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Michael Dunne: I'm Michael Dunne. The Epstein Files, rural hospitals in Oregon, unaccompanied minors, mail-in voting, the Iran War, and the 60 Minutes’ Walk of Fame? Who the heck could we be talking to about so many varied topics? Oh yes, it must be our somewhat regular visit with Senator Ron Wyden. Today on the show, we indeed touch on a host of topics of concern, both nationally and locally, as the senator is once again visiting the state and continuing his breakneck pace of town hall meetings. Among his chief concerns is how the Trump administration may try and disrupt the midterms, if not outright try and steal the election for Republicans. Our conversation with a man at both the center of national power, but also a keen participant in the laws and policies influencing all of Oregon, is next on Oregon on the Record. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, it's always great to see you in studio. Thanks for coming in.
Ron Wyden: Good to be back.
Dunne: So, gosh, a lot going on since we last talked. I think one of the biggest things is you recently released a report about how Wall Street banks were really enabling Jeffrey Epstein really by not blowing the whistle on his actions. Tell listeners about this report.
Wyden: Well, what I said four years ago, is the way you root out corruption is you follow the money, and we saw that with Epstein right at the beginning. And the bottom line is, for people who are listening today, that if the banks had followed the law, and complied with the warning notices and sending information to regulators, Epstein could have been stopped years and years earlier.
Dunne: Do you think a lot of it is because he was sort of amongst a friendly audience there?
Wyden: There's no question that he made money for the banks, and the banks could be really devious about it. For example, at some point they said, "Well, we're not doing business with them. Well, they weren't taking his money directly, but he was still finding ways to get cash to him from referrals and things like that.
Dunne: Okay, this report. I am wondering, since Attorney General Todd Blanche has been confirmed, are you concerned that the DOJ won't do anything with this report?
Wyden: They've been stonewalling for several years now, and the Biden people helped a little bit. They weren't great, but I've made it very clear. And we have a roadmap, for example, on how to follow this up. That if we take back the Senate, and I'm chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, we're going to start using subpoenas and hold people accountable.
Dunne: Okay, I read a report. I believe it was from Reuters that said, you know, you were interviewed on 60 Minutes about this very issue, and then ultimately 60 Minutes decided not to run the story, and I think one of the one of the assumptions Reuters was making is it could be that Bari Weiss, the head of CBS News, scuttled that report. I just want to get your reaction to this because obviously it's a very important report.
Wyden: We were all set to go with production. In fact, you know, there's this kind of CBS 60 Minutes kind of almost Hall of Fame where you do the walk down the corridor and all the rest and say hello to your friends. We even did that. I think that they were stonewalling and trying to make sure that their political friends weren't held accountable.
Dunne: Okay, switching gears to a big piece of the president's agenda, the I believe it's called the what is it the Save America Act about voting rights. I wanted to get your thoughts about this. It hasn't passed in the Senate. You're on recess now. It sounds like it could be dead, but remind folks what it would do specifically around what I think is much beloved here in Oregon: vote by mail.
Wyden; He sets up all kinds of barriers to make it hard for people to use vote by mail, and we, of course, have been the model. I'm the nation's first United States senator elected by mail. I'm a Democrat. The second senator elected by mail was Gordon Smith, who was a Republican. We had a Secretary of State who thought it was a horrible idea what Trump was doing. It was a conservative Republican, Dennis Richardson. So, we've always shown that we could be held accountable, that it was efficient, it gave people freedom to make choices about when to vote. And I'll tell you, I am not going to let anybody mess with vote by mail this year. I assume they're going to be trying to cheat every single opportunity, and we're going to hold them accountable and stop them.
Dunne: Do you think the Senate will hold a line on it?
Wyden: I think that on the Save Bill, for example, which puts you know women through so much bureaucratic razzmatazz, the Republican senators don't want to vote for that turkey because women will hold. Accountable for years to come gives us a start, but certainly, I mean, Trump talked with Putin, for example, about vote by mail. I mean, he's you know been all over the place. He considers this something that will allow him to rig elections, and we're not going to let him do it.
Dunne: I wanted to get closer to home and talk about the health care hearings that you're holding in Oregon, what are you saying to people? But probably even more importantly, what are constituents telling you?
Wyden: Well, people are saying, for example, that hundreds of 1000s of people are going to lose their coverage at the beginning of next year, and health care costs. Trump's plan is hitting people like a wrecking ball, and the reality is, health care is far and away the most important issue. If you and your loved ones don't have your health, everything else goes by the board, and the insurance companies are way too powerful. We've got the pharmaceutical companies in the same place. I'm going to hold them accountable as part of a reform effort.
