By: Shaanth Nanguneri 

A novel proposal that would mandate tech companies to pay local journalism outlets for using their news content failed to gain steam in its first floor vote in the Oregon Senate on Tuesday, effectively killing its chance to pass this year.

Lawmakers on Tuesday voted 15-14 against Senate Bill 686, introduced in January, which aims to regulate tech companies and social media platforms like Google and Meta that aggregate, publish and use news content for their feeds or algorithms to provide information to users. Four Democrats were in opposition.

“Does anybody honestly believe these companies are going to just write the check and keep doing business as usual here?” Sen. Mark Meek, D-Gladstone, asked his colleagues Tuesday before voting against the legislation. “No, they will stop sharing news content in Oregon all together, just like they did in Canada.”

The effort at enacting the nation’s most stringent rules regulating journalism content and reproduction has also met a mounting resistance from tech companies. Meta, for instance, has threatened to remove Oregon news from their platforms altogether if the bill passes, echoing its position in Canada where a similar law was passed in 2023.

The vote against the bill was followed by a motion by Sen. Kayse Jama, D-Portland, to send the bill back to the Senate Committee on Rules, where it was previously amended on June 11 in the face of legal concerns over regulation of private markets and the First Amendment. 

But it’s unlikely that the bill will be revived, amended and passed out of committee and both chambers by Sunday, when Oregon’s legislative session ends. And the bill’s author, Sen. Khanh Phạm, D-Portland, told the Capital Chronicle that she will be reintroducing the bill in a future session, though she hasn’t decided when.

The original version of the legislation had three avenues for platforms to satisfy the legislation’s regulations: pay each accessed provider an unspecified amount, enter into an arbitration process, or donate to a university-backed public media board. The new bill preserves those pathways but heightens the protections news outlets have if their content is used without an agreement with an online platform.

Under the legislation, companies like Apple, Google and Meta could pay tens of millions of dollars into a state fund that would support news outlets throughout the state, based on their size and the number of journalists they employ. Firms like Google, Instagram and Facebook could pay into a central fund that is doled out to different newsrooms based on size, paying $104 million annually if they have six billion or more monthly active users worldwide, or $18 million annually if they have fewer than six billion worldwide users. 

One-tenth of that money would go to the Oregon Civic Information Consortium, a proposed board under the purview of the University of Oregon that would help train future journalists, offer grants to newsrooms and ensure funding for news deserts such as rural communities. The rest of the funding would go to newsrooms based on the number of employees and journalists they have; 70% of the funds must be spent on journalists and support staff by providers. 

“We trust the people who work in this industry and whose vocation depends on freedom of the press to guide us on what they need,” Phạm said on the Senate floor, referencing the more than 50 Oregon newsrooms that have voiced support for the bill.  “Now they need a fighting chance in an unfair market.”

The bill was amended in a June committee hearing, however, to address legal concerns about violating the First Amendment and regulating the free market, though lawmakers anticipate the untested measure would face a legal challenge anyway. The new version shifted the focus away from cracking down on social media and tech platforms, aiming instead to empower news outlets to create agreements with platforms for payment or face legal consequences. 

Sen. Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, warned his colleagues that the bill could unintentionally incentivize platforms to establish agreements with politically-biased media. He was also unsure if the bill would survive under legal scrutiny.

Under the new version of the legislation, online platforms could face lawsuits for damages from newsrooms if the companies accessed their content without a written agreement. The proposal would establish an arbitration process to decide what proportion of ad revenue a platform should dole out to newsrooms. The reworked bill also classifies the access and use of such content through aggregation, publishing and distribution without a formal agreement with an outlet as an unfair trade practice. 

Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, told his colleagues there was no avoiding the uncertainty the bill would pose in the courts. But, he asked, “Can you think of a significant law in the past that tries to solve a significant problem that hasn’t been litigated?”

