Governor Tina Kotek poses for a portrait in the State Library of Oregon, Salem, Ore., Jan. 29, 2025.
Anna Lueck for OPB
Gov. Tina Kotek said Monday she had “constructive conversations” on wildfire funding and the need to adequately staff the Bonneville Power Administration with members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet last week.
Those talks – on two of the more pressing issues that have emerged for the Pacific Northwest early in Trump’s administration – came while Kotek was in Washington, D.C. with the National Governors Association. And Kotek has suggested they could bear fruit.
She told a Politico reporter over the weekend that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins would be “restarting some” wildfire grants in the near future. The grants, like payments for many other priorities, have been on pause as the Trump administration vets payments approved under former President Joe Biden.
Oregon, like other western states, is grappling with uncertainty over whether federal wildfire grants will be on hand to help the state combat this year’s fire season.
“We have some folks who are already ready and hired up to do fuel removal on the landscape to prepare for the fire season,” Kotek told reporters Monday in a press conference in Salem. “Those grants need to go forward. I got assurance that they are reviewing those.”
The governor called a special session of the Legislature in December so lawmakers could approve $218 million to pay for the 2024 wildfire season. In addition to wildfire preparedness, Oregon depends on the federal government paying for the majority of its wildfire costs altogether, but those payments often are delayed and come in the form of reimbursements.”
Kotek said she also pressed members of Trump’s cabinet on job reductions at the BPA, which operates 75% of the Northwest’s power grid with electricity from its 31 dams. Terminations at the agency as Trump looks to reduce the size of the federal government have raised worries power outages could become more commonplaces.
“We need to make sure that we have trained, experienced people to maintain the grid that BPA runs. It’s important for the entire Pacific Northwest,” Kotek said. “I made that request to [Energy Secretary Chris Wright] directly to check into that.”
While Kotek seemed pleased with her discussions with Trump’s cabinet, she was less enthusiastic about a meeting between governors and the president that came afterward. That meeting included a tense exchange between Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, where the president threatened to pull federal funding for Maine if it didn’t bar transgender women and girls from competing in girls sports.
“We were having very constructive conversations and then we walked into the meeting and listened to President Trump for more than an hour,” Kotek said. Of Trump’s exchange with Mills, Kotek said: “I was extremely disappointed. I think it broke the tenor of the day.”
Correction: This story was updated to correct the name of Maine Gov. Janet Mills. OPB regrets the error.