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MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm Michael Dunne. If you were to identify the theme of the last Oregon legislative session, it would be one word, transportation, passing a massive transportation package was governor Kotek priority one. She even forced legislators to go into a special session to pass this bill. So, it was a really big deal that recently, the governor urged legislators to scrap the whole thing. Today on the show, you'll hear from reporter at The Oregon Capitol Chronicle to get up to speed on this latest twisting plot and get the download on what happens next. Then we'll talk with our own Zach Ziegler about a disturbing new report about Oregon's low snow pack and water supply and what it could mean for the rest of the year, Alex, Baumhardt, a reporter with The Oregon Capitol Chronicle. Alex, always appreciate talking to you.
ALEX BAUMHARDT: Thanks for having me.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, this transportation package, it's to describe its journey, is like trying to tell an uninitiated person the plot of “Stranger Things.” Give us the give us the brief history, if you will, of how it got here and sort of what's happened to it.
ALEX BAUMHARDT: Sure, I think, for the sake of what's in front of us going into this next legislative session, okay, is that, you know, a couple years ago, the state realized there were some big updates that needed to be made to how we pay for roads, bridges, transportation infrastructure via The Oregon Department of Transportation. So, there was this big sort of statewide listening tour. Legislators went across the state, held meetings with locals. You know, what their needs, fears. Worries were infrastructure needs, but also concerns about costs and where the money would come from. And they came to the legislative session early 2025 and started hammering away at this package that was, you know, and the double-digit billions that ended in this legislative session without passing went into a special session because it was such of such great importance right without a at least multi-billion-dollar package of the next 10 years to fund this pretty big budget gap at the Department of Transportation. There were hundreds of transportation employees who were going to lose their jobs. There were local transit districts that were really going to get hosed, as far as money coming in for busses, trains. So, by the end of September, we had a package it had passed by, you know, a hair in the legislature in a special session, and then, you know, almost immediately, after several Republican lawmakers started organizing an effort to get it repealed, because it involves taxes and fees, gas tax going up, payroll tax going up. The idea was, they were upset about that, and they wanted to put it on the ballot in November. They wanted Oregon votes. Wanted Oregon voters to decide. So that was successful. We learned, you know, early this New Year, and because that ballot referendum is slated to go out in November, it basically pauses anything in the package that would generate revenue. So, the other day, Governor Tina Kotek had said, Let's put the kibosh on it. We're going to start from square one. Legislature find every dollar you can to fill the budget in the short term, right? We can't have like, a totally defunct transportation system when snow and ice and cold weather are coming. Let lawmakers come back in 2027 and do better. So that's where we're at. We basically, you know, as a reporter, this was a big hot ticket item that was happening throughout the six-month legislative session, and now we are literally back to square one.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I mean, can the Transportation Department sort of limp along until, what? Until 2027 and they hammer out a complete package that gets passed?
ALEX BAUMHARDT: That will be, you know, we will find out after this one month legislative session that starts, February 2. Okay, the governor essentially said we need to redirect money within the department to critical infrastructure, jobs and everything after that we'll figure out. So, the question will be, is there enough money to plug all these holes?
MICHAEL DUNNE: Looking at the politics of it, is this a win by the Republicans? Is this a loss for Kotek? Is this kind of like, well, this is how the sausage gets made?
