Under existing laws, small craft brewers pay a federal excise tax of $7 per barrel on the first 60,000 barrels of beer brewed. The "beer stimulus bill" would cut that in half to $3.50 per barrel.

An Idaho-based geothermal energy developer said Thursday it's closer to getting a federal loan worth up to $102.2 million to build a 22-megawatt power plant in the eastern Oregon desert.

Jim Huffman, a law professor and newspaper essayist, has won Oregon's Republican Senate primary, setting up a contest with Democrat Ron Wyden, who's seeking his third full term.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon easily won his party's nomination Tuesday to run for a third full term, setting up a contest with a Republican law professor making his first run for public office.

Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter lost his bid for a sixth term Tuesday night, a party-switching veteran sent down to defeat by voters rejecting experience and clamoring for change. Political novice Rand Paul rode support from tea party activists to a rout in Kentucky's Republican Senate primary.

One man, no vote? That's the case in the Senate, where it takes just one peeved lawmaker to prevent a yes-or-no tally, often silently and anonymously.

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden took heed of the situation, concerning proposed cuts to services at the VA Hospital in Roseburg. On Tuesday, he addressed these issues with Vets along Southern Oregon.

President Barack Obama strongly signaled that Democrats will move forward on a health care overhaul with or without Republicans, preparing his party for a fight whose political outcome will rest with voters in November.

A federal program that began as a safety net for Pacific Northwest logging communities hard-hit by battles over the spotted owl in the 1990s has morphed into a sprawling entitlement that ships vast amounts of money to states with little or no historic connection to timber.

Historic legislation to expand U.S. health care and control costs won its first Republican supporter Tuesday and cleared a key Senate hurdle, a double-barreled triumph that propelled President Barack Obama's signature issue toward votes this fall in both houses of Congress.

Vandals splattered feces on a window in front of a life-size cutout of President Barack Obama. The News-Review newspaper reports the excrement coated the window and covered the eaves Tuesday at the Democratic party office in downtown Roseburg.

Old people get sick more than young people, and in most states that adds up to them paying a lot more for their health insurance premiums. President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats want to restrict that practice.

Oregon and Washington have joined a little-known federal program to pay out unemployment-style benefits to those planning to make money as entrepreneurs. And now the program could be in jeopardy.

Issues surrounding health care were top of mind for people attending Senator Ron Wyden's town hall meeting in Reedsport on Saturday.

Serving on three key committees, the Stanford- and Princeton-educated Jeff Merkley has become deeply immersed in crucial and heady issues. Those include health care reform, global warming and finding solutions to the nation's financial crisis.