Latest news with #SaraGelserBlouin
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Measure expanding foster youth rights passes Oregon Senate again, overriding Kotek veto
Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, speaks on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. She is the lead author of a bill that the Senate passed again on Wednesday that would expand rights for foster youth in the state. (Ron Cooper/Oregon Capital Chronicle) Oregon senators rebuked Gov. Tina Kotek on Wednesday, voting overwhelmingly to override her veto of a bill that would strengthen and expand protections for Oregon's foster youth. Lawmakers voted 21-6 to repass Senate Bill 875 after the chamber learned of Kotek's veto, in which she said the policy exemplifies 'the risk of fragmented policymaking in this area.' The governor's perspective holds particular sway over the area of foster care investigations, with the office of the Children's Advocate housed in a governor advocacy office within the Oregon Department of Human Services. The issue of foster youth and care has been a contentious issue for Kotek, who unsuccessfully sought to push the Legislature this session to enact another bill lowering regulations around the transfer and seclusion of children in residential care and treatment centers. Senate Bill 875, meanwhile, would require a court order for blocking or limiting contact among foster children and their siblings. The measure also lists out several rights for foster kids, including being assigned an attorney, maintaining access to personal belongings like toys and being given appropriate luggage to carry their belongings. The bill's lead author, Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, took to the floor minutes after legislative staff announced the veto to contest Kotek's points and argue for the bill's urgency. 'We really want to do everything we can to just prevent moving kids from their families, and we want to keep them up together,' she told her colleagues. 'Our current law says that that right exists as long as it's appropriate, but it doesn't say who makes that determination, and it doesn't really provide the youth who will be understanding why they are being denied that access.' The bill would also expand the definition of a child in care to include any child under custody of Oregon's Department of Human Services, encompassing children who live with parents during in-home safety plans or reunifications upon a trial. Kotek, however, saw that as ripe for misunderstanding. 'This means the law would expand the child abuse investigation framework for specialized child caring agencies to parents' homes,' she wrote Tuesday. 'It also shifts the standard from the type of placement to the legal status of the child without clarifying who is considered a perpetrator under the law.' Gelser Blouin, however, pushed back on Kotek's veto as a last-minute decision that sought no input from the bill's supporters. While the human services department wrote to the Legislature with questions and concerns about the legislation's language, she said Kotek's veto was 'a surprise.' 'We made adjustments to the bill. It has bipartisan sponsorship,' she said Wednesday. 'It passed both chambers with more than the two-thirds threshold, and at no point prior to that were the issues in this letter ever brought up to me by the governor's office.' The problem of child abuse and neglect in Oregon's foster care system has long been on the mind of foster youth advocates and state officials, with a 2024 oversight report from a Kotek-appointed watchdog finding that cases involving child welfare complaints were the most common type of case dealt with by the Oregon Department of Human Services. In 2023, Oregon's foster care system held custody of 7,282 children for at least one day in various facility placements such as family homes, professional treatment programs, psychiatric residential treatment, preadoptive homes, developmental disability-accomodative homes, or independent living, according to the state's most recent data published in October 2024. The bill was also amended in committee amid concerns over a provision that would also allow foster children the ability to decline to attend or participate in religious activities, which some conservative lawmakers feared would restrict families who are religious from adopting and fostering kids. The only lawmaker who spoke out against overriding the veto, Sen. Mark Meek, D-Gladstone, said he had questions about how the bill of rights would be provided to younger children who don't know how to read. He was wary of going against Kotek's wishes, pointing to an ongoing workgroup passed by lawmakers last year that is studying legal concerns over the definitions of victims, perpetrators and abuse involving children. 'I'm very concerned about overriding what the governor's recommendations are, and we are the body in which we produce these laws, produce these bills of writing,' he warned his colleagues. 'We have a chance to step back, take into consideration the governor's concerns, or maybe dig into those policies and see how we can fix them.' Another bill sponsor, Sen. Cedric Hayden, R-Falls Creek, urged lawmakers to get all of the Legislature's current work supporting foster youth 'over the finish line.' On Wednesday, he shared with his colleagues his own personal experiences struggling to work with the human services department while seeking custody for two children that were once abandoned with him. 'Because of the unfortunate circumstances of these children's early lives, the state is the de facto parent for these children,' he said in a statement following the vote. 'That means it's our job to provide them a safe, secure home, health care, and an education. It means we cannot stand for them to be abused.' In order to be passed, the bill would still need to clear the House with a two-thirds majority vote. In her Tuesday veto, Kotek also blocked Senate Bill 736, which would have enhanced communication between law enforcement, the human services department, and parents and guardians undergoing child abuse investigations. The Senate voted 18-9 to retain that bill in the chamber with no further official action. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Updated at 5:53 p.m. with comments from bill sponsor Sen. Cedric Hayden, R-Falls Creek.
