Program no longer reduces pollution.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

AGRICULTURE

The Oregon law that gives farmers state tax credits as encouragement to stop burning their fields is part of the state's broad pollution control tax credit program that lets many industries cut their annual tax burden when they buy pollution control equipment.

The program was started by the Legislature in 1968 with the aim of reducing pollution and helping Oregon industry obey national environmental laws.

Since then, the state has issued 5,201 tax credit certificates - to individuals and companies - worth a total of $630 million. The certificates let the holder reduce their state tax bill.

Most of the tax credits go to big industry for buying pollution control systems. Recipients have included the Weyerhaeuser Co. cardboard factory in Springfield and the Hynix computer chip factory in west Eugene.

Nearly four decades since inception, the tax program no longer reduces pollution, said Andy Ginsburg, a manager at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

State and federal laws long have required individuals and businesses to use air scrubbers and other controls, he said. Companies get the state credits whether or not they cut pollution beyond what environmental law requires.

"It's not really an environmental question. It's a revenue/fiscal kind of question," he said.

Not so, counters Associated Oregon Industries, the business group that has championed the tax credits in the Legislature. Businesses that get the credits will sooner upgrade their factories - meaning fewer months or years of pollution, AOI Vice President John Ledger said.

The payments also help local businesses compete with out-of-state rivals and preserve jobs, Ledger added.

State Rep. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, said the tax credits have strayed from their original purpose, when industry heavily polluted Oregon's air.

Businesses and individuals have become creative in using the tax credit law, Hass added. "It's been extended and extended and tweaked and tweaked so you have some absurd situations."

The politicians' favorite example: wood chippers.

A few years ago, businesses and individuals realized they could claim that a wood chipper might stop them from burning unwanted trees and brush - so using a chipper could reduce air pollution.

Since then, the state has issued $1.4 million worth of tax credits to people who bought 874 wood chippers.

"There was a mad rush all over the state for people to buy these chippers - with no intention whatsoever of cutting down very much pollution because most of us are not allowed to burn within city limits anyway," said Tony Van Vliet, a former member of the Environmental Quality Commission, which oversees the tax credit program. "That's just absolute nonsense."

See also: Debate grows over tax credit / D1