"Net-zero energy building" or "zero energy building (ZEB)" is a general term applied to a building which has zero net energy consumption and zero net carbon emissions annually (excluding energy and emissions generated from the construction of the building). This means that every year, net-zero energy buildings produce as much energy as they use—they are the poster-child of energy efficiency.

Net-zero energy buildings are also carbon neutral because they don't use fossil fuels in their operation or create direct greenhouse gases. This gives them a much lower overall ecological impact than other "green" buildings, because many green buildings still require a significant amount of fossil fuel production to power and heat the building. Green building certifications do not require a building to have net zero energy and emissions productions; some certifications only require the building to reduce energy use to a few percentage points below the average. Most green certification programs, including LEED, simply look at building energy output and do not address building design.

For stories about CUB's past Shaich interns, the projects they worked on and where they went after their time at CUB, see our Dec. 2008 "Meet CUB's Shaich Interns" blog post. CUB has had three student interns this year, and we thought it was time to highlight some of their work. CUB members can also read more about Sakae Sakai and Amani Smathers in the hard copy of the upcoming Bear Facts newsletter.

One of the veteran benefits available is emergency financial assistance. Oregon Veterans' Emergency Financial Assistance Program (OVEFAP) funds are available for emergency housing expenses and other emergency needs. Housing expenses covered include emergency expenses relating to utilities. If you are a veteran, an immediate family member of a veteran, or know a veteran who is in need of immediate help with utility bills, visit or direct them to the ODVA website to apply for OVEFAP assistance.

Climate

Victories:

SB 38 – Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting: SB 38 expands the ability of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to track greenhouse gas emissions from sources outside the state but that account for significant in-state use. The primary emissions sources covered by the bill are utilities that may generate or purchase generated power outside the state for in-state use to meet their loads.

SB 101 – Emissions Performance Standard: This bill requires that all new power generation sources have emissions that are equal to or better than the most modern natural gas plant. In general, the bill ensures that new coal plants that do not sequester their carbon emissions will not be built to serve Oregon load. It was the subject of significant negotiations between both public and private utilities, CUB, and the NW Energy Coalition, and this legislation ended up being a consensus bill.

Yet, despite all the talk in the news about the benefits of green energy, renewable energy is still often more expensive than energy produced by traditional fossil fuels. Utility customers who buy into the renewable options offered by their utility company pay extra for energy backed by Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). In a time when money is short, why should ratepayers care about renewable energy resources? CUB offers five reasons:

1) Utility Prices: First, while the switch to renewables may cause an increase on energy prices in the short term, they are also generally more stable than prices for natural gas and other fossil fuels. Also, prices of existing renewable energy sources are expected to decrease as the technologies mature and production becomes more efficient. In contrast, as the state and federal governments increase carbon premiums, prices for "brown" energy will go up. This policy, of course, is meant to persuade utility companies to decrease their carbon emissions and to switch to renewable resources. When renewable energy resources have been developed to the extent that they are efficient, competitive in price, and capable of fulfilling the majority of the utilities' loads, utility rates will stabilize -- at a lower price than if the companies used resources high in carbon emissions.

Oregon's economic future depends on a diversity of investment from both the public and private sectors. Let us not forget that while we are in the midst of a serious global economic crisis, we are also deeply entangled in an equally serious global environmental situation, and we need solutions that address both problems.

Fortunately, neither crisis need look so dim or everlasting. Green jobs have the potential to address both issues: they can strengthen Oregon's economy while simultaneously making it more environmental-friendly. Expanding Oregon's green economy will give employment-hungry Oregonians access to family-supporting, career pathway jobs, while also bolstering the state's effort to combat global climate change.

Oregon has the potential to develop a wide variety of green jobs from renewable energy technicians to electric engine mechanics, building retrofitters, solar panel manufacturers, waste oil refiners, biomass producers, mass-transit construction workers, and many more. All these jobs are available in Oregon and could grow quickly - all we need now is the policy and investment to get things moving.

