Intertwine Alliance, we made some great progress together this 2023 Oregon Legislative Session -- despite an exceptionally crowded agenda and a six-week walkout of Republican and Independent legislators. Thank you for showing up to give public testimony, for writing letters and spreading the word. Your advocacy for nature, our communities and environmental justice makes a huge impact.
This session, The Intertwine Alliance SUPPORTED the following.
Senate Bill 530, Natural Climate Solutions - PASSED (as part of HB 3409)
Senate Bill 775, Equitable Representation on Soil & Water Conservation Districts Boards - PASSED
House Bill 3016, Community Green Infrastructure - PASSED
House Bill 3159, Recovering Oregon's Wildlife Fund
House Bill 3515, Regarding Park and Recreation Special Districts
We OPPOSED the following:
House Bill 3414 - DEFEATED
Please continue for details about each.
SUPPORT
NATURAL CLIMATE SOLUTIONS
Senate Bill 530
STATUS: PASSED as part of HB 3409
SB 530 advances natural climate solutions critical for fighting climate change and protecting our forests, farms, grasslands and wetlands. As the session came to a rapid close after a six-week walkout, in order to fit in more bills, legislators put together thematic packages and voted on those, rather than the original bills that many of us had been working on. The contents of SB 530 were wrapped in with other conservation bills and passed as part of HB 3409.
Natural climate solutions include:
- Planting more trees in urban areas
- Protecting and recovering watersheds and wetlands
- Planting cover crops on agricultural lands
- Lengthened logging rotations on private lands
- Protecting mature and old-growth forests on public lands
- Protecting coastal communities from storm surge and flooding
These practices offer proven solutions for reducing climate change impacts by keeping carbon stored in our living ecosystems instead of the atmosphere. As we contend with increasing drought, heatwaves, flooding and fires, these solutions will be critical in offsetting climate impacts. Important co-benefits include protecting fish and wildlife habitat, as well as clean and abundant water for communities.
EQUITABLE REPRESENTATION on Soil & Water Conservation District boards
Senate Bill 775
STATUS: PASSED
Thank you so much for your hard work getting this long overdue and very important bill over the finish line! So many more of you can now run for zone director seats and help lead our region's soil & water conservation districts. This corrects an injustice, and benefits us all.
More info about the bill
SB 775 relates to urban Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCD) zone director eligibility. Current requirements for SWCD zone directors are inequitable because they are tied to requirements of land ownership.
Currently, state law limits the eligibility of SWCD zone directors to those who own or manage at least 10 acres of land. This severely limits the pool of viable candidates for this important work.
This requirement is a barrier to leadership opportunities for urban residents, tenants, conservationists who don’t own land, and people of color who continue to be burdened by a legacy of exclusionary laws.
Several SWCDs in Oregon with urban populations are funded through local property tax levies, but the majority of taxpayers in these settings are not eligible to run for SWCD zone director positions. Zone directors represent the majority of the board for most SWCDs, and these positions set policy, and make budgetary and financial decisions governing millions of dollars per year.
This bill will allow anyone who wants to run for a director seat to do so within soil & water conservation districts with at least 250,000 people. In 2019, a parallel bill was introduced by Rep Rob Nosse (D - Portland), but it died in committee due to opposition, in part because it applied to all SWCDs statewide. This bill focuses on six districts with larger urban populations.
COMMUNITY GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE
House Bill 3016
STATUS: PASSED
HB 3016 allocates funding to support green infrastructure projects and workforce development to address climate change and build community resilience. Developed by the Oregon Department of Forestry and urban tree canopy expert Dr. Vivek Shandas at Portland State University, the legislation is modeled after Washington State's Evergreen Communities Act.
RECOVERING OREGON'S WILDLIFE FUND
House Bill 3159
STATUS: In an overcrowded legislative session, this bill did not get enough support to move forward. The good news is that the coalition advancing it has developed great momentum to carry into next session.
HB 3159, Recovering Oregon’s Wildlife Fund, secures dedicated, sustainable funding for the implementation of Oregon’s Conservation
and Nearshore Strategy. Recovering Oregon’s Wildlife Fund utilizes a 1.5% increase to Oregon’s state transient lodging tax, one of the lowest state lodging taxes in the nation, to offset impacts from tourism and other natural and manmade impacts to Oregon’s landscapes, wildlife, and fish.
At the request of Congress, Oregon developed a State Wildlife Action Plan in 2005 to assess the health of Oregon’s fish, wildlife, and habitat and create a roadmap of conservation actions needed to sustain them. Known as the Oregon Conservation Strategy and Nearshore Strategy, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) has identified at least 294 species of greatest conservation need and 11 native habitats needing proactive restoration actions. However, the current funds available for implementing the Oregon Conservation Strategy and Nearshore Strategy is only a small fraction of what is required to recover our state’s most at-risk fish and wildlife.
ODFW estimates it would cost $25 million per year to implement just 50% of the identified conservation actions in the Oregon Conservation and Nearshore Strategy. The Recovering Oregon’s Wildlife Fund would generate approximately $30 million a year. It's a bold, proactive solution that will directly help at-risk species.
A small governance change with BIG POSSIBILITIES FOR PARKS
House Bill 3515
STATUS: Unfortunately, this bill did not advance from committee. We will continue working with the City of Portland and other partners on long-term funding strategies for Portland parks. Rest assured you will hear more on this topic in the months to come!
Our region sorely needs more flexible and stable funding options for parks and recreation. One such funding mechanism is the park and recreation special district. These districts can be an effective governance option to provide critical park and recreation services, but under current law, a city council is not allowed to be the governing body.
HB 3515 would amend ORS 266 to allow a city governance option for a park and recreation special district in cities with populations over 600,000.
This bill would lay the foundation for the City of Portland and other larger cities in our region to pursue park and recreation special districts -- which we think are an important strategy to stabilize parks over the long haul.
OPPOSE
Major rollback of environmental protections
House Bill 3414
STATUS: DEFEATED
We strongly opposed HB 3414 unless Section 2 was remedied.
The Intertwine Alliance supports the Governor and Democratic leadership’s efforts to increase housing affordability and supply across the state. But we strongly oppose the strategy they laid out in Section 2 of HB 3414, which would facilitate the biggest rollback of urban environmental protections that Oregon has ever seen.
As written, Section 2 of HB 3414 would require municipalities to grant variances (exemptions) to housing developers for a wide array of land-use regulations that were put in place to protect natural resources, community resiliency and livability. This could include protections for trees, wetlands, environmental zones, floodplains, and the Willamette River Greenway - among thousands of other land-use regulations in communities throughout our region.
The number of variances requested from a developer would not be capped, and there is no requirement that they demonstrate their projects will include a public benefit, like including affordable housing or even additional units. Instead, the bill paves the way for greater profits for housing developers and throws urban conservation protections out the window, including 40+ years of work to integrate nature into the built landscape. It would decrease the resiliency of our future housing stock by allowing for full removal of urban tree canopy - only exacerbating environmental justice issues for urban communities.