Oregon PUC
Megan Decker is Chair of the Oregon Public Utilities Commission. Paul Kjellander is PUF Senior Advisor and former Idaho PUC Chair.
The Oregon Public Utilities Commission has a long history, which started before it even was a state. The first act regulating a public utility was enacted by the Provincial Government of the Oregon Territory in 1843, while the first regulation of a utility by a Commission occurred in 1876.
The Commission has come a long way since then. In 1986, Oregon voters approved a ballot measure finalizing a three-person, Governor-appointed Commission. That leads now to the present Chair.
Leaving her mark as part of the history of the Commission is Chair Megan Decker, who was first appointed to serve in the public interest in 2017 and becoming Chair in 2018. Her accumulated wisdom is evident here in this conversation with Public Utilities Fortnightly’s Paul Kjellander, a former Idaho Commission President.
PUF’s Paul Kjellander: You’ve been the Chair of the Oregon PUC since 2017. In that time, how have the dynamics changed, and the impact of the Commission’s work evolved?