Earlier this month, the City of Portland established a pilot project called "Clean Energy Works: Portland" that seeks to address this very issue. By decreasing the amount of energy lost from uninsulated homes, the project will lower the city's green house gas (GHG) emissions, save homeowners money on energy, and create "green-collar" jobs. This project, which recognizes energy efficiency as an energy resource, is a model not only for Oregon at the state level, but also for other states and the federal government.

Portland's "Clean Energy Works" Pilot Program

Portland's pilot project is aimed at reducing the city's GHG emissions by increasing the information supply and reducing barriers such as high up-front costs for homeowners to weatherize their old homes. The pilot program plans to help 500 qualified Portland homes finance and install energy efficiency upgrades by mid-2010.

Multnomah County Commissioner Jeff Cogen, the City's partner on the project, believes that the Clean Energy Works program is a key instrument to achieving the region's goal of dramatically decreasing its green house gas emissions. Cogen says that the planners of the pilot "posit that we can do that while maintaining a strong economy and our strong quality of life."* The pilot is projected to create about 30-40 direct jobs--well-paying jobs that can't be outsourced--and a multiplier economic impact of nearly $10 million.

However, this past legislative session was a hard one for renewable energy policy and despite tireless work during the session by a wide range of allies, CUB still finds itself part of a fight against three anti-renewable energy bills that we believe threaten Oregon's position as a leader in the national push for clean energy and against climate change.

However, as the 2009 legislative session winds down, it is looks like the legislature may back away from its commitment to renewable energy. Rather than pass legislation that makes additional progress towards development of clean energy, the 2009 legislature could be poised to weaken the requirements that Oregon has already put in place.

The Oregon's Renewable Energy Standard is seen as a model nationally because we didn't credit ourselves too much for existing resources (i.e. large-scale hydropower and old biomass) and made sure that the standard we set would result in real kilowatts from new renewable generation resources. The goal has always been to push development of new renewable resources, not to pat ourselves on the back for resources that were developed in the past.

Several bills propose to take us off that course we plotted two years ago. Here's how:

Like nearly all businesses in the country, PGE is seeing its retail sales fall. Unlike nearly all other businesses, however, PGE may get to make up its lost profits during this recession by tacking them onto our future electric bills. But that is not all - because of the design of the bail out, PGE will actually get to recover more than its lost profits.

This means that when a small business lays off an employee, PGE sees its profits increase. A house that is vacant and on the market for months also increases PGE's profits.

These are the results of a little-noticed PUC decision in January that granted PGE a decoupling mechanism. The theory behind decoupling is to "decouple" the link between a utility's profits and the volume of electricity the utility sells. According to the theory, by eliminating this link, utilities should be more interested in investing in energy efficiency. Because energy efficiency is a cheaper resource than investing in new power plants and reduces electric bills, decoupling should lead to lower costs for customers.

What are public purpose funds? There's a lot of confusion about what those funds are, what they are not and where they come from. Much of the debate over the years - and raised again recently it seems - is that these funds are "public" or "taxpayer" funds. They are not; they are ratepayer funds and, in some form or another, have always been a part of rates.

It has long been Oregon's policy to require utilities to make investments in energy efficiency. What changed in 1999, when the legislature passed SB 1149, is that the legislature gave some specificity to the policy. The law changed so that there was at least three percent of utility revenues to be dedicated to energy efficiency (and some renewable energy development as well).

So, rather than having energy efficiency investments wrapped into rates and fluctuate wildly up and down as happened throughout the 1990s, the law required that the cost of those investments be pulled out and listed "above the line" so that consumers could see exactly how much was being dedicated to energy efficiency.

Shannon Floyd, CUB's Business and Special Projects manager passed away this past week. Among her work at CUB, Shannon was the founder of this on-line newsletter (our blog) and has been the writer behind it since its inception.