Aside from Meek, the three other Democrats who voted in opposition to the bill were Sens. Kayse Jama, D-Portland, Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene and Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro.  Jama reversed his position in order to be part of the prevailing majority against the bill, allowing him to call for the bill to be reconsidered and sent to committee. The one Republican who had expressed support for the legislation, Sen. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City, also voted against the bill.

Note: Oregon Capital Chronicle Editor Julia Shumway is board treasurer of the Greater Oregon Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, which supports the bill referenced in this article. She did not participate in the editing of this item.

Correction: Sen. Khanh Phạm, D-Portland, has not decided on a date in which she will reintroduce the legislation. A previous version of this story reported that she would do so next session.

A proposed amendment to House Bill 2025, the multibillion-dollar transportation bill to fund the Oregon Department of Transportation, cities and counties and finish major projects from a 2017 transportation package, removes a proposed transfer tax on new and used vehicles and has a one-time increase in the gas tax.

The amended version of HB 2025 was uploaded June 25. A draft revenue estimate obtained by the Statesman Journal forecasts that the legislation would bring in $11.7 billion over the next 10 years, nearly $3 billion less than the original estimate.

The Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment is scheduled to hold a public hearing at 3:30 p.m. on June 26 before voting on whether to send the bill to the floor

The amendment was brokered by House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, in an attempt to garner support for the bill after some Democrats expressed concerns.

What does the latest amendment to Oregon House Bill 2025 propose?

On New Year’s Day in 2023, Erik Kerr met up with a snowmobiling group near Crescent in south-central Oregon, intending to ride through the forest to the rim of Crater Lake.

But he never made it that day.

“I hit the tree dead between the skis,” Kerr said recently. “My torso went forward. My head missed the tree somehow. I could have easily broken my neck.”

Thrown off the snowmobile, Kerr landed in a snow drift, off trail and out of sight. He lay in the snow watching the other riders pass by unaware.

“My leg was snapped,” Kerr said. “I’m just freaking out. I’m like, ‘Great. Nobody’s going to see me.’”

But Kerr was luckier than most who find themselves injured in Oregon’s backcountry. Riding behind the group happened to be James Wilson, an EMT and the fire chief of Crescent. Wilson sprang into action.

“I came across him, did a quick patient assessment, saw that there was definitely a potential fracture going on there and a lot of pain,” he said.

Even with the good fortune of being found right away, Kerr waited over four hours to make it to a hospital bed in Bend. Thick fog in the region meant going by helicopter wasn’t an option.

Wilson said accidents like Kerr’s are common in his agency’s coverage area, and the calls for help are increasing.

From Crescent in Klamath County, Wilson’s EMS crew covers over 1,000 square miles. During busy holiday weekends, the population can surge to over 10,000 people.

“We’ve gone from an agency that was very small and with under 300 calls a year, five or six years ago, to where this year we’re on track to breaking 800 calls for service,” Wilson said.

Roughly 70% of Oregon’s ground ambulance service areas are in rural communities, according to the state’s Office of Rural Health.

Without a state-mandated tax base to fund local EMS, many rural agencies struggle to staff and maintain ground services, relying frequently on costly air resources and unpaid volunteers.

The level of medical care a volunteer EMS provider can offer varies greatly. Oftentimes they’re certified as EMTs and are only trained to provide basic care. Unlike paramedics, they can’t start an IV line, administer medication or intubate a patient. The years of schooling required to be a paramedic are demanding, and the associated costs are steep — around $20,000.

Hiring and retaining professional medics is another hurdle, Wilson said. Rural agencies typically offer smaller salaries than their urban counterparts. It’s a problem that Wilson said he faces in Crescent, and one that Oregon Office of Rural Health Director Robert Duehmig said is being felt statewide as older medics age out of the job.

“The population of existing EMTs is starting to retire out,” Duehmig said. “And some of the EMTs that are working are older, and that becomes a bigger danger to them trying to lift people and respond to those kinds of calls, particularly in bad weather.”