Dunne: You know better than anybody that that Oregon is an interesting state. It's a very urban state along the I-5 corridor, but it's also a very rural state. Talk about rural healthcare because that has been such a huge concern nationally and here in Oregon.
Wyden: I had five town meetings recently in rural Oregon places where Donald Trump got 70 percent of the vote, and they know that the rural healthcare cuts are going to be devastating. They're so bad, Michael, that Trump did something I haven't seen anybody do going all the way back to my days with the Gray Panthers since this has been my specialty. Trump said he basically wasn't going to tell people what he was doing on health care until after the election, so that people would be in the dark and the rural hospitals know that they're going to get clobbered.
Dunne: Okay. Also, which is happening in rural Oregon, but all over the state, we're in this historic fire season, and I know that that's been such an important issue for you is making sure that our firefighters have the resources they need. Talk about some of the efforts and some of the challenges with regard to our firefighting system.
Wyden: Well, the system in many respects is simply you know out of out of date. We've got these fresh fires that I call them, and we've got stale equipment. And I heard that consistently throughout my trip in Central Oregon. For example, they said we have only half of the firefighters and staff that we need in order to deal with this. And Michael, we've got two more months to go in terms of the fire season, and Trump has set up this kind of crazy scheme of wildland fire service in such a slapdash way that the overhaul is going on right in the middle of the fire season when we ought to be doing is getting resources to the people on the front lines.
Dunne: Yeah, are there ways in which if the Senate takes back the chamber. Do you think we could get more funding for firefighters?
Wyden: Priority number one for when we come back in September, and I announced that yesterday. I said the reason that I'm here and going to Warm Springs and all the other the Roe Fire and other kind of fires. I'm getting out there to get ready for January. Excuse me for September when we get back because when we get back, we're not going to have much time and we're going to need to get help to those folks because they have a couple more months in the fire season.
Dunne: Probably the biggest cloud hanging over the economy and the nation in general is the war with Iran and I kind of wanted to talk about you know your view on the war the its impacts on pricing but also just this this idea that I think a lot of people are starting to look at is has the president boxed himself in with regard to the war in Iran?
Wyden: Sure, looks like it. Every time he turns around, he says things like, "Well, we've won. We basically got them retreating and the rest. And then you turn around and we're back fighting again. This has been one of the worst judgments in national security, in my view, in our history, because it is so without definition, without a agenda, without anything to rally people around, even in terms of a retreat. I think it's going to be one of the great mistakes of our time.
Dunne: Almost a personal question for you, your legislator, even though you're in the opposition party, how difficult is it to legislate when you have an executive branch that seems to take two steps forward, three steps back on even policy around Iran…
Wyden: …and is completely disinterested, Michael, in the facts. I'll give you an example. As you know, I'm the longest-serving member of the Intelligence Committee in American history. We have only a handful of programs where we have an open discussion. In other words, it's an open session. We call it basically a open threat opportunity, and we got a chance to ask about all the things that were upcoming, like the Strait of Hormuz, and people in the intelligence community basically told Trump not to do this. They said it was without foundation. It didn't make any sense. There was a reason nobody had done it before, and he just said, "Held to the wind, and went and did it anyway.
Dunne: And it feels as though, especially just in the last two days, he's asking for reparations from the Iranians. The Iranians are asking for reparations. Are we even further away from peace than maybe we were just a month ago?
Wyden: It sure looks like there's more bedlam today than there was even two weeks ago, and that's a bad sign.
Dunne: Okay, another aspect of the Trump agenda, which is really impacting our economy, is tariffs. You've had a lot to say about tariffs.
Wyden: For Oregonians, tariffs are taxes, and we are a small business state. You know, when you're done with a couple of big businesses, everybody else is small, and these tariffs have clobbered us. And Trump is completely lawless. You know, I won the floor vote on this. In other words, I won a floor vote 50 to 47. Mitch McConnell, some Republicans, you know, voted with us, and they all came running up to me and Ron, you did it. We stopped Trump. This was a great day, and I said, "Wait a minute, Trump doesn't care about the rule of law. He's just going to keep doing exactly the one he's got now. Got 80 new countries involved in tariffs. See, every time you turn around, he's doing this because this is his view of running the economy. If he had his way, he'd use tariffs because he could bully people.
Dunne: Well, and maybe explain to listeners. The Supreme Court said no, you can't do tariffs, but it seems like they're trying to do this go-around. What is that?
