Despite a united effort by environmental and good governance advocates, the Oregon Legislature wrapped up the 2021 session without taking action to curb the unethical behavior of the Oregon Forest Resources Institute (OFRI). Courageous investigative reporting exposed OFRI’s illegal lobbying, misleading advertising, inaccurate educational materials, and suppression of groundbreaking forest carbon research out of OSU. Heroic legislators responded with House Bill 2357, which would have redirected two thirds of tax funds from OFRI to a Sound Forest Practices Account and to assistance for small woodland owners. It would have also expanded OFRI’s board to include conservation and fish and wildlife representatives.
HB 2357 was a top priority for our Legislative Committee and Forest Team. Team members submitted individual and Chapter testimony, as well as a letter to the Senate Finance Committee urging a floor vote. Though the bill passed in the House on June 8th, it languished in the Senate amid legislative wrangling. This shameful failure to rein in a corrupt agency has left us disappointed, but ready to press the case for future action.
Senate Bill 762, known as the Omnibus Wildfire Bill, did pass. The bill contains good provisions such as wildfire risk mapping, updating building codes, safety measures for utilities, and assistance for air filtration. But we remain concerned about potential environmental impacts from mandated fuels reduction projects. The bill contains no environmental safeguards and leaves rulemaking to the State Forestry Department.
Oregon should be focusing our limited resources on the two actions proven to best reduce wildfire risk to communities: home retrofitting and defensible space—not on thinning across the landscape. The Oregan Chapter will be tracking implementation to push for appropriate size, location, and practices as projects are planned.
Join the Forest Team! To get involved with our work to protect natural forest ecosystems and change destructive forest practices, contact Carol at illinoisvalley@oregon.sierraclub.org.