If new clean trucks rules pass, freight trucks will need to begin reducing emissions by 90% by 2027. (Salem Reporter photo) A future with electric garbage trucks and school buses and less polluting freight trucks is up for a vote in November by the state Environmental Quality Commission.  The commission[Read More…]

The Oregon House of Representatives on Monday, Sept. 20, 2021. (Amanda Loman/Oregon Capital Chronicle) Three months ago, most legislators agreed to let the state’s eviction moratorium expire but provide a 60-day grace period as landlords and tenants waited on bureaucrats to process rental assistance claims.  There were hundreds of millions[Read More…]

Jess Tolman, the chief of Vale Fire and Ambulance, is warning of service impairments if the state’s vaccine mandate remains in place. (The Enterprise/Pat Caldwell) SALEM – Rural counties that fear first responders will quit in bulk ahead of a mid-October vaccine mandate need to come up with their own[Read More…]

SALEM – When Oregonians go to the polls in about a year, they won’t see their current governor on their ballot for only the second time this century. Gov. Kate Brown can’t run for a third term, leaving Democrats with a wide-open primary for the first time since 2002.  Both[Read More…]

The Oregon State Hospital is calling on the National Guard to stem a staffing crisis that has ballooned in recent weeks, with one out of three of the nursing staff on the Salem campus out on leave. Activating the National Guard was the final step in a five-stage crisis staffing[Read More…]

The Oregon State Capitol building in Salem. (The Enterprise/File) The Oregon Employment Department experienced a tenfold increase in identity theft issues in 2020 as new jobless claims poured in during the pandemic, mirroring a spike in claims that took place across the country. Cyberthieves capitalized on the huge volume of[Read More…]

Rebecca Jones Gaston (Contributed photo) Rebecca Jones Gaston stepped into one of the state’s biggest crises in 2019, taking over the Oregon agency charged with safeguarding children. Nearly 18 months later, Jones Gaston is optimistic. She is director of the state Child Welfare Division, where reforms are taking hold. Fewer[Read More…]

A senior adviser in the U.S. Department of Interior on Friday rescinded the January decision by former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to grant Hammond Ranches Inc. a 10-year grazing permit and directed the Bureau of Land Management to further consider the matter. The maneuver came as Congress was moving to[Read More…]

State Rep. Mike Nearman, R-Independence, reading an agreement on the House floor Monday, Jan. 1, that he will have diminished access to the Capitol after he let a group of rioters into the building. (Screen grab/Oregon Legislature) SALEM – State Rep. Mike Nearman, R-Independence, hasn’t heeded the House speaker’s calls[Read More…]

Sen. Lynn Findley, R-Vale, (left) asks his colleagues whether $5 million is truly enough to fund the state’s response to the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19. (Sam Stites/Oregon Capital Bureau) SALEM – The legislative Emergency Board Monday approved emergency allocations, including $11.5 million for flood relief in the Pendleton area, $5[Read More…]