Wyden: Well, here's what happened. I won the floor vote, 50 to 47. Again, I just described to you how I knew Trump wasn't going to stop. Then we won the vote in the Supreme Court. Now he's busy trying to invent new ways to do the same thing. He's saying, "I'm dealing with forced labor. The reason why he's mentioning forced labor, he said, "Well, I know people like Ron Wyden of Oregon will be more serious if it's about forced labor. Baloney! He's not doing forced labor. What he's doing is trying to muscle people with coercion.
Dunne; Speaking of impacts to people locally and globally, you're also sort of a champion of this of this this legislation or act you're looking at to help unaccompanied minors. Would you talk about that?
Wyden; Yeah. I mean, this is basically right at the center of our values. These kids are lost. They have no support. They don't have anything really to turn to, and we've always said we're going to be there for them in terms of helping them get by, getting their lives back together, getting them sent to their parents, bringing them back together. And Trump is against that too, and I think it's just contrary to the humane values that we've always had in this country, and certainly what people in Oregon feel strongly about.
Dunne: Well, and perhaps related, maybe you could give us an update on what you're seeing with regard to ICE actions, both here in the state but also nationally.
Wyden: Well, the Trumpers are digging in on ICE. We keep reading every day about abuses. I mean, we want basic things. I mean, things that relate to accountability. I mean, with your local law enforcement, you know who you're talking to. You have a name or something. We don't have that in terms of. We're going to stay at it until we get it.
Dunne: Maybe we could talk a little bit about you know another aspect of rural Oregon is funding for schools, and I know that that's something that's very important to you. Talk about your efforts to secure more funding for rural schools.
Wyden: Well, we got a big increase in the secure rural schools, you know, bill, and of course, you know, the federal government owns more than half of our land. I'm going to keep pushing that. I think Mike Crapo and I-he's the Republican from Idaho-are going to be able to generate some interest for a permanent secure rural school, which would give us more money and more predictability. I hope to have something to announce on that in the fall.
Dunne: Okay. To that point, you know, I think we all just assume that Washington is broken and Democrats and Republicans don't work together. But for example, what you just talked about with with Mike Crapo from Idaho. Tell us, give us the reality of bipartisanship and doing the work.
Wyden: Let me give you an example. Thursday night late, you know, we were basically working around the clock. I was able to get my legislation, which is bipartisan, passed that basically says we're not going to impose these huge taxes on people who've been hit by a fire and then you know have to pay these huge expenses. People didn't think we were going to be able to do it, and I got a good group of Democrats and Republicans together, and I think the president will be signing that into law by the end of the week.
Dunne: If Republicans, or excuse me, if Democrats retake the House and perhaps the Senate, do you feel as though we might see an era of more bipartisanship?
Wyden: Well, what I can tell you is the best politics are good policy. In other words, when I was doing that bill on the floor of the Senate late at night and working to get help for all the people who've been flattened by the fires, and I mean, think about how horrible it says. You get hit by a terrible fire. What does your government do? Sends you a big tax bill. And so, I think that the best policy is good policy. Every time I walk now, I'll go half a block. People come up to me and say, "Thanks for the help with the wildfire taxes.
Dunne: Okay. Okay. There was news today about the president basically having to hide and switch planes because of a threat made by Iran. I know you sit on a very important committee with regard to foreign intelligence. I just didn't know if you think there's more to this story, or more that you want to hear about what happened with Air Force One, and especially because even though he left the plane, other people were left, staffers and reporters.
Wyden: As a member of what's called SISI, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, you can't get into anything. You know. I will tell you; I expect to get a briefing on it in the next couple of days, and whatever I can say that doesn't threaten sources, methods, and methods, I'll be talking about.
Dunne: Okay, Senator, my last question for you has to do with another senator and also a Republican in the House. Someone once said fairly recently, there are very few jobs in America where you can disappear for months or weeks at a time and then come back as if nothing has happened, and certainly the job of United States Senator or a Republican, or excuse me, a congressman shouldn't be one of those jobs. Obviously, Senator Mitch McConnell has been missing in action for quite some time, and also Tom Kean in the House. I just wanted to get your read on what's going on there.
Wyden: One of the most important aspects about a federal official House and Senate is being available, being open and accountable. I just finished my town hall meeting number 1160 plus a couple of others. So, you know, we keep doing them because there's a reason. We're a long way from Washington D.C. You know, I think a lot of people strolling down the street in Lane County probably think D.C. might as well be Mars for all the connection to it. So, it's really troubling when elected officials just sort of vanish. And I thought I saw something in the paper yesterday that Mr. McConnell had been released, and I hope that's the case, and hope it'll be back because everybody who isn't there, and people say, "I voted for those people; those are my tax dollars. That hurts everybody.
