If your are following the various Senate races around the country, you know that Dr. Monica Wehby, a pediatric neurosurgeon in Portland, Oregon, has won the Republican primary and will face off against Oregon's junior Senator, Democrat Jeff Merkley in the fall.  But last Friday the primary race had yet to be decided and her opponent was the other leading Republican contender, Jason Conger, a member of the Oregon House of Representatives.  The City Club of Portland hosted a debate between the Dr. Wehby and Mr. Conger that day, and today's featured quote is from one of Dr. Wehby's responses to questions from the moderator, Jack Roberts. 

Dr. Wehby's slogan is "Keep your doctor, change your senator."  Health care and the problems of the now failed Cover Oregon exchange are the big issues, not international trade.  Still, there were a couple of trade policy questions near the end. The big one dealt with plans for exporting coal from states to the east (we assume Montana and Wyoming) through Oregon ports.  

On this issue there was essentially no difference between the two candidates. (One expects a fair amount of that in a primary.)  Even so, the discussion was illuminating.  Here is the full exchange on that issue from last Friday's debate, the moderator's question and the answers of the two candidates.

Mr. Roberts was not overstating the governor's position.  Speaking to the Oregon League of Conservation Voters on April 19, Governor Kitzhaber said, "It is time to once and for all say NO to coal exports from the Pacific Northwest."

At present a focal point in the coal export debate is Ambre Energy's Morrow Pacific project near Boardman, Oregon, on the Columbia River.  Ambre, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, describes itself as "an emerging leader in [the] U.S. export [of] thermal coal."  In Boardman it plans to transfer coal destined for Asia from trains to barges.

We are not entirely clear just where this project stands, but it remains a political hot button, and on May 5, The Oregonian took the governor to task editorially for moving the goal posts (bending the rules) in an effort to block the project.

Our view is that the moderator, Mr. Roberts, was right to raise the question of the Constitution's Commerce Clause.  Of course, states have a right to be concerned with the safety of the commodities that traverse them.  But should coastal states like Oregon have a right to dictate which products of interior states will be allowed access to their ports?  We think not.

Finally, there is the issue of rare earths, those elements China still virtually controls and which are critical to so many high tech products, including things like the wind turbines that dot the landscape near Boardman, Oregon.  The United States recently won a WTO case against China and its policy of restricting exports of rare earths. 

Even if the "no coal exports" policy were to prevail, there may be little likelihood of a similar case against the United States.  The hypocrisy, however, would not go unnoticed.