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Even as it fights new air pollution rules, Associated Oregon Industries lobbyist Mike Freese said his group remains committed to negotiating them.

(Oregon Legislature)

A few weeks ago in Salem, what sounded like a grassroots community group popped up out of nowhere. Oregonians for Fair Air Regulation had no website, appearing to exist only on paper.

Yet there it was, fighting Gov. Kate Brown's overhaul of Oregon's air laws, an initiative begun after last year's discovery of toxic pollution around Portland's Bullseye Glass.

Then last week, 25 miles down the road in Albany, a battery parts manufacturer sued the state. Entek International argued that it was illegal for Oregon's health and environmental agencies to tell the company's employees and neighbors about models indicating high levels of a cancer-causing solvent in the air around its Lebanon factory.

Publicizing pollution risks would be a hallmark of Brown's proposed overhaul. But a judge issued a gag order, preventing the state from warning the public.

While the two events appeared unrelated, a common thread was stitched through them. Both served as fronts in an increasingly public campaign by Oregon's polluting industries to oppose the governor's clean air push, called Cleaner Air Oregon.

The root of the opposition? Oregon's largest business lobby, Associated Oregon Industries, which lent its powerful support to the lawsuit and is leading the campaign against the governor's air rules.

Brown's plan would target pollution that today is legal. Factories, chrome platers and other industrial sources of toxic air pollution are allowed to emit heavy metals, solvents and other cancer-causing chemicals into the air even if the emissions threaten neighbors' health. California and Washington have both moved to address the issue.

The fight against these types of rules isn't the only place where Associated Oregon Industries is making its influence felt this session. Earlier this week, the group and its allies succeeded in gutting Senate Bill 1008, which would prevent Oregon from continuing to be a dumping ground for diesel engines too dirty to operate in California.

But Cleaner Air Oregon differs from the diesel bill in that industry is taking on Brown's initiative -- and her resolve.

In creating Oregonians for Fair Air Regulation, Associated Oregon Industries turned to a time-worn industry tactic. The front group distributed a one-pager in the state Capitol, urging lawmakers to oppose funding the governor's overhaul. That would undermine the new rules before they're adopted.

Mike Freese, an Associated Oregon Industries lobbyist, said the fair air group represents businesses that employ tens of thousands in the state. He wouldn't identify any of the companies.

Even as it fights the rules, Freese said his association remains committed to negotiating them and ensuring Cleaner Air Oregon is based on science, not politics. "We are engaging in the rulemaking process like others and not taking a shot at the governor" or Cleaner Air Oregon, he said in an email. "We agree that Oregon can have both clean air and a healthy economy."

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown.

The governor said she is urging businesses to work cooperatively on the air overhaul. And in a statement, Brown addressed the Entek case, saying all Oregonians deserve to know when state agencies have concerns about the air people breathe.

"Oregonians expect clean air in their communities and workplaces across the state," the governor said. "With a program like Cleaner Air Oregon in place, no business will feel singled out and no neighborhood will wonder what is in the air."

Environmental groups see the developments as evidence that Oregon's largest business group has grown nervous about its chances of killing Brown's new air pollution rules.

"This is all showing that they know they're losing in the rulemaking process," said Mary Peveto, president of Neighbors for Clean Air, a Portland advocacy group. "I don't think those are the kinds of battles they're used to losing in Salem. I think that was a trigger."

The last time Oregon tried to cut down on toxic pollution, from 2009-2011, state leaders allowed industry such free rein that the effort failed to clean anything up. The governor has indicated that this time will be different. If it is approved and funded, Cleaner Air Oregon would be one of her signature environmental accomplishments.

In the Entek International case, the state has offered a preview of how Brown's proposed regulations are expected to work. After modeling indicated high levels of a cancer-causing solvent, trichloroethylene, in the air near the battery parts manufacturer, the state prepared a plan to tell neighbors, health officials and company employees about the possible risks and what it was doing to confirm the models.

