http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/02/high_stakes_lng_and_the_legisl.html
February 03, 2010, By Nick Engelfried
Suppose you had one month to address Oregon's biggest challenges, from raising education standards to maintaining our competitiveness in the increasingly crowded green economy. This month the Oregon Legislature has just such a chance before it, as lawmakers meet in a special session.
Given the stakes, you'd hope legislators would use the limited time of the special session to make concrete deliverables in the realms of education, economic vitality and environmental safeguards. You might not want your elected officials devoting the session to a resurrected version of a bill that failed to pass in 2009, and which redefines the language in relatively obscure land-use codes.
But then, you probably haven't given thousands of dollars' worth of campaign contributions to your legislators. . .
HB 3058 went down in flames, but not before The Oregonian published an investigation of the gas industry's power in politics, reporting that Northwest Natural donated $210,000 to political candidates since the beginning of 2008. . .
