The Trump administration’s cuts to the U.S. Forest Service will increase forest fire dangers for Portland area residents this summer, said U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore.
“He’s gutted fire stations and fire prevention programs on the Mt. Hood National Forest” in a year when Oregon has its lowest snowpack in decades, she said in interview with the North Peninsula Review.
Low snowpack levels mean that forests become drier in the summer and more suspectable to wild fires. Already Bureau of Land Management fire restrictions went into effect May 14 for thousands of acres immediately west of North Portland in the Coast Range.
Dexter sits on the House Natural Resources Committee that oversees federal lands and forest fire policy. She recently forced a vote to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. over potential conflicts of interest after the U.S. Defense Department lent $620 million to Vulcan Elements, a rare-earth mineral startup, three months after the Trump Jr. firm invested in the company. Vulcan got another $50 million deal when the federal government recently bought partial ownership in the company.
The Republican majority on the committee blocked the subpoena, shielding him from testifying.
The congresswoman vowed that if Democrats win control of the House of Representatives in the November General Election, she will lead a formal inquiry of Trump Jr. with enforceable subpoena power. Dexter said investigations will happen on a wide breadth of issues. “There’s no question, a House Democratic majority will fully investigate the corruption that is deeply ingrained in this administration,” she said.
Dexter recently questioned Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a committee hearing over whether he objected to President Trump’s decision to pursue a $1 billion East Wing ballroom renovation while the National Park Service is facing a $1 billion cut. “Mr. Secretary, at what point do you tell Trump no? How many rangers need to lose their jobs before you stand up to these vanity project investments?” ]
Dexter also spoke of her travels from El Salvador to Texas to release families whom she believes have been illegally detained. She flew to San Antonio in February to win freedom for the Crespo-Gonzales family and their seven-year-old child, who had been in urgent care. “It’s immoral to detain children,” she said. The congresswoman, who spent 20 years as a critical care physician and pulmonologist, also traveled to an Office of Refugee Resettlement facility in San Benito, Texas, in April where pregnant migrant minors are detained. Dexter was blocked from speaking with unaccompanied minors who had expressed interest in meeting her.
Redrawing Oregon’s congressional districts to favor Democrats
The first-term lawmaker said that in response to Trump’s calling for Republican state legislators in red states to redraw congressional districts to favor the GOP, she could support Gov. Tina Kotek asking Oregon Legislators to moving the eastern part of her heavily Democratic Multnomah County 3rd Congressional District, into Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District, in eastern and southern Oregon, to help elect a Democrat in the district held by Republican Cliff Bentz. Dexter said it’s too late for Kotek to call a special legislative session to redraw districts in time for the November 2026 General Election, but she’s open to the idea in the future.
The North Peninsula Review confirmed with the Oregon Legislative Counsel office in Salem that the Oregon Legislature would have the authority to redraw the state’s congressional district boundaries in the next regular session convening in January 2027 or in a special session.