ALEX BAUMHARDT: My take is that this is a big loss for everyone, okay? And I think what's most the sort of largest collateral loss there is truly a clear understanding of what needs to get done and why. I think, at the end of the day, this package was not developed because a bunch of people thought it'd be a great idea to charge Oregonians more money at the gas pump, or more money on their payroll taxes, or more money for their title and registration fees, right, which would all have gone up if the package was allowed to sort of be executed as passed. I don't think the people behind that package thought that was like a huge win. What was a win was we're going to close this budget hole. We're going to stave off hundreds of layoffs. And there are projects that really need investment now, right? The longer we wait, the more expensive they get. It also included an audit of the Department of Transportation and its spending and some of the projects. So that was something that both sides really wanted. They were concerned that a lot of projects were getting out of control in their costs. But now we're we basically put all this effort into something that won't do what it intended to do; we still have the same problems. I think the Republican lawmakers behind the referendum, I'm sorry, the ballot referral, were glad that it passed. They really see themselves as sort of saving Oregonians money in a time where, you know, a lot of people are suffering, suffering economically. But at the end of the day, the money for sort of future transportation infrastructure projects needs to be generated. We live in a world where more people drive electric cars. They drive high mileage cars. ODOT relies heavily on gas tax. We need to modernize some of these things, and this basically puts us at an impasse with these major challenges that need to be faced. So, I kind of see it as a loss all around but I think individual lawmakers might see wins and losses according to their sort of position.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Alex, I'm wondering this is all happening in the shadow of so much, and we've talked about this before, so much cuts from the federal government, including transportation costs and stuff like that. Does this, you know, especially now in 2026 is this about the worst possible time for this kind of problem to occur?
ALEX BAUMHARDT: Yeah, I, you know, Governor Kotek the other day, when she was sort of imploring the legislature to find money for the Department of Transportation, was very clear, none of it can come from the state's general fund, which is, you know, sort of our big pot of money we use to fund most things. It's just too delicate. We're walking into the legislative session with a pretty big chunk of the budget that we thought was going to be there, not there, according to the state's latest revenue forecast. So already, you know, agencies had to submit budgets that had at least a 5% cut to current spending levels. So, and that's entirely in response to the tax and spending cut bill that Republicans passed in Congress this summer, because Oregon's tax system sort of mirrors the federal one, so revenue that had been anticipated coming through some of these taxes that have been cut, reduced, gotten away with. They come down to the state level as well. So it's a it's really a bad time. It's like, you put off buying a new car because you were waiting to have more money, and then all of a sudden, you also broke your leg. You have a massive medical bill. You don't have any extra money to throw at a new car. So not only are you wounded. You can't go anywhere.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Alex, while I have you, and I know you live up in Portland, and I did want to kind of ask, you know what, given what's happened the shooting that happened, what's the feeling in Portland right now with the shooting that happened from the border patrol agents and the two people who were wounded?
ALEX BAUMHARDT: Yeah, I think there's a lot of anger and frustration. I think emotions are really raw because of everything that happened in Minneapolis. You know, we don't have, like, bystander video to look at, sure, but everything that was captured in Minneapolis and has been widely broadcast. You know, you can't deny what you see. It's frightening, and I think a lot of people saw that, heard the news about what happened here in Portland, with two immigrants being shot by federal agents and then. And you know, the first information we really got was from the Department of Homeland Security. Trust was already very eroded because of the contradictions between what the Department of Homeland Security said happened in Minnesota versus what you could see in the video. So, tensions are high at this point as a reporter, I am just so anxious for information. There was a press conference with Portland Police Chief Bob day, where he was sort of clearing up some of the accusations that DHS made, you know, sort of against what he knows and what sort of other county, court and Sheriff and state officials know. So I think we just want more information. But what hangs in the balance is sort of more broadly in Portland, a deep sense of mistrust with the federal government and the current regime right now, very deep mistrust with federal agents from immigration to investigation to enforcement and sort of really, you know, compounded grief and Anger also just from the fall with the Trump administration trying to deploy National Guard troops into the city. It's, it's a very sort of coming to a boil feeling.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And my last question to you, Alex, is to that point, and I know you've covered protests in Portland before. Do you feel like what happened in Minneapolis and what happened now in Portland? Do you think that has any potential to dampen protesters coming out? Or do you think that it, and I say that because obviously a terrible tragedy occurred, somebody died who was a protester there. Do you think it dampens the efforts, or do you think actually, no, even though there's real risk now, it's going to embolden more people to go out and protest what's happening?
