Oregon Tax News

Oregon Tax News
6/15/2009

Pacific Ethanol’s subsidiary that operates the 40 million gallon Boardman ethanol plant was one of five subsidiaries that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy recently.  Company officials indicated that the plant would continue to operate.  The Boardman plant is the only one of Pacific Ethanol’s four corn ethanol plants still operating. Both of Oregon’s large ethanol plants are seeking bankruptcy protection from creditors.  Cascade Grain’s 100 million gallon plant in Clatskanie operated briefly in 2008 then filed for Chapter 11 protection in January.

Falling gas prices, increased corn prices along with expansion of ethanol capacity have curtailed the enthusiasm for ethanol not only in Oregon but across the nation.
Read more…

John in Oregon,

Humorist P.J. O’Rourke’s latest effort in the Wall Street Journal satirizes that “The fate of Detroit isn’t a matter of economics. It’s a tragic romance, whose magic was killed by bureaucrats, bad taste and busybodies.”

With a razor sharp keyboard O’Rourke drills down to the heart of the problem saying;

“We became sick and tired of our cars and even angry at them. Pointy-headed busybodies of the environmentalist, new urbanist, utopian communitarian ilk blamed the victim. They claimed the car had forced us to live in widely scattered settlements in the great wasteland of big-box stores and the Olive Garden.” Read more…