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December 10, 2008

CUB Would Like You to Meet the Oregon Conservation Network and its 2009 Priorities

CUB is primarily a consumer advocacy organization, but advocating effectively for consumers has increasingly begun to mean involving environmental concerns in the mix. A primary mover behind this change has been the growing awareness of worldwide global warming impacts and the global warming pollution that contributes to it.

For nearly a decade, CUB has been a member of the Oregon Conservation Network (OCN). In that time, energy has become a key environmental issue. While CUB doesn't have a position on all of the issues OCN works on, CUB believes it's important for public interest organizations to work collaboratively (even on non-utility issues). As a member of OCN, CUB would like to help spread the word about its top priorities for the upcoming Legislative Session.

1) Implement Global Warming Solutions: Out with pollution, in with solutions, starting with a cap on global warming pollution that will decline over time. What makes this the lead issue for both OCN and CUB? In a Guardian report on climate talks currently happening in Poznan, Poland, one scientist's report left the room stunned: "Despite the political rhetoric, the scientific warnings, the media headlines and the corporate promises, [climate scientist Kevin Anderson] would say, carbon emissions were soaring way out of control - far above even the bleak scenarios considered by last year's report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)..." Oregon can take the lead on providing a workable solution to this problem.

2) Promote Water Conservation: Water is and has been a crucial issue in many parts of Oregon for a long time, and the impacts of global warming will only exacerbate that.

3) Preserve Oregon's Coastal Legacy: Oregon's coast is one of the most beautiful places in the world and deserves our protection. In addition, our fishing industry needs to be stabilized for long-term viability. Oceans the world over are being affected by global warming, industrial overfishing, and other pollutants, and they need help.

4) Increase Transportation Options: This could provide another solution to another side of the global warming pollution problem. Organizations who deal with land-use planning and transportation (unlike CUB) will take the lead.

5) Ensure New Energy Supplies Are Responsible: This energy issue has a tangled local dilemma at its heart - what to do about liquefied natural gas. We are analyzing the resource from an economic perspective. CUB is skeptical that LNG will ever be economic in the Northwest. There are, of course, many environmental concerns also involved with building large LNG stations, and in shipping the fuel long distances.

6) Stop the Spread of Invasive Species: A spreading problem that needs to be addressed.

More information on all of these Priority issues, as well as the 50 member organizations that currently make up OCN, are available on their website.

CUB's legislative role will be primarily focused on helping achieve positive, forward-moving policy on the Global Warming Solutions and Energy Supplies issues. We are happy to be part of a group with a track record of success, most notably in 2007, when OCN was able to pass all of their 5 Priority issues, including the landmark Renewable Energy Standard bill. The group was founded in the mid-1990s and has matured into a force to be reckoned with in Salem.

Join In and Make a Difference

You can take part in the creation of good policy regarding global warming and responsible energy sources in 2009. Sign up for Salem Watch, a newsletter keeping activists and citizens up-to-date on how environmental issues are faring down at our State Capitol Building. Once on that list, look out for more information on the Climate/Clean Energy Rally Day being held the afternoon of January 13th at the Capitol.

And stay involved throughout the session, adding your voice to the fray, by joining the E-mail Action Network. You'll get action alerts (about a dozen the entire session) and will be able to contact your legislator directly with the touch of a button. It's easy and it makes a huge difference.

This is a big ambitious agenda. The session may go well, or it may be rough; but one thing we know is that we are going to need your help.

Posted by Oregon CUB at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

December 05, 2008

Brrr! A Picture of Low-Income Heating Assistance in Oregon

It's that time of year when heaters start running and bills start climbing. This can be either a mild annoyance if we are making it reasonably well financially, or a real serious problem if we're not. We sat down to talk about low-income energy assistance programs with Jim Abrahamson, the Oregon Energy Partnership Coordinator for Community Action Partnership of Oregon. He is in the process of putting together the Snapshot of Energy Assistance for CAPO, due to be released on January 28, 2009 (update: here's a link to the Jan. 2009 Snapshot). He gave us a better picture of what the low-income heating assistance programs are in Oregon, and how that landscape has changed in this fiscal year.

Oregon ranks 28th in the nation in terms of people living in poverty. Out of 3.4 million citizens (numbers based on the 2000 census), almost 12% of Oregonians qualified as living under the federal poverty line, a very low bar, and just under 15% of our state's children. These Oregon residents, and many others who don't fall under the line but are just struggling to get by, will have difficulty heating their homes as the temperatures drop this winter. This is nothing new: in 2007, 436,000 households qualified for low-income assistance. The catch is that 2007 resources to help these households was available to meet only about 23% of requests, less than one quarter of what was needed, before the funding ran out. We hope that we can do better than that this upcoming winter. And we actually have reason to believe this is possible.

