Oregon Public Broadcasting

United States Senate tradition encourages new members to take it slowly. Oregon’s freshman Democrat from Portand Jeff Merkley has followed that advice.

He didn’t make his first speech on the Senate floor until the very end of March.

And Monday, almost a half-year since his election, he proposed his first piece of legislation.

The bill, co-sponsored by Oregon’s senior Democratic senator Ron Wyden, would create a task force to study the future of Oregon’s county payments system.

Remember, the billion-dollar county payments subsidy helps rural Oregon counties that lost revenue after federal timber sales slowed.

Sen. Jeff Merkley: “We’d love to replace all the federal timber payments with revenue directly from the forests, and that’s goal one. But we need to have a backup plan, as well, because most experts think that goal is unreachable.”

Merkley’s bill would appoint a 15-member task force.

The group would debate new ways to fund county budgets, including increased timber harvests, biomass production, or other revenue ideas.

Policy experts say bills like this aren’t difficult to pass in Washington -- because they don’t require substantial federal budget money.