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Governor Kotek’s team outlines resiliency and clean-energy executive orders to natural-resource committee
Summary
Governor Kotek’s office told the committee EO 2526 will coordinate agencies to improve resiliency on targeted lands and waters while EO 2529 directs agencies to use existing authority to advance five least-cost energy pathways and set a battery-storage goal of 8 GW by 2050.
State officials briefed the House natural resources committee on two executive orders from Gov. Kotek on Jan. 9, describing agency coordination needs, outcomes to pursue and near-term work plans.
Jeff Huntington, senior policy adviser for natural resources, said EO 2526 (resiliency) and EO 2529 (climate and clean energy) are meant to provide a "North Star" to the roughly 14 natural-resource agencies so they can organize around climate-driven challenges — including wildfire, water shortages and habitat stresses — without immediately imposing new regulatory burdens.
Chandra Ferrari, a natural resources policy advisor in the governor's office, described EO 2526's broad goals: convene agency leadership and technical teams to define attributes of "resilient lands and waters," pursue a 10-by-10 goal to enhance resilience on 10% of lands and waters within 10 years, review mitigation tools, and require biennial agency work plans that will be shared with boards and commissions for public comment. "We want to be really clear eyed about where those areas are," Ferrari said, adding the E O sets up leadership and technical teams and an advisory group of board and commission members.
Amy Slusher, the governor's climate and energy policy adviser, summarized EO 2529 as directing agencies to use existing authorities and budgets to advance five least-cost pathways from the Oregon Energy Strategy, reduce procedural barriers to siting and permitting renewable energy and transmission projects, and explore public–private partnerships and emerging technologies such as enhanced geothermal and energy storage. She noted a goal to deploy 8 gigawatts of battery energy storage in Oregon by 2050.
Committee members asked how the EOs would interact with local programs and proposed agency budget cuts. Presenters repeatedly emphasized the orders are designed to surface trade-offs and coordinate agency actions rather than to mandate specific new regulations. Officials acknowledged data and capacity gaps (for example, stream gauges and evapotranspiration monitoring) and said agency work plans should inform future budget and legislative proposals.
The committee closed the informational hearing after members discussed forestry, community resilience and the need for better data to support decisions.
Next steps: agencies will develop biennial work plans and the governor's office will convene leadership and technical teams; the committee and agencies will reconcile work-plan priorities with budget conversations ahead of the legislative session.