ALEX BAUMHARDT: No, I think, you know, in the aftermath of the shooting in Minneapolis, we saw 1000s of people pour into the streets in that neighborhood. Actually, I used to live a few blocks from there when I worked at American Public Media, Minnesota Public Media, Minnesota Public Radio, oh my goodness, yeah. Friends sent me video from the neighborhood. There were 1000s of people that gathered last night outside of Portland City Hall. There were hundreds of people outside of the ice processing facility south of downtown, hundreds of people. I think it is, it is not having any effect of sort of keeping people at home, or rather, people who would show up to protest to I mean, no doubt all of this is keeping many people at home who are afraid because of their skin color or their immigration status, or even, you know, citizens who are just concerned that they'll be misidentified. But yeah, as far as protest goes, I don't see any sort of water being thrown on the embers here.
MICHAEL DUNNE: She does a great job for the Oregon Capitol Chronicle. Alex Baumhardt, always, always appreciate you coming on and stay safe out there.
ALEX BAUMHARDT: Thank you, Michael.
MICHAEL DUNNE: We're going to talk now with KLCC, Zach Ziegler about Oregon's low, low snow pack. Zach Ziegler, KLC, sees reporter, thanks so much for coming in and talking to us.
ZAC ZIEGLER: Yeah. Sure thing.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I should say before we begin for listeners out there, you know, before Zach came to us, he covered water issues in Arizona, a state where water is even more life and death. But you're the guy on H2O issues. So, let's talk about this. You had a great piece about the snow pack here in Oregon. You know, how low is it?
ZAC ZIEGLER: It's, it's quite low, right now, the USDA splits Oregon into about 12 zones for its snow tell reports, only two of those 12 zones are above 50% of normal. Most are more in the 30s, couple in the 40s, but also a couple in the 20s. So that's quite below what would be considered normal for the last 30 years.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, is it a simple equation of just not getting enough moisture?
ZAC ZIEGLER: That's a bit of it. But it's not the whole story. Most of Oregon is pretty close to normal for the water year, which starts October 1. You know, there are some areas that are a little light. As far as the percentage of normal they've got, it's in the 80s. Some are a little over though. So as far as how dry the years, the year has been so far, you know, November compared to old past November's, you know, it's in the mid-20s. It was a little dry. We're talking records back to 1892 so north of 100 in the 20s for being dry. That's, that's pretty up there. You know, December, much more middling January. It's hard to say, because we're not that far in Sure. So, I'm but I will say the issue I think really is more so heat. Okay, yeah, the the temperatures hit, I have been back, going back to that data I was talking about December. December 8. December was the eighth warmest average temperature recorded.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm wondering too. So, if I'm hearing you right, it's, there's plenty of water falling. It's just that when it gets here, it doesn't turn to snow, right?
ZAC ZIEGLER: Yeah, yeah. We're not talking a drought. You know, the latest US Drought Monitor was what started me on this story, actually, I spot a little bit of moderate drought in Douglas County, and I was like, Oh, that seems odd. For the rainy season in Oregon, there's some more dry areas in like Douglas and lane and Deschutes counties. So, I called up a hydrologist at the Oregon Water Resources Department, and he said, Yeah, that's not great, but it happens. But like you said, the heat has been the issue. This has been the eighth warmest December as far as average temperature on record. November and January have been closer to normal, but December was about five degrees warmer than recent averages, which you know, heat is not exactly friendly to snow. Sure, sure, absolutely, absolutely. I'm not breaking any news here. Snow is just frozen water.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Well, it gets to the point, though, I think maybe people don't realize is how important you know, snowpack is like a bank. It's like, it's like deposits, isn't it?
ZAC ZIEGLER: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's really what keeps things rolling through the once things get a little dry here, snow starts to melt. That keeps the streams going and the rivers going, oftentimes. So not having that, that bank there could mean try our conditions in the near future, which has a whole bunch of issues. And I mean, we're not even getting into the economic issue, which was another story that I covered recently about how the ski slopes are handling this well.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And obviously that's a big concern, because obviously, you know, that is an economic driver for so much of our recreation, and it's kind of scary. I imagine, I know, you talk to some of the ski operators, and I imagine they're probably crossing their fingers, holding rabbits’ feet, whatever they can do?
