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Danielson Re-Elected NPCC Chair Eden Vice-Chair by CBB Staff Columbia Basin Bulletin - January 30, 2004

Judi Danielson, an Idaho member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, has been re-elected chair of the four-state compact.

Melinda Eden, an Oregon member of the Council, was elected vice chair. Both terms are for one calendar year.

"2004 will be an important and challenging year for the Power Council," Danielson said. "We will complete a new Northwest Power Plan and receive nearly 60 subbasin plans that will direct our fish and wildlife investments in the future.

"We are working to ensure that electricity remains affordable and reliable and that fish and wildlife investments are scientifically sound and cost-effective.

"In 2004 we also will help chart the future course of the Bonneville Power Administration. Electricity ratepayers are still reeling from the energy crisis of 2001, and we want to ensure the region will not be subjected to out-of-region energy market forces again."

Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne appointed Danielson to the Council in 2001. Before her appointment to the Council, Danielson served three full terms in the Idaho Senate, most recently as Senate Majority Caucus chairman and vice-chair of the Senate Resources and Environment Committee.

She also served as chair of the Western Legislative Forestry Task Force and as a member of the Public Lands Subcommittee of the Council of State Governments-West, and played a key role in the development of Idaho's proposal for cooperative state and federal management of forest lands. She also served in the Idaho House of Representatives from 1988 to 1994. Danielson attended the University of Idaho and Boise State University. She lives in Boise.

Eden was appointed to the Council in 2002 by then-Gov. John Kitzhaber for one year, joining the Council in January 2003. She was reappointed to a full three-year term by Gov. Ted Kulongoski and confirmed by the Oregon State Senate shortly after being named vice-chair of the Council.

Before her appointment, she served as a member of the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission. She chaired the commission from 1999 until her appointment to the Council. Eden also was a practicing attorney concentrating in hazardous substances law, and she has previous experience as an Associated Press and Eugene Register-Guard reporter.

A native Oregonian, she grows wheat, wine grapes, sheep and dairy replacement heifers. She lives in Milton-Freewater.

The Council is an agency of the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington and is directed by the Northwest Power Act of 1980 to prepare a program to protect, mitigate and enhance fish and wildlife of the Columbia River Basin affected by hydropower dams while also assuring the region an adequate, efficient, economical and reliable power supply.