Think Out Loud

This weekend the Portland band Typhoon will play two concerts celebrating 20 years of making music together. The band broke out in the early 2010s, with albums like "Hunger and Thirst" and "White Lighter." Two members of the band, Kyle Morton and Shannon Steele, join us to talk about the band’s history and future.

State lawmakers and business leaders have argued high taxes and stringent regulations are hurting Oregon businesses. In 2025, not long after a CNBC report ranked Oregon near the bottom of states to do business, Gov. Tina Kotek announced a plan to change that. Among other goals, it aims to sharpen the state’s competitive edge through changes to permitting and taxation, partnerships with the private sector and incentives to invest in Oregon.  Angela Wilhelms is the president and CEO of Oregon Business and Industry, the state’s largest business advocacy organization. She joins us to discuss why businesses are leaving Oregon and whether the state can improve its business climate to keep them. We also talk with OPB business reporter Kyra Buckley about Gov. Kotek’s roadmap and the challenges currently facing Oregon’s business community.

Since President Trump took office a year ago, Oregon has sued the administration more than 50 times, often teaming up with other Democrat-led states. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield has held a series of town hall meetings with other state attorney generals to discuss their efforts and ask for feedback. We ask Attorney General Dan Rayfield about what he has learned from these events.

 There are 27 different species of reptiles and amphibians in Columbia County, Oregon, according to the first ever herpetological-assemblage report of the region. The report is the work of Jon Hakim, who grew up in Columbia County and has been obsessed with reptiles and amphibians his whole life. It took over 15 months and many volunteer hours to visit every possible habitat type in the county and log all the different species, including 6 never seen before in the county. We talk to Hakim about his work and what he’s learned.

 Amid crackdowns by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, some are turning to serve for the U.S. military in order to receive protections for their undocumented family members. The Parole in Place program provides a protection from deportation for undocumented parents and spouses of military members. New York Times reporter Greg Jaffe, who covers the Pentagon and the U.S. military, spent eight days in The Dalles, reporting on National Guard recruitments in the city and speaking to members of the community. He joins us to discuss his reporting in The Dalles.

After three city council meetings, a dozen rounds of deadlocked voting and hours of debate, the 12 councilors on Portland City Council have officially elected a new council president and vice president. Jamie Dunphy, representing District 1, was elected as the new council president with Olivia Clark, representing District 4, as vice president. Both were notably reluctant to take on the role. As president, Dunphy will be in charge of running council meetings, appointing city committee leaders and will serve as the middle-man between the council and the mayor’s office. Dunphy and Clark both join us to share more on their priorities for the coming year.

Kwame Alexander has written many books and picture books for children, tackling a range of different topics. In 2022, his book, “The Door of No Return,” was published as the first installment in a trilogy starting in Ghana in the 1800’s. The book is written as a series of poems, following a young boy, Kofi, who is eventually captured and sold into the slave trade. Kwame Alexander joined us for a conversation recorded at the Portland Book Festival in 2022 to talk about the 10-year process of working on this book.

In October 2025, more than 30 farmworkers were arrested outside Woodburn, OR in a raid by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was one of ICE’s most aggressive enforcement actions that year in Oregon. But it was also one of the moments that led the state’s largest farmworker union to launch a series of monthly boycotts in protest.   Why? Immigrant labor fuels the state’s economic engine, and so do their dollars: 2023 data show immigrants in Oregon hold about $14 billion in spending power and contribute more than $5 billion in taxes. The boycotts, which kicked off in December, urge immigrants to refrain from economic activity, including working, shopping and going to school.   Reyna Lopez is the president and executive director of Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN). She joins us to talk about the first day of boycotts, as well as the goals they hope to achieve.

Surro Connections was once a reputable surrogacy agency that operated out of Camas, Washington. The company helped match surrogates with prospective parents and facilitated communication and payments between them. But the agency abruptly closed late last year, leaving clients without access to the tens of thousands of dollars needed to pay the surrogates carrying their children. The whereabouts of the company’s founder, Megan Hall-Greenberg, are unknown. Investigative health care reporter Sarah Kliff talked to clients, surrogates and former employees of Surro Connections for the New York Times. She joins us with more details about the closure and the largely unregulated surrogacy industry in the U.S.

In 2024, former Oregon state Treasurer Tobias Read unveiled a plan to make the state’s public employees retirement fund investments achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Last September, Gov. Tina Kotek signed into law the Climate Resilience Investment Act which directs the Oregon Treasury to pursue profitable clean energy investment opportunities and reduce fossil fuel holdings in the retirement fund, which is valued at more than $100 billion.    A new report released this week by the Oregon State Treasury details the progress Oregon is making to reduce the climate impact of its investment portfolio. It found, for example, a more than 50% decrease in the climate intensity of its investments between 2022 and 2023. Investments in renewable energy, EV charging, carbon credits and battery materials also doubled to $2.4 billion between January 2022 and June 30, 2025.     Oregon state Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner joins us to share more details and discuss the uncertainties lying ahead as the state tries to balance its pension system obligations with climate-cutting goals despite the Trump administration’s embrace of fossil fuels.