14 Oregon Trucking Association, Inc. Oregon Truck Dispatch 2023 Legislative Session Recap By Oxley & Associates WITH NEW SENATE leadership, significant turnover in both chambers, and the longest walkout in the Oregon legislature’s history, the 160-day 2023 Oregon legislative session may be considered one of the strangest and most unique sessions in recent history. Newly elected Governor Tina Kotek prioritized significant investments in housing and semiconductor manufacturing. The special Joint Committee on Semiconductors was tasked with developing a package in the first 60–90 days of session to attract the semiconductor industry and draw down federal dollars from the CHIPS Act. The committee’s final work product included over $200 million to support semiconductor-related capital project investments, investments in education to build a workforce pipeline, expanded childcare infrastructure, and tax credits for research and development, among other provisions. Most controversial of the new policies is the broad authority given to the governor to bypass Oregon’s existing land use laws to designate rural lands for industrial development. The governor’s $200 million housing package passed early in session, following her declaration of emergency shortly after taking office. The package seeks to address homelessness, increase shelter capacity, reduce barriers for construction of housing, and orders state agencies to prioritize reducing homelessness across the state. Despite these two bipartisan achieve- ments, the legislature debated its fair share of partisan policies, which was one of the many reasons for the Senate Republican walkout that overshadowed the session. Oregon voters overwhelmingly passed Ballot Measure 113 in the November election, attempting to prohibit legislators from running for reelection if they had accrued more than 10 unexcused absences. Despite this, on May 3, Senate Republicans denied a quorum on the Senate floor in response to bills related to abortion and gender affirming care and guns. This marked the start of a 43-day walkout, the longest in Oregon’s legislative history. While the two parties ultimately reached agreement to end the walkout on June 15, a mere ten days before Constitutional Sine Die, litigation is expected in response to the ballot measure. Even with the historic walkout, OTA’s team in Salem spent many hours advocating on behalf of Oregon’s trucking industry, ensuring that our members had a voice at the table when decisions were being made impacting trucking. Below you will find summaries of some of the bills from this session that had the greatest potential to impact the trucking industry. I-5 BRIDGE REPLACEMENT The Interstate-5 Bridge connecting Portland and Vancouver is over 100 years old and presents significant safety and traffic problems. The corridor that includes both the bridge and the Rose Quarter freeway exchange is one of the worst bottlenecks in the country, and legislators acknowledge that the time has come to replace the bridge. The last attempt to reach agreement on a bridge replacement fizzled in 2013. This time around, the passage of the federal infrastructure law in 2021 applied pressure to the Oregon and Washington legislatures to agree to replace the bridge. To apply for federal funds, each state must pass legislation outlining how they will finance their $1 billion shares
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