Duehmig said there are grants available to help support training for staff and volunteers at rural agencies. His office has a staff member dedicated to helping agencies find ways to increase their workforce and connect to resources. A bill under consideration in the Oregon Legislature now would raise the annual tax credit available to rural medical volunteers from $250 to $1,000.

Chris Jones volunteers for Crescent Fire, and understands firsthand the need for well-trained help. He spent 25 years as a professional paramedic before retiring in 2023.

“Rural areas need extra people,” Jones said. “I figured I have some extra time available, might as well volunteer.”

Responding to emergencies in isolated areas takes dedication, with or without a paycheck, he added.

“It’s a love for the job, a love for the rural community,” he said.

His son, Cruz Jones, also volunteers with Crescent Fire as a resident volunteer student. He’s working toward his paramedic certifications at Central Oregon Community College. By using a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant and its own funds, Crescent Fire is paying for his education. He even lives at the station and volunteers extra time to fill shifts.

The student-resident program is one way Crescent has been able to adequately staff its ambulances, Wilson said. Depending on the day and location, it can take up to four hours for a ground ambulance to arrive after a 911 call in rural Oregon.

Air ambulance operators said they are increasingly getting calls to transport patients from rural areas.

Paul Pearlmutter is a flight respiratory therapist at AirLink Critical Care Transport, a medical flight company based in Bend. He’s flown with the private company for the last decade and said aside from inter-hospital transfers, the majority of its calls to scenes are in outlying areas. Pearlmutter said he’s noticed an increase in calls for patients who aren’t critically sick or injured.

“Sometimes they’re less critical but still need to get to Bend,” Pearlmutter said. “We will go fly just to help alleviate the stress on the [ground] EMS in that system.”

A helicopter ride can range widely from a few thousand dollars to over a hundred thousand dollars, according to AirLink representative Marta Jaroch.

One mother’s seven-minute helicopter ride to transport her premature baby between hospitals racked up $40,000 in bills, Jaroch said.

EMS leaders said they would like to avoid using costly air resources for less-critical patients. To help, some rural agencies east of the Cascades are working together to build up the volunteer base of trained first responders. Some of them, like North Lake County EMS in Christmas Valley, are entirely owned and operated by volunteers.

In April, sagebrush and juniper trees dotted the landscape around a turnout area on Highway 31 near Fort Rock Junction in Lake County. Two cars were parked with their front bumpers inches apart. Inside the vehicles, actors posed as if they’d just been in a wreck. A woman was draped over the steering wheel, another was lying against the passenger door frame and a child in the back was slumped over in a booster seat.

North Lake County EMS and AirLink set up this scene as part of a training for over a half a dozen rural EMS agencies across three counties. The actors were there to help first responders prepare for a mass-casualty event, said AirLink’s Jaroch.

“The EMTs are going to ask them questions and they’re going to say, ‘Well, I’m feeling nauseated. My neck hurts, my head hurts, or I’m having severe abdominal pain,’” she said.

Katie Lossing, an EMT student at Klamath Community College, leaned into the car window.

“Hey sweetheart, you with us?” Lossing asked the driver

“Pressure. My head hurts,” the woman replied.

After assessing the victims, the group convened to determine which patients were critical and required air transport.

It’s a scenario that volunteers need to be familiar with when working in rural areas, Jaroch said.

And their efforts are appreciated, especially by people like Erik Kerr — the snowmobiler who broke his leg two years ago.

He’s healed up now, and recently returned to the backcountry to finish his ride to Crater Lake.

Jennifer Baires is a freelance journalist based in Bend. She can be reached at jbaires@opb.org.

Editor’s note: OPB is a nonprofit, statewide news organization with a mission to tell stories for communities in all parts of Oregon and Southwest Washington. As part of that goal, we work with partner news organizations and freelancers to identify stories like this that might otherwise go untold. If you have an idea for a story, live in an area outside Portland and want to work with us, send your freelance pitches to ecureton@opb.org.