Case in Point — December 2019
We packed a lot into the Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Association annual meeting last month. We had excellent presentations from energy experts, legislators,...
We packed a lot into the Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Association annual meeting last month. We had excellent presentations from energy experts, legislators,...
One of the most challenging things about planning an Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Association annual meeting is not what content to include in...
The other day, I looked up from my computer at work and observed a group of deer right outside my window looking at...
I am not what you would call a daredevil. Sure, I like adventure as much as the next guy, but it’s more along...
The story is familiar: Forests are burning and oceans are rising because of climate change. Something needed to be done. The solution? Cap-and-trade...
What is that on the cover of our magazine? A graphic of a U.S. Senate bill? We have a tradition of putting extraordinary...
Recently, I drove 3½ hours to attend an annual meeting of one of my electric cooperative members. It was a long day for...
My middle-school-age daughter is studying government, and it’s been a bit humbling. She is a smart girl, and I’ve looked at her homework....
As evidenced by our feature story this month, this winter tested the strength of the Oregon rural electric program like I have not...
There will be plenty to talk about. That is my message to the scores of electric cooperative leaders who will descend upon Salem...
Any organization is smart to look ahead, but occasionally you also need to return to your roots. In January, the Oregon Rural Electric...
Well, that went fast. It was 10 years ago last month that the Cases rolled into Oregon from Washington, D.C., during one of...
Last month, I had the opportunity to interview former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at a post-election forum sponsored by the National Rural Utilities...
“Who do you have coming this year?” It’s a question I get quite often from my members around annual meeting time. It’s the...
My family and I are big fans of the Mission Impossible movies and Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt, played by Tom Cruise....
Summer is winding down, and school is in session for my kids. Thank goodness. No longer will I have to wither under 90-degree...
The other day, I met Amelia Earhart. OK, not the Amelia Earhart, the legendary aviator who disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937....
One of the highlights of my summer is ORECA’s mid-year meeting in July. As part of the meeting, my board of directors and...
It’s not easy to pass a new law. I have watched countless bills be introduced and then fail to get a congressional hearing,...
I had to admit to a little nostalgia, even though the ornate U.S. House of Representatives committee room largely represented a history of...
It was right under my nose—or rather, in my mailbox—the whole time. When we moved from the Washington, D.C., area to Wilsonville, our...
How’s it going to end? As a former fiction writer, that’s the question I wanted my readers to be asking, breathlessly turning pages...
For the past few months, the Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Association has worked collaboratively with the Oregon Legislature’s Clean Energy Jobs Utilities and...
The Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Association wrapped up the year by celebrating its 75th anniversary at the annual meeting in Salem in November....
In November, legislative work groups in Salem concluded their efforts to write a cap-and-trade bill for the 2018 short session. Conceived by state...
ORECA turned 75 years old this year—a landmark we will celebrate this month at our annual meeting. In preparation for the celebration, I...
“It seems like the apocalypse is upon us.” A friend of mine made that observation in early September as what seemed like every...
How do you tell the secretary of energy that his policy on the sale of the power marketing administrations is misguided and punitive?...
What happened in the U.S. House of Representatives on June 21, 2017, reminds me of Shirley Povich’s classic lead paragraph in the Washington...
I have a few random thoughts as we pass the halfway point of the year, the Oregon Legislature wraps up and the U.S....
The word seems to be getting out. Recently, a bipartisan group of Oregon legislators wrote Gov. Kate Brown urging her to “constructively participate...
There are not a lot of new ideas coming out of Washington, D.C., but there are a lot of dumb old ones. I...
No one can say electric cooperative leaders don’t have heart. We are only a few weeks removed from ORECA’s Legislative Day in Salem,...
Oregon electric cooperative leaders will descend upon the state Capitol this month to promote common-sense policies that allow us to provide our members...
Opening the box isn’t exactly like opening a Christmas present, but there is still a sense of anticipation. The scene is the opening...
One of my favorite holiday events each year is our annual co-op lunch in Salem with our state legislators. It’s a bit of...
It has been a long time since I’ve seen so many stories on rural America—about four years. It seems that during every presidential...
Not one of the several hundred attendees of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association Region 7 and 9 ACRE breakfast in October believed...