Think Out Loud

Until last week, Kevin Heatley was the Crater Lake National Park superintendent. He’d worked in the private sector for much of his career, but for most of the last decade he’s been in leadership positions with the federal government, including with the Bureau of Land Management. He had only taken the Park Service job in January, a move he made in anticipation of possible BLM cuts. But last week, he chose to resign, saying he could no longer be party to President Trump’s dismantling of the federal government. He told OPB that while park services will be affected, it was the impact on the physical and mental health of employees that he felt he could longer be complicit in. Heatley joins us to tell us more about his time at the helm of Oregon’s only national park and his hopes for federal government employees in the Trump administration.

After the killing of George Floyd in 2020, millions of Americans participated in protests for racial justice. Much of corporate America promised to address racial equity. Now, many of those companies are retreating from diversity initiatives.

“Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work” identifies how to create a more equitable workplace. Through research and anecdotes, Portland author Shari Dunn illustrates the institutional racism that exists in the workplace and how to stop it.

We learn more from Dunn about race in the workplace, the backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and how she says businesses should rethink employment.

A study led by researchers at the University of Oregon explores water injustice across the U.S. The analysis focuses on vulnerable communities facing systemic barriers to clean water and also investigates water privatization in America.

“We found that violations and risks of water injustice tend to cluster in specific areas or hot spots across the country,” said Alex Segrè Cohen, the paper’s lead author. “We designed our method to capture not just where the problems are, but who they impact most and how.”

The study integrates data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Census Bureau. 

Segrè Cohen is an assistant professor of science and risk communication at UO. She joins us with more on water equity in the U.S.          

Long before the four dams along the Klamath River were removed, the habitat restoration process began. RES, a company that specializes in ecological restoration, has been involved in the process since 2019. It’s charged with working on habitat restoration and will continue to maintain the project for about 5 years. We check in on the effort with Dave Coffman, the director of Northern California and Southern Oregon for RES.    

Less than 24 hours after a lower court ruling on Wednesday found that President Trump had illegally used an emergency powers law to enact global tariffs, a federal appeals court paused that decision and allowed the tariffs to continue – for now, that is. The legal topsy-turvy added a fresh round of uncertainty for business owners like Leslie Jordan, who started a company in Portland nearly 40 years ago which manufactures athletic apparel and accessories made in factories in China and Pakistan. 

In April, when President Trump enacted tariffs of 145% on goods made in China, Jordan had to pay nearly 200% in duties to get her products cleared through customs. She lost business as some orders got canceled and  scrambled to move production to factories in countries like Egypt and Vietnam, which face lower tariff rates than China. She also started getting emails from companies that offered their services to help her avoid high tariffs through illegal schemes, such as misclassifying the imported goods or shipping them through a different country. 

Jordan recently shared her experiences with the New York Times in their investigation into the rise of trade fraud as a consequence of the tariffs. She joins us to share more details and how she thinks the federal government can more effectively crack down on tariff cheats.

With the warm weather over the Memorial Day weekend you might have been tempted to cool off in one of the region’s many beautiful rivers. If you headed to Glen Otto park or High Rocks park in the Portland area you might have seen Emergency Medical Technicians from the American Medical Response (AMR) River Rescue Program on hand to help out in case of an emergency in the water. The EMTs are getting training in river currents and rescue operations this week and will staff the two parks all summer long. Gracie Goodrich, an AMR River Rescue Program supervisor, tells us more about the program, which has helped more than 2,000 people since it started in 1999.

A bill in the U.S. Senate would put more responsibility on social media companies to design their platforms to better protect children from online dangers. The Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, appeared set to pass Congress last year, only to stall in the House. It was reintroduced earlier this month.Advocates say KOSA is necessary to keep kids from being fed harmful content through algorithms, such as posts encouraging eating disorders or suicide. But opponents such as the ACLU have argued that it could restrict free speech.Kristin Bride is a social media reform advocate from Lake Oswego whose son died by suicide after he was bullied online. Nick Allen is the director of the Center for Digital Mental Health at the University of Oregon. They join us to talk about the new legislation and how families should weigh the pros and cons of youth social media use.

It’s been 50 years since legendary Oregon track and field athlete Steve Prefontaine died in a car crash on May 30, 1975. He was only 24 years old. At the time, the Coos Bay runner held every U.S. distance record from the two-kilometer race to the 10K and was training for the 1976 Olympics. His athleticism and charisma made him one of the best-known runners to come out of the University of Oregon and helped him land a brand deal as Nike’s first celebrity athlete.

Brendan O’Meara is the author of the new biography “The Front Runner: The Life of Steve Prefontaine.” He joins us to talk about Pre’s impact on the sport and his legacy in the track and field community.

The Head Start program provides free early childhood education and support for low-income families. The federal government funds the program through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Project 2025 proposed eliminating the program. 

While Head Start still exists, regional offices have closed and programs have run into issues receiving their funding. We’ll learn more about what the program looks like now from Nancy Perin, the executive director of the Oregon Head Start Association. 

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield and Arizona AG Kris Mayes have prevailed in their challenge to a set of tariffs Pres. Trump had imposed on most countries on April 2. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of  International Trade in April. The coalition of Attorneys General included Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Vermont.

The judgment issued Wednesday said that the executive orders Trump issued using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are illegal. In a statement, Rayfield celebrated the ruling and also noted it not only overturns the April 2 tariffs but also prevents Trump’s threatened 145% tariffs on Chinese imports and 50% tariffs on goods from the European Union. The administration has announced that it will appeal the ruling, and it immediately asked for the decision to be paused.

Rayfield joins us to share more details about this case.