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A bill that would increase taxes on stays in hotels, Airbnbs and other short-term lodgings to raise money for wildlife protection passed the Oregon Senate today and heads to Gov. Tina Kotek’s desk for signature.
HB 4134 had become one of the most contentious bills in this year’s short legislative session. It would raise the tax on hotels, Airbnbs and other short-term lodgings from 1.5% to 2.75% and channel new money toward protecting Oregon wildlife.
The bill has nuggets aimed at getting votes from rural legislators, including money for Oregon’s Wolf Management Compensation and Proactive Trust Fund, which, among other things, compensates ranchers for stock taken by wolves and pays for “nonlethal wolf deterrence techniques designed to discourage wolf depredation of livestock.”
Supporters contend that many visitors to the Beaver State come to see Northwestern fauna, and that it should be conserved with dollars raised from the transient lodging tax. Opponents say the Legislature shouldn’t create another disincentive to visiting Oregon because the economy remains weak and hotel occupancy hasn’t rebounded from the pandemic.
Groups on both sides peppered the legislature with information. Acrimony grew after environmental groups published a two-page flyer describing “common misconceptions” about the bill being bandied by opponents. Among them: Increasing the tax would deter tourism and Portland tourism needs more time to recover from the pandemic. Both are wrong, the flyer said.
The Portland Metro Chamber responded with a 16-page memo saying that the flyer was likely written by AI and that it took “extreme liberties with the facts.”
According to the chamber, the flyer was created by the Oregon Conservation Network, a coalition of some 40 organizations. Arran Robertson, a spokesman for Oregon Wild, said the flyer was “generated” by his organization and the Western Environmental Law Center. It was not created by AI and wasn’t “heavily AI-reliant,” Robertson said in an email.
As for any confusion over authorship, the document was in a packet distributed by OCN, and there wasn’t room to cite creators, Roberston said. Oregon Wild is part of OCN but WELC is not.
The chamber also pointed out mismatched footnotes in the flyer, which Robertson attributed to software issues. He called the chamber’s attention to them a “fixation” and said once the footnotes are properly aligned, their rebuttal “hollows out.”
The chamber raised issues beyond the mislabeled footnotes. It found fault in OCN’s assertion that tourism increased in Montana after the state increased its transient lodging tax by 1% in 2020. The footnote for that claim is a news story that says while lodging tax revenues increased, visitor numbers were unchanged at 12 million a year. A similar assertion about Vermont neglected to say that a 3% tax increase there in 2024 applied only to short-term rentals, not hotels, the chamber says, as noted in another footnote.
In a separate email to WW, Danielle Moser, wildlife program manager at Oregon Wild, punched back at the Portland Metro Chamber.
“An overwhelming number of Oregonians from across the state, including 80% of all public testimony in support of this historic opportunity to protect our wildlife and invest in the things that make this state special,” Moser wrote. “Meanwhile, opponents of this bill, having realized they are out of touch with the values of Oregonians, are attempting to discredit a briefing document by saying it was AI-generated (it wasn’t) and fixating on a single mislabeled footnote (which has been corrected and redistributed).”
The bad blood continued today.
“It is deeply concerning that the Oregon environmental lobby continues to mislead the public and elected officials about the health of Oregon’s tourism economy,“ says Jon Isaacs, executive vice president of public affairs at the Portland Metro Chamber. ”All available data, including the latest report from Travel Portland, indicate the tourism economy has not recovered. The passage of the largest tourism tax increase in Oregon history could not come at a worse time.”
Travel Portland reported today that its lodging tax collections fell 1% to $12.2 million in the first half of the 2026 fiscal year, which ended June 30, because hotels didn’t attract enough business customers last summer.
Separate from the tussle with environmentalists, the Portland Metro Chamber says legislators used outdated data to assess the economic impact of HB 4134. Chamber staff cited an email exchange between Sen. Mark Meek (D-Gladstone), who asked for visitor data, and Travel Oregon staffer Kate Baumgartner, who responded to it.
Travel Oregon, Baumgartner wrote, had provided the Legislature “feedback that the increased tax on lodging could negatively impact demand” and that assumptions in the revenue impact statement “are not aligned with current market dynamics.”
Last May, Travel Oregon slashed its forecast for lodging-tax revenue because Canadians, angered by Donald Trump’s tariffs and 51st-state bluster, stayed away in droves. Travel Oregon said revenue would grow just 1.8% this fiscal year, down from a January 2025 estimate of 3.3%.
Legislative Revenue Officer Chris Allanach addressed the matter in an email to WW today. His office’s estimates for tax revenue gained or lost because of the increase—a standard analysis for bills—are based on historical tax collections through fiscal year 2025 (ended June 30) with partial information for fiscal 2026, Allanach wrote in an email. His s office used an annual average growth rate of 3.8% through fiscal 2031.
“For context, the historical annual average growth rate in sales, excluding COVID years, is roughly 7%,” Allanach said.
Defenders of Wildlife, based in Washington, D.C., said the bill would raise $30 million a year for habitat protection by the end of the decade. In 2025, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife identified 320 at-risk species, including the Southern Resident killer whale, the American pika and the tufted puffin.
