2013 Legislative Session Business Finally Winds Up

The Oregon Legislature ended its 2013 session on July 8 at 2:48pm. But the legislature gave us a little post-session homework which delayed this report. Now that it’s all wrapped up, we can give you a final session report. Overall, it’s fair to say that we had a solid session.

On December 6, 2012, CUB posted a blog about our legislative priorities. Here’s what we listed:

1. Require better analysis of utility coal investments;
2. Adopt appliance efficiency standards for televisions, battery chargers, plumbing fixtures and a common type of outdoor lighting;
3. A solar agenda focused on statewide net metering and figuring out the future of the state’s feed-in tariff pilot program;
4. Provide a technical fix to the state’s emissions performance standard, ensuring that the standard applies to both in-state and out-of-state resources as we intended when we passed the standard in 2009; and
5. Defending Oregon’s Renewable Energy Standard.

Now that the session is over, we’re happy to report that we did pretty well!  Here’s the overview:

1. Although we didn’t pass a bill that required specific analysis of coal investments, Pacific Power—the target utility in raising the issue—definitely heard the message. We were persuaded to drop this legislative push because of an Oregon Public Utility Commission (OPUC)order in last year’s rate case, discussions we had with Pacific Power, and discussions we heard were going on with the OPUC staff. We felt that progress was being made, and dropping the issue made negotiations on the emissions performance standard possible leading to that bill.
2. We passed SB 692, which included all our original items except the plumbing fixtures. We are the second state in the country to adopt the television and battery charger standards and we are hearing that the industry is pushing the US Department of Energy to adopt federal standards.
3. We weren’t able to make any headway on the statewide net metering issue, although we are working to create dialogues that could develop a proposal for 2015. We were able to pass HB 2893 as a consensus bill that extended thefeed-in tarriff pilot for a year and added 2.5 megaWatts of capacity for commercial customers. We also will have an OPUC process to study the resource value of solar.
4. We passed SB 242, which closed the loophole in the emissions performance standard that did not allow regulation of out-of-state resources. We had fruitful negotiations with PGE and Pacific Power that allowed us to achieve a consensus bill.
5. We defeated all proposed bills that contained a weakening of the Renewable Energy Standard. There is still a potential ballot initiative focused on adding all historic hydropower to the standard, which would essentially mean the Renewable Energy Standard would encourage no future renewable development.

Post-session Homework

Public Purpose Charge/ETO Defense – while there was no change to the funding that is directed to the Energy Trust of Oregon (ETO), there was a late hour (literally) attempt to redirect public purpose money directed to low-income weatherization to partially fund Clean Energy Works Oregon (CEWO), a laudable goal (and one CUB was supportive of during the session) but an inappropriate use of those public purpose dollars. CUB joined the utilities and many other groups supporting CEWO, but argued that using directed public purpose charge dollars for anything other than their original intent would hurt low-income households who depend on those funds for weatherization assistance. On August 15, Gov. Kitzhaber used his single-item veto authority to prevent the transfer of the public purpose dollars, a move that CUB and others had said was a viable option for the governor to take. At the same time, he strongly supported CEWO and committed to replacing the dollars.

With the session concluded, we’re looking to what’s next. We hope you’ll stay in touch with us, by Becoming a CUB Member, or subscribing to our email newsletter.

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