First let's talk about the state's own heating assistance programs. The Oregon Energy Assistance Program (OEAP) is a fund raised by a small (50 cents) line item charge on the bills of Portland General Electric and Pacific Power customers to help those with electric heat and financial need. The Oregon Legislature (with encouragement from CUB and CAPO) increased this pot of heating assistance from $10 million to $15 million in 2007.

If you have gas heat in your home, but no money to pay the increasingly hefty gas bills, your natural gas utility should have an assistance program to help you. If you are a NW Natural customer, and meet certain income guidelines, the Oregon Low-Income Gas Assistance program (OLGA) is for you. Both OLGA and OEAP are year-round programs, but of course most activity is seen in the colder months. NW Natural's half a million customers contributed $4 million dollars, also through a small line-item charge, to help others in need. This is a one-time increase of almost 100% over last year's funding, again negotiated by CUB and CAPO.

Oregon's two smaller natural gas companies, Cascade and Avista, also have similar programs. The AVISTA Low-Income Rate Assistance Program (LIRAP) is a ratepayer funded program that collects around $230,000 per year from the utility's 81,000 customers for those who are having trouble paying their bills. Cascade, with 50,000 customers, is anticipating a pool of between $210,00 and $240,000 in low-income assistance funding.

To those who would prefer not to be contributing to a low-income fund (and there aren't many we've heard), CUB notes that all customers pay for the cost of shut offs, reconnections and unpaid bills. Keeping a customer on the system is often cheaper than disconnecting them. Plus, it's a meaningful and easy way to help those in a tight spot. If, on the other hand, you would like to do even more to help those who are having trouble paying for heat, you can make a private donation through Oregon HEAT.

Last but by no means least is the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP, as the feds call it, or "the big enchilada," as Jim called it). This federally funded program is doled out by Congress annually to meet heating assistance needs in every state in the nation. LIHEAP is "fuel-blind" heating assistance, meaning it can assist you with utility bills for either gas or electric heat. (For other types of heat such as oil, propane, wood customers, there is a small amount of assistance available through Oregon Heat.) LIHEAP is delivered to the Oregon Department of Housing and Community Services, then doled out to be administered by the Community Action Agencies in Oregon's 36 counties.

After many years of struggling to get by on much less than was requested, LIHEAP is actually fully funded this year, at a level of $5 billion dollars. Each state receives LIHEAP funds according to its need (taking into account severity of climate, population, etc.) and Oregon's portion came out to about $52 million for the upcoming winter heating season, roughly double the $26 million received for 2007-2008.

This pot of money usually lasts only through the winter season, if that long; some agencies will spend the money as quickly as requests come in, with all the money gone by March, while others will budget a specific amount per month in order to try to stretch the funds out as long as possible.

With almost twice as much money to work with this year, the agencies are needing to gear up and staff up, to distribute twice as much money to twice as many households. The goal is to have community assistance agencies spend all the funds by September 30, 2009. To that end, Oregon's Department of Housing and Community Services has been asking the various agencies to look ahead and develop a plan to broaden their service capabilities to match the need and the funds.

So there is good news in Oregon: 10 years of working to build state low-income assistance resources has combined with full funding of LIHEAP from the federal government to ensure that we will have a decent pot of money with which to work on alleviating the problem of low-income families and fixed-income retirees facing a "heat or eat" dilemma. We would really like to do away with this difficult choice altogether.

But the truth is that even with the extra $5 million for OEAP, and the $2 million extra for OLGA, and the $26 million extra for LIHEAP, chances are slim that we will actually be able to assist every family in Oregon in need of help. Funding is up, but so is unemployment. There has also been considerable upward pressure on energy prices. Finally, to quote Jim again, "We haven't seen the teeth of the winter yet. Last winter was long but fairly mild." If we get really low temperatures, the need for heat, and heating assistance, will balloon.

Jeff Bissonnette, CUB's Organizing Director, described the outlook for our upcoming winter assistance: "If we can serve 40% of the need, that's tremendous [up from less than 25% last year]. But that still leaves a huge need unmet. How do you reduce that unmet need? We help people actually reduce their energy usage. So another part of the answer is weatherization."

But that is another discussion for another day.

Posted by Oregon CUB at 12:38 PM | Comments (0)