Art Robinson is a biochemist and a longtime Southern Oregon resident and a Constitutional conservative. He has spent decades standing up to radical environmentalists who continue to threaten our most vital industries like logging, ranching, farming and mining. After repeated defeats for Peter DeFazio’s seat in Congress, he saw a win in replacing Senator Herman Baertschiger for State Senate District 2, which includes Josephine and Northern Jackson counties and the towns of Grants Pass, Central Point, Rogue River, Eagle Point, White City, Gold Hill and Cave Junction.

In 2020, after Robinson switched his race to the State Senate, Daily Kos labeled him as the Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day for the seventh year in a row. Besides his repeated losses challenging Rep. Peter DeFazio, they labeled him as “the weirdest opinions on science of any member of the GOP we’ve ever profiled.” They weren’t the only ones making fun of Robinson’s scientific theories. If you’re not a scientist, it might be a little difficult to track Robinson’s theories, but much of what he has been saying over the years is becoming reality. After all, he was a professor of chemistry at the University of California until 1972.

Robison isn’t very popular with the Oregon leadership on his support to remove all taxes on energy, but they love tax credits. So, when Robinson sponsored SB 825 to create an income tax credit for energy production and establish a task force on free-market energy production, it was given a courtesy hearing. But that’s all it was, the bill died in committee.

That hasn’t stopped Senator Robinson from getting his message out. At almost every Senate floor session you can hear him deliver a two-minute speech about science. He starts by discussing how much of climate change is related to human activity. “Your carbon footprint is not causing the oceans to rise,” he said in March. Lately he’s been talking about various scientists and building blocks of science, including molecules and amino acids.

In 1980, he established the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Of all the poking fun at his urine collection project, Robinson’s experiment is to catalogize patterns of health issues that could be used for diagnosing such things as early-stage breast cancer or an approaching heart attack. He aims for a cheap noninvasive test that will help a physician in the proper treatment. It is identified as quaky to some, but the potential could be lifesaving.

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So, it’s no surprise that he is one of the sponsors for HB 2648, which allows pharmacist or pharmacy technician to sell drugs containing pseudoephedrine without prescription to person who is at least 18 years of age and presents person's valid government-issued photo identification. The bill goes to the Senate floor for its final vote.

For all the criticism thrown at Senator Robinson, he continues to try and break through the walls of consensus science ingrained in society and distribute a few facts, if only for two-minutes on the Senate floor.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2021-06-12 16:30:38

Last Update: 2021-06-12 16:43:06