Author

Erika Bolstad

Erika Bolstad

Erika Bolstad is a Stateline correspondent based in Portland, Oregon, and the author of Windfall, published by Sourcebooks in 2023. Previously, she wrote for E&E News, the McClatchy Washington Bureau and the Miami Herald.

A sign outside chipmaker Intel.

States sweeten their offers to chipmakers in competition for jobs

By: - September 18, 2023

HILLSBORO, Ore. — “Oregon’s been at this for decades,” the governor’s office assures potential investors in its so-called Silicon Forest. The Lone Star State’s governor calls it a “race that Texas must win for our state, our workforce, our national security, and our future.” And New York’s governor boasts on the state’s YouTube channel that […]

A drug recovery center in Salem, Ore.

Drug decriminalization stumbled in Oregon. Other states are taking note.

By: - September 12, 2023

PORTLAND, Ore. — Just before Portland’s city council approved a ban on public drug use last week, Mayor Ted Wheeler described what he’d observed on his way to work that afternoon: “The last time I saw somebody consuming what I believe to be fentanyl publicly on our streets was less than five minutes ago, three […]

A Colorado campground.

Don’t poo-poo these states’ pleas to keep the parks pristine

By: - August 15, 2023

DENVER — Earlier this summer, Adam Ducharme made an unpleasant discovery while helping volunteers install signs telling visitors where to camp, park or launch boats near Leadville, a mountain town surrounded by 14,000-foot peaks in central Colorado. “We were digging holes, putting in signs, and then backfilling the holes with rocks and sort of compounding […]

Two women outside a restaurant in Los Angeles.

Indigenous language interpreters unite to fill gaps

By: - July 26, 2023

Bethany Fisher was raised in the Marshall Islands, the daughter of American missionaries who spoke English at home but who insisted that she and her siblings speak the Indigenous language of the island republic everywhere else. The parental say-so proved smart when the family returned to the United States. With the fluency they gained as […]

LEED buildings in Portland, Ore.

It’s time for buildings to stop using a third of US energy, some states say

By: - July 3, 2023

PORTLAND, Ore. — That building looming on the corner? With a few tweaks, it might help with climate change. States with big commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are beginning to require that the owners of large buildings track how much energy they use and improve their efficiency. It’s part of a state, local and […]

A notable stop along Route 66 in Arizona.

Route 66, America’s ‘Mother Road,’ readies for its centennial

By: - June 2, 2023

From its earliest days, Route 66 has reflected the American culture of the moment. When the road connected Chicago to Los Angeles in 1926, it represented the possibility of the automobile. In the 1930s, it served as an east-to-west escape route from the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. By the 1950s, the 2,400-mile highway […]

Converting offices to housing is hard. These changes could make it easier.

By: - April 20, 2023

Read more Stateline coverage of how communities across the country are trying to create more affordable housing. PORTLAND, Ore. — Stroll around America’s vacant downtowns, and a seemingly obvious solution emerges to the housing shortages and homelessness problems in many states: Why not turn all those unoccupied offices into living spaces? Especially in cities such as Portland, […]

Some States Want to Give You a Constitutional Right to a Clean Environment

By: - April 6, 2023

Editor’s note: This story was updated to identify the harmful algal bloom as a brown tide. New Mexico’s budget relies heavily on oil and gas revenue, but the state also bears the scars of generations of mining and drilling. So when Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, a former law professor and current Democratic state senator, heard about […]

Governors Push Faster Construction to Meet Housing Needs

By: - March 20, 2023

Read more Stateline coverage of how communities across the country are trying to create more affordable housing. PORTLAND, Ore. — Dick Anderson, a Republican state senator from coastal Oregon, has a chart and a readymade joke to illustrate the housing crisis facing his state. Up until 2006, his figures show, home building was on an upward trajectory […]

States Consider Ending Right on Red to Address Rising Pedestrian Deaths

By: - March 7, 2023

SEATTLE — For nearly five decades, drivers in much of the United States have taken for granted a privilege unknown in much of the rest of the world: Arrive at a red light, stop, and if the intersection is clear, turn right even if the signal isn’t green. But as states have seen traffic fatalities […]

As Pandemic Rent Relief Ends, States Struggle to Prevent Homelessness

By: - January 23, 2023

Read more Stateline coverage of how communities across the country are trying to create more affordable housing. PORTLAND, Ore. — For almost three years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, states have had an unwelcome but ideal laboratory to test potential solutions to slow eviction, one of the most persistent challenges in preventing homelessness. Turns out, […]

States Return Indigenous Oral Histories to Tribal Control

By: - September 23, 2022

There are more than 600 oral history recordings housed where Lina Ortega is an associate curator for the Western History Collections at the University of Oklahoma Libraries. Ortega speaks limited Seminole, one of the languages heard on the recordings. But while reviewing an ordinary tribal government meeting from 1969, she kept hearing a name she […]