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Oregon legislation would require aerial, drone or satellite landfill monitoring
Oregon landfills would have to improve methane monitoring and reporting under a bill being considered by the state Legislature. Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, introduced the bill in response to ongoing concerns about methane releases at Coffin Butte Landfill, near Adair Village. In 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found Coffin Butte was leaking methane at levels that exceed state and federal limits and what the landfill had publicly reported. EPA investigators returned in 2024 and found more than 40 locations where methane exceeded limits, including at holes in the cover material. 'What this bill talks about is how we are able to track and measure the amount of methane that is leaking from our landfills,' Gelser Blouin said Monday during a hearing on the bill. 'We want to encourage the use of these advanced technologies so that we can get more accurate information about specifically where leaks might be.' Landfills are among the nation's largest sources of methane, a greenhouse gas that's more potent than carbon dioxide and a major contributor to climate change, according to the EPA. The levels measured at Coffin Butte also could cause health problems for neighbors, and in some cases were high enough to potentially cause an explosion and fire, experts said. Senate Bill 726 would require municipal solid waste landfills to use advanced technology, such as drones, planes or satellites, to measure methane releases. It would require landfill owners to report the results to the state Department of Environmental Quality, in GIS software, which would make it easier to visualize. And it would require landfills to fix any areas exceeding limits, and monitor that area again. The bill calls for the state's Environmental Quality Commission to adopt rules for the program, which would begin by July 1, 2026. More than 100 people testified in support of the bill, in person and in writing. 'Satellites and drones don't fudge results. They are impartial. Not only would they monitor the entire landfill, they can also pinpoint leaks at their source in such a way that cannot be denied or otherwise explained away by landfill operators,' wrote Debbie Palmer, of Benton County-based Valley Neighbors for Environmental Quality and Safety. Lane County Public Works Director Dan Hurley told the committee he started his career doing methane monitoring at Short Mountain Landfill near Eugene. 'The current method is a joke. It was developed over 40 years ago,' Hurley said. 'The method only requires someone to carry around a handheld monitor. There are lots of opportunities to game these measurements.' The bill's opponents include the Oregon Refuse and Recycling Association and the Association of Oregon Counties. They argued the EPA does not have standards for alternative methods of measuring methane. 'The bill would make it a requirement for us to use technologies that are not available yet,' said Craig Campbell, government affairs director for ORRA. 'It's great if there's a technology out there that's perfect, but if you can't get your hands on it, it's useless.' The 178-acre Coffin Butte Landfill is owned by Phoenix-based Republic Services. Coffin Butte currently takes most of Marion and Polk counties' municipal waste, including some waste that previously went to the Reworld Marion incinerator in Brooks. Reworld stopped taking Marion County waste on Dec. 31. Republic Services is in the process to trying expand the landfill. Two years ago, the Benton County Planning Commission unanimously denied the company's request for a conditional use permit to expand, following public testimony in opposition. In July 2024, the company resubmitted its proposal, cutting the planned expansion in half. It is currently waiting for the county to decide whether the application is complete. Meanwhile, in January, DEQ paused work on a new air quality permit for the landfill, saying the company had not provided all the information it needed to proceed. The move, just days before a public hearing was scheduled, means Coffin Butte can continue operating under its existing permit, which expired more than a decade ago. The landfill has been allowed to continue operating under the expired permit because the company filed a timely renewal application with DEQ in 2014. Tracy Loew covers the environment at the Statesman Journal. Send comments, questions and tips: tloew@ or 503-399-6779. Follow her on Twitter at @Tracy_Loew This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Oregon bill would require landfills to improve methane monitoring
