Trump administration plans to cut Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) staff by 20 percent could raise utility bills for Portland General Electric customers predicts U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
“The BPA employees Elon Musk is laying off—are the ones who keep our power juice going,” he said at a Feb. 15 Town Hall in Scappoose that drew nearly 700 people. Wyden shared a statement from former BPA administrator Randall Hardy: “I can’t overemphasize the fact that [staff cuts are] a serious, serious, operational problem. The reliability impacts of this could be very serious. I mean the lights go out. Unplanned outages.”
The Portland-based federal Bonneville Power Administration delivers electricity to Portland General Electric and other utilities in Oregon and the Northwest from 31 hydroelectric dams and wind, solar, coal and gas facilities. The BPA also operates almost all Portland-area electricity transmission lines. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that the Oregon Department of Energy will release a statement this week showing between 18 and 29 percent of all Multnomah County households currently face “high or severe energy burdens.”
Wyden’s alarm over BPA cuts and other Trump administration actions seemed to hit a nerve with the audience. A former Columbia County Commissioner said she had attended almost every local Wyden Town Hall for years. The packed crowd of 700 people was unprecedented. Most of the audience cheered Wyden’s response to questions, although some attendees wore red MAGA hats and one heckled the senator.
Multiple law enforcement vehicles, including Oregon State Police, were stationed inside and outside the event at Scappoose Middle School.
Mass deportation threats
Several audience members asked impassioned questions about the Trump administration’s threatened mass deportations of undocumented adults and children. Wyden responded that he and fellow Senator, Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., have joined 19 other Democrats in introducing a bill to prevent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from carrying out arrests at sensitive locations, such as churches, schools and hospitals. Federal policy since 2011 has prevented arrests at such locations without specific court warrants. Wyden said he would like to see these policies codified into federal law.
Several executive orders have been issued to revoke those policies. “The administration’s efforts to upend these policies not only goes against long-standing precedent, but also threatens public safety,” Wyden declared.
“Arresting people in the security of their school, hospital, or church is cruel, inhumane, and unjust. If people are too scared to go to the doctor when they are sick, that puts our community at risk of illness.”
After the Town Hall, Wyden told the North Peninsula Review that he and Sen. Merkley would soon issue a statement on strategies to thwart Trump administration cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency that could cripple pollution cleanup efforts on the Lower Willamette River, adjacent to North and NW Portland as well as Sauvie Island.
Photo by Tom Karwaki.