Message from the Legislative Affairs Committee

Legislative Update
Provided by Cindy Robert, Legislative Lobbyist to AIA Oregon, Rainmakers LLC

With contributions from Kim Olson, AIA (Chair) and Chris Forney, AIA (Sustainability)

AIA at work in Salem

With the 82nd Oregon Legislative Assembly convening for the 2023 Legislative Session on Tuesday, January 17th, your AIAO Legislative committee began its work. The Governor has targeted housing, homelessness, mental health and education as her focus (and use of 75% of the general fund budget) and while we support her in many of her efforts to improve Oregon, our agenda has additional focus on sustainability, the environment and our practice.

Resilience

We have our own bills expanding the role of the State Resilience Officer role and assuring that new schools plan for large space like cafeterias and gyms to be built to resilient standards so communities can utilize them after a hazard. We are also tracking more than 20 bills dealing with resilience such as HB 2257 (which we testified for) establishing a School Safety Construction Fund, HB 2775 and 2875 creating the Oregon Disaster Recovery Authority, and HB 2858 requiring the Department of Land Conservation and Development do natural hazards mitigation planning. 

Sustainability
This past year, AIA participated on the 27-person Resilient and Efficiency Buildings (REBuilding) Task Force, convened by Rep Marsh and Sen Leiber. The task force identified and produced quantitative analysis for areas of significant impact for emissions reductions and community resilience.  Following the final REBuilding Task Force report, initial bill language for four bills was filed:

SB868: Healthy Heating and Cooling for All
SB869: Build Smart from the Start
SB870: Building Performance Standard
SB871: Smart State Buildings

We anticipate that there will be amendments needed and AIA will be engaged in those discussions.

Early in the process, AIA submitted Legislative Concept LC3296 – Energy Benchmarking, with Senator Dembrow. Currently, AIA is inclined to shift focus of our advocacy and our membership’s attention on the four SBs coming out of the Rebuilding Task force.

Practice

We are supporting changes to ORS 671, our practice act, brought forward by ORBAE in SB 224. Architects were involved during the interim developing language changes. As proposed, SB 224 updates terminology and describes concepts related to architectural practice in a way that is more consistent with architectural practice across the country. The changes also remove some barriers to registration for firms providing architectural services in Oregon.

It is always worrisome when you open up your practice act, that others might want to make changes that weren’t part of the ongoing collaborative efforts. In this case, a change to expand exemption language was offered increasing exempt building sizes and allowing some multifamily structure in definition of those not requiring an architect’s involvement. The proposer has recently been clear that he hopes to start a conversation with his proposed amendments, and has asked the legislature to move SB 224 forward without changes.

Duty to Defend

We join other design professionals in a simplified version of this issue we have brought before prior legislatures.

Professional service contracts often require design professionals including engineers, architects, surveyors, landscape architects, planners, and others to defend others for legal claims or damages even though the design professional is not responsible. This “duty to defend” language is problematic for us and we want it removed.

Design professionals may carry general liability insurance, and most of their activities are professional acts which are covered by their professional liability insurance. However, the professional liability insurance does not insure a contractual, up front, duty to defend.  In many cases, firms are compelled to accept the duty to defend contract language, or the client will seek another firm. Often, design firms do make the tough decision to walk away from contracts, but they cannot walk away every time. When designers are compelled to sign these agreements, they are committing their business assets to pay these costs, regardless of fault.  Because these risks are significant, and potentially catastrophic, the result is fewer firms seeking such work and diminished competition. We are stressing the impact “duty to defend” language in contracts has on small, emerging, women and minority owned businesses. At the same that the legislature is looking to increase diversity in public contracting, they are allowing use of archaic liability language in contract that defies those equity goals.

Oregon would join a number of states that have already addressed the design professional’s duty to defend with legislation stating that a design professional will only be responsible for defense costs to the proportionate extent of their liability or fault.

Interested in joining the conversation / participating in the Legislative Action Committee? Contact the LAC Chair, Kim Olson, directly: Kolson@mahlum.com

Message from our AIAO Lobbyist and our AIAO EVP/CEO

Cindy Robert

Heather Wilson

2023 AIA Oregon Legislative Forecast

This is a collaborative report from Cindy Robert – our AIA Oregon lobbyist, and Heather Wilson, AIA Oregon EVP / CEO.

Happy New Year!

Being an odd numbered year means we are moving into a long legislative session. Here is what to expect:

• January 9 – First convening and swearing in of legislators – Afternoon swearing in of Governor Kotek and her inaugural address.

• This will be followed by three days of training for legislators – we will begin to see pre-session filed bills printed and published for public viewing.

• You will receive your first bill tracking list!

• January 17 – 2023 Legislative Session begins.

• June 25 – Constitutionally required end to Legislative Session.

