HB 4084: The Limited Abundance Agenda

Filed at the request of the Governor, HB 4084 would create a special Joint Permitting Council that would fast-track a few commercial projects in Oregon at a time. By few, I mean just fifteen. Consisting of representatives of a wide range of state agencies, this Council is intended to contribute to the Abundance agenda advocated by New York Times columnist Ezra Klein.

I’m with Representative Virgle Osborne (R-Roseburg) on this one. At the margin, it’s a step in the right direction. However, he notes the threshold of project size might limit the amount of fast-tracked permitting for rural Oregon.

The Governor’s response to this is revealing. She’s quoted in the Salem Statesman Journal as saying: “It’s a very specialized group of projects and we have to limit them because we want to put as many resources and stay focused on those things so they can move quickly,” Why does it need to be so specialized? The Governor wants this focus because, she says: “If it’s too broad, I don’t think we can be as successful because it just would be hard to meet the timelines and what we want to do to help them get started faster.” Basically, if overregulation is a barrier to economic development, as Ezra Klein influentially argues, keeping that red tape in place means it will take tremendous bureaucratic effort to decide when to make limited exceptions for each favored project.

A true abundance agenda requires regulatory streamlining for all potential projects, not just a favored fifteen. Yet, this is a step in the right direction. Maybe that number can be increased over time.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there.