ZAC ZIEGLER: I mean, the good news is, talking to them, you don't hear a lot of alarm, but, you know, that's just kind of the mentality of a skier or snowboarder. But they were saying, yeah, it's been kind of a rough start to the year. A lot of slopes were just opening in January, whereas normal is maybe kind of around just after Thanksgiving or sometime in December, at least. Places weren't opening until late December, early January. That's losing a month's worth of revenue. And it's not like they can exactly reduce a lot of their costs. In fact, some of them were incurring more costs because they were trying to open up using human made snow, which is a rather expensive process well.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And as you've been describing, that's great that they can manufacture snow, but it doesn't work if it's too hot, isn't it?
ZAC ZIEGLER: Yeah, it just goes away and there. It's also not necessarily a lot of skiers and snowboarders, as having been one myself, it's not exactly their favorites.
MICHAEL DUNNE: So, we're talking about Oregon in our listening area. But, I mean, are other areas being impacted? How widespread is this issue?
ZAC ZIEGLER: You know, it hasn't exactly been a problem for the region. It seems to be mainly located to Oregon. I looked into the same actually, for Washington, they're not having the issues that we are, although, you know, if you do the drive up i Five, some of that area is lacking in snow pack, but it really seems to be an issue, mainly for Oregon right now, as we've had this little heat wave in December.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You know, a lot of people are listening, going, Okay, what does this all mean? Talk about what these impacts are?
ZAC ZIEGLER: So, I mean, as we touched on a bit, you know, this could hurt rivers and streams once we start to get into the dry season. But beyond that, you know, let's keep looking at what those what those rivers often feed. It's, it's our water system. Sometimes, when you have reservoirs that hold up and feed into a city's water system, and then also you start maybe worrying about a little bit of dryness issues as we get into the later summer and the wildfire season, there's plenty of you know down the road ramifications of a lack of snow pack.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And then, of course, that probably hurts hydroelectric power generation as well.
ZAC ZIEGLER: Yeah, yeah. One more area that is very water reliant in this area that you know, it's not so much reliant on rain, it is reliant on that nice, even flow of water that comes as snow melts.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, and I can imagine that farmers and ranchers are very concerned about, obviously, crops and whatnot.
ZAC ZIEGLER: Yeah, you definitely get more just concerns all around for an area that you. Historically, is not very used to lacking water or lacking snow. That's something that I heard is like these years like this, as far as the snow pack are, they aren't this isn't a super rare instance, but it isn't a super common one either, but it is getting a little more common over time.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, I'm not sure if you have information, but I am wondering, you know, could we make this up? I mean, is it possible? I mean, we are just in January and I know that sometimes weather can be extremely fickle, but is there an opportunity here for us to get colder and wetter at the same time?
ZAC ZIEGLER: Yeah, and we have actually been seeing that lately, temperatures have dropped, although things are also dry with those temperatures, as we have kind of this stagnant air pattern, especially over the area around Eugene, that is, you know, that could move out, we could get a couple of nice atmospheric rivers, and all of a sudden, hey, my stories that I've written on this topic become very irrelevant, and I'm getting to write stories about how, man, we had just an absolute, you know, bang up January and February for snow totals. It is still early enough in that snowy season that things could correct, and we could be just having this conversation all for not we'll see.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You know, it's always funny. It's like, as far as we come as a species, in terms of technology, we still are reliant on the weather.
ZAC ZIEGLER: You know, there's not much we could do there, not much that can be done there. We have yet to get that weather making machine that we always saw. And, you know, sci fi, in kids cartoons.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Exactly, exactly. Zach Ziegler, he covers so many issues for us here in Oregon. Zach, thanks so much for coming in and talking to us.
ZAC ZIEGLER: Sure thing.
MICHAEL DUNNE: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Monday on the show a special NPR program for the Martin Luther King holiday. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon On The Record, Thanks for listening.