What happens between January and June is hard to say…but here are some facts that will impact:

• The Capitol is “open to the public” but with seismic retrofit and renovation construction going on through 2025 and most of the older portions of the building closed, capacity is limited. Security will count comings and goings and restrict the number of people permitted inside. Leadership has asked lobbyists not to have “advocacy days at the legislature” and the lack of parking, no lobby message center for meetings or storage of items, no restaurant or water fountains, closed lobbies outside House and Senate Chambers, and reduced availability of hearing rooms will certainly make for a less functional place to be.

• We will have a new Senate President for the first time in almost two decades.

• Democrats have majority in House and Senate – but not a supermajority – so Republicans will need to help with approval of any new taxes and fees.

• The House Majority Leader and the New Governor have both signaled that Housing will be a top issue. Oregon needs 550,000 new units in the next 20 years to help house citizens, some legislators are focused on more affordable workforce housing and the ability for people to buy and others will certainly look to compel landlords to keep people housed.

• Behavioral/mental health is top of mind for many as we see failures statewide to help those in need, to recruit and train those to help and to dedicate dollars needed for programs.

• The Joint Transportation Committee will wrangle with ongoing needs for road and bridge funding as the gas tax we rely on continues to decrease as electric vehicles increase. They will also be looking for funding for the new bridge between OR & WA.

House Committee membership is here…Senate Committee membership is here….Committee schedule is here. If you do not already know your representatives, please take a moment to look them up. Perhaps even send them an email, letting them know that you are one of their constituents, and that you are tuned into legislative session. If you would offer yourself as a resource on the built environment, you may be able to help better inform our decision makers in the Capitol, who often turn instead to developers, real estate agents and homebuilders for advice about such important topics as energy efficiency, building code, and housing affordability. 

Your AIA Oregon Legislative Affairs Committee, chaired by Kim Olson, AIA, is already at work determining our priorities for 2023. The group will meet throughout session and any member is welcome to join. Please email Heather Wilson for details: hwilson@aiaoregon.org. If you have questions regarding any specific bills or actions taken, you may also reach out directly to Cindy Robert, with Rainmakers, LLC: cindy@rainmakersgovernmentstrategies.com. We are looking forward to serving the AIA Oregon membership and will provide updates here in the T@3 through session, including any needed Calls to Action, so stay tuned!

Messages from the AIAO Legislative Affairs Committee

Chris Forney, LAC Committee Member

Using our Collective Voice

In the wake of the latest Supreme Court EPA Ruling, I would like to seize upon this moment to promote discussion, healthy debate and understanding amongst our membership and feel empowered to drive home our shared priorities. Our superpower as an organization is that we have a collective voice that is smart, informed, and structured and can be used to influence legislation. From my perspective, it is a lot more apparent how critical it is that we get better at using that superpower to influence legislation. If we don’t, others will and we may not like those outcomes.How do we do that?

• Can we promote discussion and debate towards hammering out a shared agenda? A shared agenda can be mobilizing for membership.

• Can we be polling our members more frequently and sharing the results? I think Architects want to know what other Architects are thinking. These results might also help us communicate shared priorities with more validity, authenticity and transparency.

• Can we get good at deciphering permission from membership (voting) on 1-3 clear goals that we then confidently use to direct committees to execute, full steam?

I’ve long suspected that executive action through agency directive was not a durable pathway to responding to climate change (or any matter). The recent supreme court decisions are telling us that the only durable response to women’s rights, environmental and health protection and social justice is through legislation. We are being told by this Supreme Court to set clearer rules for them to judge by. So, let’s get organized and let’s get clear on the rules we want our local, State and National communities to live by.Our collective voice just became a lot more important. My hope is that we, as a community of Architects, can gather our focus amongst our membership to describe the future we want to see.

Christopher Forney | Principal
BRIGHTWORKS SUSTAINABILITY

*****

Cindy Robert, Rainmakers LLC (AIA Oregon Lobbyist)

State Wildfire Risk Mapping now available – a proactive measure to prevent and respond to the growing threat of wildfires.
The searchable map shows the wildfire risk of properties across the state. Anyone can plug in their address and see where their property falls on a risk spectrum. The map was made by a collaborative that included the state’s Department of Forestry, the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon State University as part of Senate Bill 762 (2021 legislative session). That bill, passed during the 2021 Legislative session, ordered state agencies to undertake a slate of measures to modernize and improve wildfire preparedness through three key strategies: creating fire-adapted communities, developing safe and effective response, and increasing the resiliency of Oregon's landscapes. The bill is the product of years of hard work by the Governor's Wildfire Council, the Legislature, and state agencies.

At its core, the wildfire risk map is a tool to help inform decision making and planning related to mitigating wildfire risk for communities throughout Oregon and making it a reality has been an immense lift. Every tax lot in Oregon is assigned a wildfire risk classification. Knowing their level of wildfire risk will assist homeowners in identifying mitigation actions that can help protect their homes and communities. For homes that fall within the WUI and are classified as high or extreme risk, there will be required mitigation actions. The Office of the State Fire Marshal is working on defensible space codes and the Building Codes Division is working on home hardening codes.