Roseburg News-Review: "Legislator eyes job as top cop"

From The Roseburg News-Review, April 7, 2008

Macpherson came to Roseburg last week and spoke with The News-Review’s editorial board. If elected, he said he would attack consumer fraud and look at more stringent enforcement of the state’s environmental laws. He said he would also be an advocate for protecting Oregonians’ civil liberties and would look to shape public safety issues.

“Each of those is important in its own way, but I do think that consumer protection is a very important function of the attorney general’s office and not as well appreciated by people now as it should be,” Macpherson said.

In recent years, the state has not provided enough money to the Department of Environmental Quality to adequately investigate environmental concerns, he said. The DEQ relies on attorneys from the state Department of Justice to provide legal work on cases.

“We need more energetic enforcement of our environmental laws and we need what I would characterize as graduated responses,” Macpherson said.

He said most companies are good corporate citizens and that he would push for voluntary compliance and use criminal prosecution only as a last resort.

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