Entek's Lebanon facility.

But a Linn County circuit court judge, Thomas McHill, granted Entek's request to keep the state from communicating with the public. McHill's order said telling the public would "irreparably harm" the company.

The state isn't sure how high the pollution levels are around Entek and intends to deploy air monitors to find out.

But state attorneys said officials wanted to move quickly because the levels could be high enough that even short-term exposure could increase the risk of fetuses developing heart deformities.

Entek successfully argued that the state shouldn't be able to tell the public what it's doing until it has the results and Cleaner Air Oregon has been approved.

Freese, the industry group's lobbyist, filed a statement on Entek's behalf, calling the state's plan to talk to neighbors "unprecedented."

Joel Mullin, a Stoel Rives attorney who represents Entek, said he turned to Freese because the industry lobbyist happened to be at his office and he needed someone to testify about two facts.

Associated Oregon Industries "was not involved in the decision to file the lawsuit," Mullin said. "The lawsuit certainly was not intended to be a shot at Cleaner Air Oregon. It was intended to enforce my client's rights."

Entek has had problems with its trichloroethylene use before. The state required the company to clean up of a plume of the solvent discovered in the soil on Entek's property in 1999. It had migrated through groundwater to a nearby business, records show.

Unlike when Bullseye Glass's toxic pollution was discovered, conservative leaders have rallied to Entek's side. The company's co-founder, James Young, has given $537,000 to conservative campaigns since 2010, including $15,000 to Associated Oregon Industries' political action committee.

Rep. Sherrie Sprenger, R-Scio, sent a public records request to the Department of Environmental Quality, asking for emails and text messages about Entek. Sprenger called Entek a community asset and said the state may owe the business an apology.

Sprenger has received $5,750 in campaign donations since 2008 from Associated Oregon Industries and the Oregon Business Association, a group with which the industries lobby is merging.

"The company has made a conscious effort to keep emissions well below the limits set by the government," Sprenger, a Republican whose district includes Entek, said in a statement. "So when multiple state agencies descend on our community and suggest, without any evidence other than a computer model, that this business is potentially causing harm to our friends and neighbors, I take offense."

Democratic Sen. Betsy Johnson of Scappoose sent a similar request to the Oregon Health Authority and the governor's office. The two business groups gave her $7,500 since 2010. Sen. Ted Ferrioli, the Republican senate leader from John Day, has received $56,000 from the groups since 2008. He also sent the governor's office a request for records about Entek.

Republican Sen. Fred Girod, who has taken $3,500 from the business association since 2015, co-authored an opinion piece with Sprenger criticizing Cleaner Air Oregon as "financially devastating." They said the state's health and environmental agencies were pushing "a misleading storyline at the expense of one of Oregon's rural employers."

Two environmental law professors both called Entek's case "absurd."

"This is the kind of thing that should backfire," said Craig Johnston, a law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School. "The industry groups should be embarrassed. It just undermines any idea that they know what reasonable rules are."

While the state can't act on its written plan for informing the public about Lebanon's pollution problem, it did release the document in response to a records request from The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Greg Dotson, an assistant law professor at University of Oregon Law School, reviewed the plan at the newsroom's request. He said it addressed problems made evident during the Flint water crisis and the 2016 Portland air emergency: Residents want to know right away when their regulators think their health may be at risk.

"This information is serious enough that it cannot be responsibly concealed from the public," Dotson said.

The temporary gag order is in place until Judge Carol Bispham can rule on whether a longer order is warranted. In a hearing April 13, Bispham appeared to chastise the state for going after Entek.

"People have a right to information," she said, "but it needs to have some indication of reliability when you're going to affect people's lives, scare a community, affect a company that's been here for 30 years and worked well within the community."

She did not say when she intends to rule.

— Rob Davis

rdavis@oregonian.com

503.294.7657; @robwdavis