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Oregon

Meet The Oregon Middle Schoolers Fighting For Net Neutrality

Luca, a 12-year-old student at Mt. Tabor Middle School in Portland, Oregon, first learned about net neutrality through an Instagram post. “Before it was repealed, I was just trying to tell people about it,” Luca tells Gizmodo. Soon, she’d gotten her two friends, 12-year-old Athena and 13-year-old Lola, interested in net neutrality—an issue that is of vital importance for the internet but one that is wonky and complex even for many adults. A month after Luca saw that Instagram post, the Republican-led Federal Communications Commission led by Chairman Ajit Pai voted to overturn the agency’s net neutrality protections, which prevented internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon from blocking or throttling online content and prohibited them from making “paid prioritization” deals—so-called “fast lanes” for companies willing to pay more to have their content delivered to customers at a higher quality than competitors who don’t pay up.

Protesters Disrupt Board Meeting, Demand Governor Oppose Jordan Cove LNG Project

Salem, OR: On Tuesday morning activists with Southern Oregon Rising Tide disrupted the State Lands Board meeting, demanding Governor Brown take action to oppose the Jordan Cove Energy Project. A dozen demonstrators interrupted the meeting with noisemakers before unfurling a banner and reading a statement calling on the Governor and the State Lands Board to deny permits for the fracked gas export project. “You seem intent on avoiding the issue and refusing to listen to our communities, but we can’t afford your silence,” the protesters shouted over the Governor’s attempts to regain control of the meeting, “We’re done waiting for the appropriate time to speak only to be ignored, so we’re interrupting your meeting for a few minutes to make sure you hear us.” The protesters questioned Governor Brown’s stated commitment to curbing climate change...

Oregon Ecosystem Files Lawsuit To Defend Its Rights

By Dahr Jamail for Truthout - On July 24, the Siletz River Ecosystem (SRE) in Northwestern Oregon took legal action to protect itself. Becoming the third US ecosystem to do so, the SRE took this self-defense step by filing a motion to intervene in the lawsuit Rex Capri and Wakefield Farms, LLC v. Dana W. Jenkins and Lincoln County, and Lincoln County Community Rights. Carol Van Strum, a farmer, author, parent, naturalist, copy editor and co-custodian of 20 acres of temperate rainforest, bottomland and river in the Oregon Coast Range, is an advocate for the intervention of the SRE. She told Truthout why. "This is a significant and groundbreaking effort, literally from the ground, offering a far more effective, comprehensive way to protect the planet we're part of than piecemeal campaigns to ban a single chemical or fight a single fracking or mining operation at a time," she said. "It is also significant because it starts with communities taking back control of their lives and environment that industry-controlled governments have taken from them." "If Nature Has No Rights, Neither Do We"

Salem Protesters Rally Against Pacific Connector Pipeline

By Lisa Balick for KOIN 6 News - SALEM, Ore. (KOIN) — Hundreds of demonstrators marched to the Oregon State Lands building Monday afternoon to demand Gov. Kate Brown stop a pipeline project for the state. The demonstrators are angry and worried about a possible natural gas pipeline, 231 miles long crossing rivers, streams, public land and private land from Klamath Falls to Coos Bay.

Rural Oregon Deserves Better Than The Bundys

By Jessica for ROP - Many of us across Oregon are reeling after the acquittal of the Bundys and some of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupiers. How can seven people who orchestrated a 41-day armed standoff that held an entire community hostage be acquitted, especially on the same day over 100 indigenous water protectors in North Dakota were shot at, beaten, and arrested? Some media are repeating the false Bundy talking point that this acquittal is “a victory for rural communities”.

Oregon Officials Want Hold On Oil Trains After Fiery Derailment

By Staff of Associated Press - PORTLAND, Ore. — The fiery derailment of an oil train in Oregon's Columbia River Gorge has state transportation officials asking for a halt to the massive trains because of concerns their heavier weight could be putting extra strain on a certain type of bolt that fastens the rails to the tracks. The Oregon Department of Transportation discussed its concerns about the safety of the so-called "lag bolts" in a presentation Thursday to the Oregon Transportation Commission and made public a letter it mailed to the Federal Railroad Administration on June 8 asking for the moratorium.

Oregon Oil Train Explosion Fuels Growing Opposition Movement

By Sarah Gilman for High Country News - Tucked against the steep forests and cliffs of the Columbia River Gorge on Oregon’s northern border, the town of Mosier is a modest collection of wooden homes and narrow streets that climb through oaks and droop-topped Douglas fir. From Mosier’s heart, the vast Columbia itself is invisible beyond a screen of trees, Interstate 84, and an increasingly crowded set of railroad tracks. It’s surprisingly quiet here on a sweltering Sunday in June.

