By Ted Case
Oregon electric co-op leaders make an urgent push for Senate passage of the Fix Our Forests Act to mitigate catastrophic wildfires.
In summer 2024, Midstate Electric Cooperative CEO Jim Anderson walked out of the co-op’s La Pine headquarters to see a massive wall of flames consuming a nearby forest and a critical substation.
Wasco Electric General Manager Lindsay Forepaugh, whose co-op’s rugged service territory has been the scene of some of Oregon’s most active wildfires in 2025, has witnessed acres of dead trees strewn across the landscape.
Both co-op leaders agree that the present situation is unsustainable. In September, they traveled to Washington, D.C., to ask Congress to fix it.
“We’re doing what we can to protect the community,” Anderson said of Midstate’s wildfire mitigation efforts. “But in some cases, we’re not allowed to do what is necessary.”
Like many Oregon electric co-ops, Midstate’s vast service territory is dominated by public land, with 150-foot trees looming over a narrow right of way for power lines.
While vegetation management remains 1 of the most effective tools electric co-ops can use to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, the process often bogs down into bureaucratic delays. Midstate works closely with federal land managers overseeing 2 different national forests, the Bureau of Land Management, and a national monument.
“But no one is operating under the same standard,” Anderson said.
Wasco Electric Cooperative’s heavily forested service territory in the northern part of Central Oregon has been hit hard by lightning-caused wildfires this summer and fall. The Black Rock Fire started Sept. 4. Aided by winds up to 50 miles per hour, it has spread to more than 40,000 acres.
During a recent aerial tour of Wasco’s service territory, Forepaugh expressed concern with the amount of fuel on the ground from previous fires.
“We need to get fallen debris out of the forests,” she said. “Anything that reduces the threat of wildfires is good business.”
Helping reduce the threat of wildfires is exactly what the Fix Our Forests Act (S. 1462/H.R. 471) is intended to do. Anderson and Forepaugh recently traveled to Capitol Hill to lobby U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley to support the Senate version of the bill. Earlier in Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 471 with a strong bipartisan vote.
Among many provisions, the bill expands the authority of electric utilities to remove hazard trees that are between 10 and 150 feet of power lines—a change that could prevent Oregon’s towering pine and fir trees from falling into lines and starting fires.
Securing permits for these activities on federal lands often requires at least 5 years, along with costly environmental reviews and administrative processes. Expediting timelines for federal agency review and approval of vegetation management plans, along with streamlining timber sale and removal processes to reduce fuel loads, are also key provisions in S. 1462.
While the Fix Our Forests Act received a hearing in May in a key U.S. Senate committee, the bill has not been scheduled for a vote. Anderson and Forepaugh made their case to Oregon’s U.S. senators on the merits of the bill, and both offices pledged to stay in touch as the bill worked its way through the legislative process.
Other Oregon electric co-ops have rallied behind the commonsense measures in the bill.
“Wildfire risk has never posed a greater threat to electric co-ops and the communities we serve than it does right now,” said Billy Terry, Consumers Power Inc. Chief Operating Officer. Terry also chairs the Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s Wildfire Task Force. “The Fix Our Forests Act will streamline the work of electric co-ops as we take the lead in reducing this risk.”
Ultimately, Forepaugh believes the legislation will help give electric co-ops the tools to keep communities safe.
“It will allow us to do what we need to do when we need to do it,” she said.