When Shannon first approached me and proposed that CUB start a weekly blog as a communications tool, I was skeptical. It seemed like a great deal of work for a product that few people would notice.

I was wrong. Shannon was right. From Day One we have gotten a great deal of positive feedback on the blog. People have repeatedly told me how amazed they have been at the ability of CUB to take wonkish energy issues and explain them in understandable terms. What folks did not know was that this was due to a single person here: Shannon. Not only did she take our wonkish policy issues and explain them to people, she did so in a personal manner with a sense of humor. She provided a voice for CUB's blog. And we have gotten more positive feedback about that voice than anything we have created in the last 15 years.

We will continue the blog, but I worry that without Shannon's voice, it will not be the same. CUB will continue to do important policy work, but our ability to communicate it in an appealing way has been diminished. If we get too wonkish, or too boring, please have patience. What she did was not easy.

Shannon was an amazing woman. She was more than our Business Manager. She was our friend. She was 39, a great mother and a
trained opera singer (this was a surprise to many of us...listen to a sample of her work at the links in the right-hand column. She had a truly beautiful voice.) It was about a year ago that she found out she had breast cancer and less than 2 months since she found out the cancer had spread. She was well-loved here at CUB and over the last few weeks, as friends have come out of the woodwork to offer her support, we have found that she was well-loved by many, many people.

At CUB she had a central role. I was dependent on her for everything from payroll and bookkeeping to editing my writing. And
she was the best editor I ever found. She would pull out her red pen and mark up the document. And she would mark it up a lot. I mean a lot. But when she was done, there would be no grammatical errors left, and the wording would be changed and improved in ways that made it much more interesting. People will find that I am much less articulate now that I do not have Shannon.

Some of my fondest memories are sitting around the conference table in our office eating lunch. At those times we talked about raising children, food, literature, music, politics, traveling and countless other subjects. We watched clips of the Daily Show and laughed. For most of her time at CUB, Shannon was the only one who could reset the time on our clock without standing on a chair. She was a tall woman in a largely height-challenged office.

Shannon was also a very good friend of my wife, Jill. They met regularly for lunch, sang karaoke, went to movies and every year
they got together to watch the Academy Awards. Her 6 year-old daughter Hana is a friend of my 7 year-old daughter Macy. This
is a personal loss and a loss for my entire family.

Shannon was one of the nicest people I have known. Everyone who met Shannon liked her. Even at the most stressful times, Shannon was calm and caring. Jason Eisdorfer, our former staff attorney went to visit her on Monday, a few hours before she passed away. She was very concerned that Jason makes sure that he is helping and giving support to our new staff attorney, Catriona McCracken. That was Shannon. Even at that point, she was worrying about others and trying to organize support for someone else.

This is a hard time for many of us. Shannon was too young, too nice and too important to us for this to have happened. Her daughter had an amazing mother and deserved to grow up with Shannon in her life. But life is not fair. We all know that intellectually and today we feel that in our gut.

But we will remember her. Every time we send out a blog, we will remember her as the founder of the blog. Every time I write testimony, I will remember her ability to transform my writing. Every year when the Academy Awards are on, we will remember how she loved the movies and loved the spectacle that is the Academy Awards. Every Fall and Spring when we have to reset our clocks we will remember her doing so without standing on a chair. And every time we invite her daughter over for a play date we will be reminded of how much they look alike.

Ultimately, we will remember Shannon, not for the loss we feel today, but for the love that she gave us.

]]> http://oregoncub.org/archives/2009/02/cub_mourns_the.php http://oregoncub.org/archives/2009/02/cub_mourns_the.php People & History of CUB Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:50:05 -0800 CUB went into the last Legislative session in 2007 with an ambitious agenda and a will for change. We succeeded with the vast majority of our goals and gave Oregon a head start in the national push for clean energy and a way to push back against climate change. Well, the 2009 Legislative Session just got underway and CUB and our allies in the Fair and Clean Energy Coalition and the Oregon Conservation Network are knocking on legislators'doors saying,
"We're baaaaack!"

