Rep. Val Hoyle understands the challenges that rural Oregon faces, and she has stood with electric cooperatives on crucial issues ranging from disaster relief funding to wildfire mitigation, Oregon co-op leaders say.

“She's smart, she's inquisitive, and a true public servant," says Ted Case, executive director of the Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Association. “She just wants to do the right thing."

Currently, co-ops can only remove trees and other vegetation within 10 feet of their power lines and rights of way. The Fix Our Forests Act would allow co-ops to remove trees within 150 feet of their lines, which co-op leaders say is especially important in a state where trees often rise 100 to 200 feet high.

Oregon has been hit especially hard by wildfires in recent years as the state's environment has grown hotter and drier and the fire season has grown longer.

Electric co-ops and their members are still recovering from the horrific 2020 fire season that killed 11 people and destroyed more than 840,000 acres of land and more than 4,000 homes.

Hoyle's district includes five electric co-ops in an area that is prone to wildfires, Case says.

The six Oregon House members split on the Fix Our Forests Act, with Hoyle, a Democrat, joining Democratic Rep. Janelle Bynum and Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz to vote in favor of the bill while the remaining three members, all Democrats, voted against it.

“It took some political courage for Congresswoman Hoyle to vote for the bill," Case says. “In our view, it was one of the single most important votes on wildfire mitigation and vegetation management that Congress has taken in a long time."

The congresswoman also serves on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, where she helped craft a bipartisan bill that would streamline the Federal Emergency Management Agency and dramatically speed up delivery of crucial disaster relief funds to co-ops devastated by wildfires, hurricanes, ice storms and other natural disasters.

The Fixing Emergency Management for Americans (FEMA) Act includes Hoyle's POWER Act bill, which allows not-for-profit utilities such as electric co-ops to build more resilient systems in the aftermath of disasters rather than being forced by FEMA to build everything back exactly as it was.

The committee passed the FEMA Act in September, and NRECA is urging the full House and Senate to approve the legislation.

“FEMA is absolutely critical for electric co-ops in her district," Case says. “Rep. Hoyle is pushing hard to reform and improve FEMA, which is urgently needed."

Hoyle and her staff reach out regularly to Oregon's electric co-op leaders to get their input on important issues, Case says.

“I give her great kudos for her outreach," he says. “She does her homework and takes a real interest in our issues."

Hoyle says electric co-ops play an important role in her district.

“Rural electric co-ops were started to bring electricity to underserved rural areas, but they're so much more than that now," she says. “Member-owned and governed, their responsibility is directly to the communities they serve, rather than to shareholders who live elsewhere."

“I have the honor of representing Oregon's central and south coast, so I see firsthand the investments they make in our communities, the local jobs they create, and their commitment to keeping electricity prices stable," Hoyle says.

“I'm also excited to support new opportunities like the expansion of broadband service through Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative's Beacon Broadband. Rural electric co-ops put service over profit, and that's why they continue to be such important partners."

The 62-year-old congresswoman and her husband, Stephen, raised their children in West Eugene. After a career in international trade, she was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 2010, where she later served as majority leader. In 2018, she was elected as Oregon's statewide commissioner of labor and industries, a nonpartisan role. She was elected to Congress in 2022.