeless people can go?

This means tracking where shelter beds are available and distributing this information to outreach workers and officers. If there really isn’t space, we need to know. But if there are available beds, we must offer every homeless individual a roof over their head.

Cities in both Washington and California use tracking systems to help more people get shelter. Meanwhile, Portland is behind the curve and paying for it. Instead of using shelter space more efficiently, the City Council pushed a housing bond that calls spending nearly $300 thousand per unit “affordable.”

We can’t keep extending emergency declarations and borrowing forever. A shelter tracking system would allow Portland to finally take account of the homelessness crisis.

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

A recent column published in Forbes has caused quite a stir. The editorial, by Oregon economist Bill Conerly, asks whether Portland is experiencing the death of a city. For months, the Oregonian, Willamette Week, and the Mercury have run articles reporting on business closures, vandalism, and rising violence. Yet, when Cascade Policy Institute’s chairman comments on these same things, the local media change their tune to “it’s all good, nothing to see here.”

Sure, it’s true much of Portland’s recent malaise was brought on by a worldwide pandemic. But it’s also revealed so much of our town’s failures to live up to its motto as the “City That Works.” We have a city council that views business as a parasite to be managed with new and higher taxes and ever-increasing regulations. We have city policies more focused on avenging past wrongs than in preparing for a future where businesses can prosper and people can flourish. Rather than serving the voters, more and more politicians behave as if we serve them. As if it’s our job to make them look good.

Portland isn’t dying, but it’s got a disease. We’ve got to treat the symptoms, shake the illness, and bring our city back to its status as one of the world’s most livable cities.

January 24-30 is National School Choice Week, the world’s largest celebration of parental choice in education and the diversity of options available to help today’s students learn. Since 2011, National School Choice Week has affirmed that “every child deserves an effective, challenging, and motivating education.”

“School choice” means empowering parents to choose the education options that are best for their individual children’s needs, goals, talents, and circumstances. Traditional public schools, public charter schools, magnet schools, online learning, private and parochial schools, and homeschooling are all paths to success for K-12 students. Empowering parents to choose among many options can unlock the unique potential of every child. More than half the states in the U.S. currently give families more flexibility to direct their children’s education through educational choice programs including scholarships, education tax credits, and Education Savings Accounts.As Oregon works to reopen schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is especially urgent that policymakers recognize that each family needs to find the right fit for their student to learn effectively and safely. All options should be valued, and education policies should promote parents’ ability to choose among them to help their child succeed.

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Despite its many “green” policies, the Portland region is attempting to solve its homelessness crisis by creating rather than reusing public resources. In response, Cascade Policy Institute’s latest report offers straightforward solutions that use public resources more effectively. Publicly-owned and operated buildings should serve as homeless shelters to eliminate the need for illegal camping. Homeless people need shelter and buildings such as the Portland Expo Center have the space.

The Expo Center has never generated much revenue and the property has capital needs that are not in the budget. This makes it a great candidate for Metro’s recent Supportive Housing Services funds, which can redevelop the Expo Center into a massive amount of shelter space. This 330,000 square foot building sits on 53 acres of land. At 100 square feet per person, the exhibition space alone could shelter thousands of people. The kitchen, restaurant, meeting rooms, and other flexible space can easily provide the services emergency shelters need. Finally, the massive parking areas that surround the building can serve as efficient outdoor shelters for tents or vehicles.

To solve the homelessness crisis, readily available opportunities, such as the Expo Center, must be activated as shelter space.

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

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In Metro’s latest quarterly newsletter, “Our Big Backyard,” the reader is invited to agree with Metro’s vision of nature on the condition that he or she keeps off Metro’s properties.

Ways readers can have access to Metro’s “Big Backyard” are glaringly absent from the newsletter. In fact, a better title for the newsletter could be “Our Hidden Lands” because an estimated 88% of Metro’s land acquisitions are inaccessible to the public. Moreover, the parks available to the public emphasize “passive recreation,” which often means no dogs, no playsets, and no picnic spaces.

Metro has a vision for nature that fits specifically with its agenda, not with the needs voiced repeatedly by area residents. Ironically, Metro condemns this micromanaging of nature in its newest newsletter, stating that historically, “Nature often creates very real barriers to access, but more often these barriers are constructed by us” by defining what is “city” and what is “wilderness.”

It’s time for Metro to take its own advice and break down the very barriers to nature it has imposed. Residents want accessible parks with recreational opportunities near residential areas. Metro needs to abandon its agenda of hiding nature and bring it to the people it serves.