L&C in the Media

The intricacies of the tax code can overwhelm most people. But for immigrant families with dependents who reside elsewhere, changes to the tax code can be especially confusing.  Lewis & Clark Professor Sarah Lora explains what immigrants need to do to comply with US tax regulations.

Residential customers will be paying less for natural gas, thanks to a successful legal action brought by Lewis & Clark’s Green Energy Institute (GEI) on behalf of the Coalition of Communities of Color, the Oregon Environmental Council, Climate Solutions and other nonprofits.  In addition to curbing the proposed rate increases, GEI is challenging how the gas utility uses ratepayer money to fund lobbying efforts and to subsidize growth that does not align with state climate change legislation.

This November, Portland residents will use a new ranked-choice system for electing city officials.  As Lewis & Clark Professor Ellen Seljan explains, voters will need to be especially well informed to make the most of the new system. 

Portland is about to be the epicenter of a major supermarket chain merger that will determine the scope of antitrust law for years to come, notes Lewis & Clark Professor Keith Cunningham-Parmeter. “The scale of it is huge, and  it’s affecting consumers at a time of inflation and workers at a time of increased attention to labor rights.” Federal regulators are considering the effect the merger will have on workers, which according to Cunningham-Parmeter, “is a unique development,” that is “taking antitrust law into a new zone.”

Debates about how to save the endangered northern spotted owl have raged for decades.  But, argues Lewis & Clark Professor Jay Odenbaugh, maybe it’s time to stop thinking about preserving a single species, when we need to focus on saving entire ecosystems instead.

Decades of criminalizing drug use have failed to end addiction. Yet harm reduction efforts intended to ameliorate criminalization have struggled for success, especially as newly addictive substances spread across the US.  Lewis & Clark Professor Rob Bovett discusses the challenges and opportunities for forging a bipartisan, public health approach to addiction that will better serve individuals and communities. Professor Bovett has spent much of his career creating and implementing evidence-based programs to move individuals suffering from addiction out of the criminal justice system and into treatment and recovery. 

How can philosophy and other liberal arts disciplines inform environmental policy? Currently, the federal government is poised to authorize the killing of nearly half a million barred owls in the Pacific Northwest, in an effort to aid the endangered northern spotted owl. But, as Lewis & Clark Professor Jay Odenbaugh notes, this decision may be based on poor science that ignores ornithological genomic evidence, and on an outdated understanding of restoration and conservation that may ultimately put Pacific Northwest forests at risk of losing environmental protection.

The United States’ Export-Import Bank provides financial support to activities that are fueling the climate emergency. Lewis & Clark Professor Erica Lyman is one of the environmental experts urging President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to end this practice. “The administration now has an important opportunity to continue to stand by its climate commitments to end federal funding for overseas fossil fuel projects,” Lyman argues.