Oregonians won’t vote in November on whether to ban hunting, fishing, livestock farming and animal research after backers of a widely criticized initiative failed to gather enough valid signatures to make the ballot. The Oregon Secretary of State’s Office announced late Friday afternoon that it had determined Initiative Petition 28, an effort led by Portland-based […]

As the federal government pushes for more logging and grazing on Oregon’s lands, state climate commissioners are calling for more ambitious goals to protect the state’s land and water so they can capture carbon dioxide. The 13 voting members of the governor-appointed Oregon Climate Action Commission last week called to double goals they set just […]

Participation in Oregon’s voluntary statewide emergency alert system designed for natural disasters and public safety threats has been far higher in rural counties than in the Portland metro area, according to a new study. Researchers from the Ohio-based Miami University published their findings on Monday in Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal. They found […]

Oregon forestry officials will need to manage hundreds of thousands of acres of western state forests to better support critical species, water and air quality and to decrease greenhouse gas emissions under a new management plan the Board of Forestry approved Wednesday. The seven-member board voted 5-2 to pass the 168-page Western Oregon State Forests […]

PORTLAND — A federal judge will determine by the end of August the future of Oregon’s nascent statewide recycling modernization law, meant to require product manufacturers and distributors to cover some of the packaging disposal costs Oregonians currently pay via municipal and specialty waste fees. “I truly have not made up my mind on what […]

PORTLAND — If the “Big One” — the anticipated massive Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake — hit today, Oregonians west of the Cascades would be luckiest to find themselves at the recently-retrofitted state Capitol in Salem or on the roof of the new terminal at the Portland International Airport. The comment from Tom Wharton, an engineer […]

Last year, Oregon became the first state to start charging companies for some of the end-life waste disposal costs created by their packaging. Then, the state quickly became the first to be sued over it and, this week, the first to go to trial. Federal Judge Michael Simon on Monday heard arguments from lawyers representing […]

Officials at the U.S. Forest Service are proposing new management plans for eastern Oregon’s Blue Mountains that include potentially tripling the amount of logging across 5.5 million acres in the next decade. The Forest Service published a draft of proposed changes to the 35-year-old Blue Mountain Forest Plan last week. It would allow more logging, […]

Oregonians kept more than 130,000 mattresses and box springs from landfills during 2025, the first full year of a new statewide recycling program with free collection points in nearly all of the state’s 36 counties. The Mattress Stewardship Program went into full swing in January 2025, three years after the state Legislature passed a law […]