Oil Train Derails Near Mosier In Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge

By Tony Hernandez for The Oregonian - A multi-car oil train derailment Friday in the Columbia River Gorge near Mosier sent up a massive plume of black smoke and stoked long-standing fears about the risks of hauling crude oil through one of the Pacific Northwest's most renowned landscapes. Eleven cars from a 96-car Union Pacific train derailed west of the small city about 12:20 p.m., adjacent to a creek that feeds the Columbia River. Several cars caught on fire and at least one released oil, but it's not clear how much or where the oil went, railroad officials said.

ACLU Condemns Surveillance Of Black Lives Matter Activists

By Kit O'Connell for Mint Press News - PORTLAND, Oregon — An investigation of social media surveillance of Black Lives Matter activists shows a pattern of systemic racism and disregard for the law, according to an Oregon civil rights group. The comments from the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon came in response to a report issued this month by the Oregon Department of Justice on the DOJ’s Criminal Justice Division’s monitoring of the social media use of Black Lives Matter activists.

LNG: Just Another Dirty Fossil Fuel

By Staff of No LNG Exports - Two LNG export proposals in Oregon pose major threats to our climate and thereby pose major threats to the future of these Portland Middle Schoolers. This cohort from Sunnyside Environmental School is very active in advocating for their right to a healthy and stable climate. After learning about the LNG issue, these climate activists wrote the video's script and did most of the artwork. They have spoken at several Portland City Council hearings on fossil fuel issues and will continue their important work in the years to come.

Conflict With Environmentalists & Militia In Oregon

By Conrad Wilson and Amelia Templeton for OBP - Candy Henderson is in the middle of treatment for breast cancer. She said she’s still sore from a recent surgery that removed part of her breast and lymph nodes. In a few weeks, she will start radiation treatment at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. But in the meantime, Henderson, who describes herself as an avid hiker, drove 400 miles from her home in Walla Walla, Washington, to join a small counter-protest at the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Oregon Militia Highlights The Stealing Of Indigenous Lands

By Staff of Tele Sur - The armed militia occupation of Native land in Oregon reveals the living history of genocide and land theft against Native Americans. When Ammon Bundy, son of Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who led an armed standoff against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2014, charged into the Malseur Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon, he said he was going to return the land from an overreaching federal government to its “original owners” he was not thinking of the Burns Paiute Tribe.

Understanding The Oregon Militia

By Les Zaitz for the Oregonian. Rep. Walden intended, he said, to quickly make points about grazing permits, the proposal for a 2.5 million acre national monument in Malheur County and other Western issues. He started talking at 7:25 p.m. Eastern time to a nearly-empty chamber. "I got up there and 17 years of working with farmers and ranchers and folks in eastern Oregon just poured out," Walden said. He described it as an "artesian well of emotion." He talked of knowing the Hammond ranching family of Diamond for nearly two decades. The patriarch, Dwight Hammond Jr., and his son Steven went to prison the day before Walden's speech. They were convicted on arson charges for burning federal land – a case that triggered the militia to rally in Burns. He recounted episode after episode of what he said was arrogant federal bureaucracies hampering rural Oregon. "Do you understand how frustrated I am at this? Can you imagine how the people on the ground feel?"

America’s History of Protest and Its Ironies

By Heather Ann Thompson for The Huffington Post - When scores of ranchers donning cowboy hats and rifles began their occupation of a remote outpost in Oregon last Saturday, it was by no means the first time in American history that a group of armed men and women had staged a dramatic occupation out West and made demands of the federal government. The men who recently barricaded themselves in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge -- a federal building near Burns, Oregon -- are there, they say, because they must take a stand against the numerous "atrocities," committed against them by the federal government.

Organic Farmers Score Victory In ‘David And Goliath’ GMO Fight

By Nadia Prupis for Common Dreams - Jackson County, Oregon wins new protections against cultivation of genetically engineered crops. Organic farmers are racking up new victories in the fight against 'franken-food', as a growing number of counties line up to bar genetically engineered (GE) crop cultivation throughout the country. A federal judge in Jackson County, Oregon recently upheld a consent decree that designates the region a "GE-free zone," a ruling which officially protects the decree from appeal, granting new protections to farmers, consumers, and the environment.

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