Reactions:
Bikeportland first on the House, with comments from Salem's Doug Parrow. In her floor speech, Rep. Vicki Berger (R-Salem) had an interesting claim about pollution reduction:
“But perhaps the least mentioned green part of this package,” Berger added, “is simply to lessen the gridlock that paralyzes the transportation system in this valley at least two times a day. Sitting in a car or truck, idling or slowly moving is the single most polluting thing we can do.”Here's Bikeportland on the Senate vote.
Economist Joe Cortright at Impresa Consulting offers a county-by-county breakdown that shows the weird skews, especially for the Newberg-Dundee bypass.
Steve Duin at the Oregonian pays more attention to the Newberg-Dundee bypass and suggests some of the political arithmetic and calculation behind it.
Economist Patrick Emerson at the Oregon Economics Blog suggests that the bill does not address problems in a coherent fashion:
My view has always been that the problem is carbon emissions so we need to address carbon emissions through a gas tax. Full stop.
Here's the Official Press Release after it passed the House. And after the Senate vote.
In other news:
House Bill 2106 - Governor signed
House Bill 2377 - held worksession
House Bill 2554 - no change