BEND — U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, answered questions from EO Media Group for an hour on Wednesday, Feb. 21, at The Bulletin’s inaugural Brews and News event.

Bentz is the representative for House District 2 and has served since 2021. His district is the largest in Oregon and encompasses all of Eastern Oregon and areas just outside of Bend.

The event was sponsored by Bright Wood Lumber Industries of Madras and Connect Central Oregon. Gerry O’Brien, the Bulletin’s executive editor, said this was to be the first of many Brews and News events.

While a recording of the panel is available on The Bulletin’s website, below is a sample of Bentz’s answers to questions posed by Richard Coe, opinion page editor for The Bulletin, and Kyle Odegard, reporter for The Capital Press. The full recording is available on The Bulletin’s YouTube page.

What do you want your legacy to be from your time in Congress?

Bentz: Growing up in a rural community, you become extremely aware of how valuable your neighbors are and how valuable the opportunity that you have to make a living.

Everything I do now is driven to try to help these communities. I don’t have any other reasons to be here. I didn’t do this job for the size of it. I ran for it because I thought I could help the community with my knowledge in water and in tax and in so many other areas.

When people look back, my legacy will be that they say we can’t remember his name, but he was from somewhere and he made the world a better place for his having been there.

What can we do to help people in rural unincorporated communities struggling to get resources?

Bentz: It starts by understanding what is causing that situation to exist. I just came from a meeting in La Pine and let me just say there is no lack of capacity. That was amazing. Many of our communities like that have folks that have retired and have enough income to put initiatives together.

So the question becomes, how do you help the smaller communities without those kinds of people and that kind of money?

What I have always done is to go into the community and check what I call the lifeboat analysis. I’ve sat down with any number of small community mayors and said, “What do you got?” I’ve been doing that over and over for years because at the end of the day, you can’t go to the federal government to enlist a whole helicopter load of money on Mount Vernon. You have to build on what Mount Vernon has or fill in the blanks.

Why do you believe Donald Trump is the right Republican candidate?

Bentz: I endorsed Donald Trump for a number of reasons. Actually, the Trump campaign chief of staff reached out to my chief of staff and also my campaign manager to ask if I would be willing to endorse him. I said, let me reach out to the people I know best.

So I asked (former Secretary of the Interior) David Bernhardt and it was absolutely clear that his opinion was that President Trump could do the job. He said other people running for the job have no idea what it’s like to be subjected to the attacks that you’re going to attract. He said Trump knows.

He said Trump would help me on all the things I find important, whether its on the Snake River Dam or whether its on getting back into the woods to reduce the chances of this beautiful part of the world burns down or whether it’s helping preserve our water access or whether it’s appropriately balancing the Endangered Species Act.

We went through all of those issues and it became apparent that he is the most likely mark to assist us in making this part of the world that was why I chose to endorse Donald Trump.

What do you make of the efforts to remove the Snake River Dams and is there too much effort to restore native fisheries?

Bentz: If those who wish to take out the dams are enthusiastic about reducing natural gas use, why are they taking down the balancing system that exists to offset that type of use. You want to do away with one of the most astounding benefits of our northwest area, our hydroelectric dams.

I would just note that the electricity we’re enjoying right now is a struggle, but the amount that we’re paying for this is dramatically less than other folks in the United States. It is a huge economic advantage you’re talking about, so why in the world would we double their costs?

Do you see an interest in Congress breaching the Snake River Dams?

Bentz: Certainly not on the Republican side. Perhaps on the Democrat side. I haven’t asked them. But I will say that the insidious or duplicitous nature of the Biden administration is evident in how they’re going about the removal.

They realized that they could negate the value of those dams operationally through the courts to prevent them from either providing navigation or hydropower. And that’s exactly what they are trying to do through that litigation.

There’s been a host of House Republican retirements. Do you see this as a good thing or a bad thing?

Bentz: A bad thing. We are losing some of the brightest and best people we’ve ever had and they are leaving because they’re incredibly frustrated with Republicans inability to get along.

Congressman Cliff Bentz’s comments have been edited by The Bulletin for brevity and clarity.