Again, we have a proactive, ambitious agenda, and we have been working for months to craft a thoughtful, meaningful list of goals that will move us forward without losing any of the hard won gains we've already secured. Our agenda can be grouped into 3 main categories: 1) Climate; 2) Energy Efficiency and Renewables; and 3) Telecommunications.

Our leading goal is to pass a bill, or maybe a few bills, that will help Oregon begin to seriously address the impacts of global warming. The work on this climate portion of our agenda should do the following: a) set a cap (which would decline over time) on greenhouse gases, and thereby reduce global warming pollution; b) authorize state agencies to begin crafting an administrative process to figure out how to make the reductions happen; and c) do both of
the above while staying consistent and aligned with the broader regional context of the Western Climate Initiative.

Opponents to acting against global warming pollution have argued that action on climate change is premature in 2009. We beg to differ. We think the time to act was yesterday, and we had better get a move on if we want to be at all effective. Just to give one example of why we need clarity on global warming strategies now, is found in CUB's purview, the Utility Sector of our energy economy. Utilities plan for the long haul, and we are making decisions
now that will affect us for the next 50 years. By passing a cap now, the utilities and their customers will be ahead of the curve and protected from poor decisions that don't include sensible climate regulatory policy foresight.

Our secondary goal, which is related and will help advance the first, is to advance Oregon's programs supporting energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. A big part of being able to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions is reducing our overall energy usage, and generating more of what we do use from cleaner sources. Already, Oregon is a leader in these two areas. But that doesn't mean there isn't still a ton of valuable ground to be gained by looking for new opportunities.

CUB is working with a broad array of stakeholders to determine the most cost-effective way to dramatically increase energy efficiency efforts. At the same time, those efforts must complement and build upon existing programs. If we do not protect the existing successful programs we have already built, in the process of moving forward, we will have traded advancing the cause for chasing our tails. CUB is uniquely positioned because of our experience in helping create many of Oregon's current programs to help safeguard them as we move forward with new ones.

As far as increasing renewable resources goes, we aren't looking to try and top our 2007 victory of passing a Renewable Energy Standard for Oregon. But there are still avenues to be explored, and new doors to be opened so that Oregon has enough clean energy supply to meet the increasing demand.

Our third major goal is to play defense against the state's largest telecommunications companies, such as Verizon (we reached a settlement with Qwest at the PUC which should ensure at least a temporary respite from their attempts at wholesale deregulation). Other major industry players, however, are almost certain to continue pushing for higher prices and less oversight, and CUB will push back.

The Oregon Legislature's new session opened last week, with some old faces and some new. We will be tracking bills carefully, let you know what is important to CUB and its members, and will call on you for your help when it comes time to exercise your citizens' voice on your own behalf and on behalf of all Oregon utility customers.

CUB has some new tools to help members and supporters track legislative activities and get involved to make a difference on key bills. First, CUB's organizing director Jeff Bissonnette, who also serves as our legislative representative, will "Twitter" from the Capitol about important hearings and brief observations. You can see these Capitol "tweets" at the left of this web page or you can follow CUB on Twitter. You can also join the CUB Action Network where you can get specific updates on legislative activity as well as action alerts at key decision points on bills. The link for the CUB Action Network can also be found near the top of the right-hand column of this page.

CUB's success in the legislature depends directly on the involvement of our members. So join us in making 2009 a great session for utility ratepayers. Good luck to us all!

]]> http://oregoncub.org/archives/2009/01/cub_kicks_off_2_1.php http://oregoncub.org/archives/2009/01/cub_kicks_off_2_1.php Legislative & Political Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:31:30 -0800 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.

]]> http://oregoncub.org/archives/2008/12/cub_would_like.php http://oregoncub.org/archives/2008/12/cub_would_like.php Legislative & Political Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:48:33 -0800