Issue link: http://palletcentral.uberflip.com/i/666889
12 PalletCentral • March-April 2016 palletcentral.com Capitol Hill Corner By Patrick Atagi, NWPCA Vice President, Advocacy & External Affairs C apitol Hill usually means Washington, DC, as in our nation's Capital. An interesting fact is the name comes from the geographic feature of the location of the Capitol. Capitol Hill rises near the center of the District of Columbia and extends eastward. Pierre L'Enfant, as he began to develop his plan for the new Capitol, located the "Congress House" on the crest of the hill, facing the city. That being noted, there are many capitals, and the recent work of NWPCA lobbying team took them to a different capital 3,000 miles away in Salem, Oregon. In Oregon, Representative Julie Parrish introduced House Bill HB 4089 at the beginning of Oregon's abbreviated short 30-day session. The bill would have directed Oregon state agencies to give preferential purchasing to corrugated cardboard pallets. It had over 30 co-sponsors, the support of the chair of the Oregon House Transportation and Economic Development Committee and Speaker of the House. It took a lot of work, but in the end it resulted in 15 co-sponsors removing their name from the bill and it dying in committee. How did we achieve this win? We brought scientific facts and figures, and spotlighted the incorrect information being touted by the bill sponsor and testimony by supporters of the bill, such as changethepallet.org representatives. It also took shoes-on-the-ground in the Oregon capital to reach out to over 60 Oregon house delegates and senators to educate them quickly. This is your dues dollars at work, defeating bills that would harm the businesses and entities of this industry. Following-up on HB 4089, NWPCA staff returned to INSIDE NWPCA