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The Facebook effect Similar companies could find Central Oregon attractive, too • BUSINESS, G1
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SPECIAL SESSION
Deployed to Iraq: the Oregon National Guard AP
Solution for faulty gas pedals
‘Whenever there’s a need’ Central Oregon soldiers are among those tasked with protecting the VIPs
By Nick Budnick
Toyota Motor Corp. plans to start sending parts to dealers in the coming days to fix a sticky gas pedal problem that has tarnished its image and led to the recall of 4.2 million cars and trucks on three continents, dealers and federal officials said Saturday. Toyota plans to reveal details of the fix Monday morning. One dealer was told by a Toyota executive that the parts could arrive Thursday or Friday. • To see if your car might be affected, see Page A4.
The Bulletin
‘Business as usual’ for area Toyota dealer Courtesy Anthony Treas
By Tim Doran The Bulletin
While fallout from Toyota’s vehicle recall spread to Washington, D.C., and Europe, it failed to register noticeably Friday afternoon at Bend’s only Toyota dealer. Cars filled the lot, and customers chatted with the sales staff and checked out a Scion, FJ Cruiser and other models on the showroom floor. “It’s business as usual,” said Robert Durfee, general manager of Toyota Scion of Bend. On Jan. 21, the automaker announced it would recall about 2.3 million vehicles to correct sticking accelerator pedals, according to its Web site. On Tuesday, it told dealers to temporarily stop sales of the eight models involved in the recall and predicted it would shut down five production lines in the U.S. and Canada. As of Saturday, 4.2 million vehicles had been recalled worldwide. Toyota investigated “isolated reports of sticking accelerator pedal mechanisms,” according to its news release, and reported certain accelerator pedals might stick in rare instances. See Toyota / A4
Sgt. Anthony Treas, of Bend, and Spc. Valentine Otero, of Klamath Falls, relax on top of a vehicle parked in the shade inside Baghdad’s Green Zone. Treas and Otero, both of the Oregon Army National Guard, are part of a team that provides transportation and security for high-profile visitors to Iraq, including top military and government officials.
By Erin Golden • The Bulletin
T
he mission isn’t what you’d expect for a soldier on a yearlong deployment in Iraq.
On any given day, Oregon Army National Guard 2nd Lt. Michael White, of Crooked River Ranch, oversees soldiers who take reservations, handle maintenance calls and prepare fullplated meals at the Joint Visitors Bureau, a five-star hotel near Baghdad. Once used by guests of Saddam Hussein, the hotel is now the place where high-ranking military officers, diplomats and politicians stay when they come to visit. Keeping the hotel running — and its high-profile guests safe — is up to White and the rest of his 21-member platoon, which includes
other Central Oregonians. “My day pretty much starts and ends whenever there’s a need,” White, 40, said in an interview over an Internet video chat program. “The staff at the hotel work pretty long hours; we’re open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and we maintain shifts all the way through. So my guys, they’re pretty busy all the way through. They’re looking forward to coming home.”
New York Times News Service
For years, Altria, home to Philip Morris and its popular Marlboro cigarette brand, was a corporate pariah blamed for the deaths of millions of people and sued for hundreds of billions of dollars by attorneys general in every state. After eventually acknowledging, like others in its industry, that cigarette smoking was, indeed, addictive and caused disease, Altria went a step further. It broke from the Big Tobacco pack and began supporting legislation that
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It’s been more than six months since White and some 2,500 other Oregon soldiers with the 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team arrived in Iraq. The deployment, which includes the 450member 1st Squadron, 82nd Cavalry, based in Bend, is the state’s largest since World War II. About 110 soldiers from the Bend unit live in Central Oregon. See Iraq / A4
“We’re open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and we maintain shifts all the way through.” — 2nd Lt. Michael White, of Crooked River Ranch, who supervises soldiers working at a five-star hotel near Baghdad
SALEM — This week, the Legislature gears up for a monthlong special session that will feature attempts to extend unemployment benefits and rein in a costly green-energy tax credit. Some of the issues will be new — such as a bill to ban the plastic hardener Bisphenol A — while other IN THE legislation will be familiar. For LEGISLATURE instance, there’s another effort to regu- State lawmakers’ special session late destination starts Monday. resorts statewide after an earlier bid failed on the last day of the legislative session last year. There’s also a revived push to put rules on pumping from so-called “exempt” domestic water wells. Normally, the group of 30 senators and 60 representatives meets in odd-numbered years. The February special session was originally envisioned as plugging budget holes in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election if two proposed tax increases, as many expected, had failed. Since the measures passed, bringing another $730 million to state coffers, lawmakers will be focused on policy, not budget cuts. Read on for a sampling of the issues of particular local interest that are likely to have momentum when the Legislature convenes Monday.
Business Energy Tax Credit • Known as BETC or “Betsy,” the state’s most controversial tax credit program — used to foster conservation and renewable energy projects — was under fire much of last year based on reports of waste and profiteering by large wind-energy companies. This month, would-be reformers will clash with defenders of the law over proposed curbs to the credit in a battle that some expect to dominate the session. The matter is of particular interest to Central Oregon, where several renewable energy companies have benefited from the law.
Destination resorts
Tobacco’s new tack By Duff Wilson and Julie Creswell
Resorts, tax credit (not cuts) now on the table
would ultimately put the company under the regulatory thumb of the Food and Drug Administration. Altria’s motives for submitting to strict oversight have long been a mystery. Did company executives, who were internally pursuing a strategy of “societal alignment,” suddenly embrace a true partnership on public health? Or was this a case, as its longtime foes and competitors have argued, of seeking to generate good PR? As the smoke clears, the answer may be becoming clearer. See Tobacco / A5
Fighting invasive species costs a lot; ignoring them does, too By Juliet Eilperin The Washington Post
New York Times News Service
Altria, home to Philip Morris, is hoping the newly empowered FDA will go easier on Marlboro Snus, a spit-free, smokeless pouch, than on its cigarettes.
INDEX
The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper
Vol. 107, No. 31, 48 pages, 7 sections
Which is worse? Closing two locks on a critical waterway that’s used to ship millions of dollars’ worth of goods from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi basin? Or allowing a voracious Asian carp to chow down on the native fish sustaining a Midwestern fishing industry that nets $7 billion a year? And how do you put a price
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tag on the damage caused by the Burmese python and other constrictor snakes that are strangling the precious ecology of the Everglades? Invasive species — long the cause of environmental handwringing — have been raising more unwelcome questions recently, as the expense of eliminating them is weighed against the mounting liability of leaving them be. See Invasive / A6
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MIDEAST: U.S. beefing up defenses with Persian Gulf allies, Page A2 HEALTH BILL: Not dead? Page A2
• Sen. Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland, is trying a new approach to regulating destination resorts after last year’s failure to do so. Unlike the last go-round, spearheaded by Rep. Mary Nolan, D-Portland, Dingfelder is trying to bring builders, environmentalists and counties together around a less-restrictive measure, Senate Bill 1031, that would still include environmental safeguards.
River rights • Sen. Alan Bates, D-Ashland, is pushing Senate Bill 1060, which would clarify the public’s right to float on, wade in or walk on the banks of certain rivers such as the Deschutes, even when the land is privately owned. That right already exists based on court decisions and state “navigability” law, but is not universally recognized.
Water wells • Rep. Ben Cannon, D-Portland, is spearheading a bill that would let the state require permits on new “exempt” domestic water wells in designated areas where groundwater resources are limited. The legislation would also restrict the maximum amount of water that can be pumped from a new well. See Legislature / A6