The Oregon Senate on June 26 passed House Bill 3940 B, a multi-part wildfire finance and policy package that dedicates new revenue to landscape resilience, community risk reduction, and forestry programs.

The bill dedicates a portion of rainy-day fund interest and establishes a tax on oral nicotine products to generate recurring revenue. Sponsors said the package also modernizes several wildfire-related fees, creates a state forestry large-wildfire fund, improves cash-flow arrangements with Treasury, and directs allocations for mitigation and community risk reduction.

Senator Pam Broadband, the bill carrier, framed the bill as a bipartisan, consensus product designed to create predictable funding for both the Oregon Department of Forestry’s landscape-resilience programs and the Office of the State Fire Marshal’s community-risk work. Broadband described two revenue streams: a dedication of 20% of rainy-day fund interest and a per-container tax on oral nicotine products (65¢ for up to 20 units, plus an additional per-unit surtax). She said one-third of the revenue would go to the Department of Forestry landscape-resilience fund and two-thirds to community risk reduction at the State Fire Marshal.

The tax provoked sustained floor pushback. Senator Hayden opposed using an oral-nicotine tax, saying the products are often used as cigarette-cessation tools and that revenue would divert funds from unmet oral-health needs, veterans’ dental programs, and other health services. Senator Robinson argued that essential government functions like wildfire suppression should be funded from the general fund rather than by new targeted taxes. Several senators, including Gerard and Golden, said the bill is only a partial step toward the larger funding need and supported it as a pragmatic move to provide immediate risk-reduction funds.

Senators also discussed landowner assessment relief, updated forest-products harvest tax indexing, and bridge-loan cash-flow arrangements to prevent late payments to suppression contractors. Senator Golden estimated total funding leverage for the biennium could reach roughly $263 million when paired with budget actions; supporters argued that dedicating funds for mitigation would reduce future suppression costs.

The clerk announced that House Bill 3940 B “having received a constitutional majority is declared passed.”