Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek on Wednesday declared a state of emergency over hunger and directed $5 million to food banks across the state, seeking to avert the impending November loss of food stamp benefits for hundreds of thousands of Oregonians under the federal government’s ongoing shutdown.
Federal funding for SNAP will run out Nov. 1 if the federal government remains shut down, leaving more than 757,000 Oregonians without the support they rely on to buy groceries.
The one in six Oregonians who rely on federal SNAP food and nutrition assistance to pay for groceries each month will be left with nothing in November due to the ongoing government shutdown, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Oregon Department of Human Services.
After Judge Karin Immergut’s Saturday order preventing mobilization of the Oregon National Guard, the federal government ordered first California and then Texas troops to Portland.
Oregon faces five major challenges, according to economist John Tapogna: a housing shortage; lousy K–12 schools; wildfires; overreliance on income taxes; and ambivalence about growth.
A recent rulemaking process from the Department of Land and Conservation Development could have limited what can be sold at farm stands, but an outsized public response to the potential rules put the process on an indefinite pause.
An 8.7 magnitude earthquake struck off the east coast of Kamchatka, Russia on Tuesday evening according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), prompting a Tsunami Watch for the Oregon coast and other west coast regions.
On Wednesday, July 16, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek declared a state of emergency over the wildfires at the request of the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Oregon State Fire Marshal. Forest Grove firefighters are once again aiding at statewide wildfires.
The Oregon Department of Emergency Management is urging Oregonians to be vigilant in the face of a National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin
warning of a heightened threat environment amid the Israel-Iran war and U.S. airstrikes on Iran.
A spokeswoman for Oregon Housing and Community Services said a low risk tolerance and inexperience in major disaster recovery by the agency has slowed the rollout of federal aid following the 2020 Labor Day wildfires.