Dunne; He may not be James Brown, but he's one of the hardest working men in politics. Senator Ron Wyden, thanks as always for coming in.
Wyden: Thanks.
Dunne: Let's check in on a stinky but vital subject, the siting of a landfill in the community. KLCC's Rebecca Hansen-White. Rebecca, it's always great to see in studio. Thanks so much for coming in.
Rebecca Hansen-White: Always great to be here.
Dunne: An interesting story you just put together about trash, but talk about you know this Lane County is trying to cite its food diversion project. What are the issues? What is the food diversion project, and why are some against it?
Hansen-White: All right, we'll tackle those one at a time. The first one we'll do is what is this project? So, a lot of people don't really, you know, I think keep track of what happens to their trash once it leaves the curb in Lane County. We actually have a government-owned landfill. A lot of places privately owned, but here in Lane County, Lane County, it's a short mountain landfill, and so I think when they originally envisioned this project, they believed it had roughly 70 years of life left. And landfills are one of those things that they're quite expensive and challenging to build, and nobody wants the one near them. And so the county's one of their goals was to prolong the life of the landfill as long as possible. And the way to do that was they were hoping to do a two for one, which by building at the time when they first envisioned it, they called it the IMERF, but now it's the Clean Lane project, so it will divert food waste from the landfill and extract the methane from it. Which right now that all goes in the landfill and then decomposes, leaks methane often. They try their best to reduce leaks, but that's just kind of inevitable. Inevitable, and so this project will extract the methane and turn it into natural gas. The organic material will cover the landfill, and you know, like dirt, it'll replace dirt. Okay. And then they will use the natural gas, and they're also trying to at this facility divert recycling and increase recycling rates in hopes of diverting basically 30% of material from the landfill. So that's the goal of this project, and the reason it's not built yet-they envisioned it. It was one of the first stories I actually did after coming to KLCC.
Dunne: Back from the way back machine!
Hansen-White: Back a little three years ago, they approved this project. It was supposed to open this year, but it did not open because there's been some real serious land use kind of litigation and problems throughout the process. Their original Goshen location, it actually went all the way up to the Supreme Court after kind of being denied for zoning issues, and so now they're talking about moving it to the same site as the landfill. so you know they'll just move things. It'll be right next door if they approve this. And the same group that was so opposed to it in its other location-a group of garbage haulers that really dislike this project-they are again filing you know appeals to try to stop this project. And so that's where I was at last week.
Dunne: Okay. Why are the garbage haulers against it?
Hansen-White: Yeah. So what they've told me and many other people and many a press release and public statement is the way that this project is getting paid for is by increasing garbage fees when they drop off their waste at the landfill, and they really, really oppose that. They filed paperwork, basically saying, you know, this threatens the viability of our businesses. And in my story, you can see the full list of garbage haulers that are all on this appeal. And one of the main people, Jake Pelroy, he is son of a local garbage hauler. He has been involved in politics, kind of under the radar in a support role for a long time, and he's also running for county commissioner. He's the president of the association, and he's running against someone who voted in favor of it, and so he is also really leading the charge against this facility.
Dunne: Okay, so what could happen, or what is supposed to happen next? What are the next steps?
Hansen-White: Yeah, so the county technically, the county commissioners haven't formally made a decision about where this is going to be located. You know, they said they're exploring locating it at Short Mountain as an option, and they're also considering maybe some different approach at their old location. So, for this specific location at the landfill, they had their hearing where everybody had the char their chance to make their arguments for or against. The record is still open, so if you have an opinion on the landfill, you can you can file it and you can still have your say your piece on this project. It'll be open in a few different ways for a couple more months, and a decision from the hearing examiner or the hearing official is expected in October, and we'll know kind of where things lay then. But it's very possible and maybe even likely that it could be appealed up to a state board. So, October is decision one, but that definitely doesn't mean that this issue is over.
Dunne: Rebecca Hansen-White, who covers so many issues for us here at KLCC. Rebecca, it's always great to have you in. Thanks so much.
Hansen-White: Thank you.
Dunne: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon on the Record are available as a podcast at klcc.org. Tomorrow on the show, we'll bring you the incredibly sad and disruptive story from a local reporter about a Eugene family ripped apart by ICE. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon On The Record. Thanks for listening.
