Celebrating 10 Years of the CUB Energy Policy Conference

On Friday October 16, 2020, CUB convened participants from across (and even beyond) the NW energy industry for our tenth annual policy conference, Finding Hope: Improving Our Energy Systems in the Age of COVID-19. This was truly a star-studded event, featuring some of the region’s foremost experts and leaders. They spoke astutely about the opportunities and challenges facing our communities as we enter month 8 of the pandemic that has sent economies into a tailspin and killed over 600 Oregonians and over 220,000 people nationally.

We were honored to welcome Oregon Governor Kate Brown, who delivered the conference’s opening remarks. Governor Brown shone a spotlight on the hard work Oregon has undertaken this year to respond to devastating and record-setting wildfires, while building better and more equitable consumer protections. Meanwhile the state forges ahead in mitigating climate change under the auspices of her Executive Order on Climate, No. 20-04. She called on the utilities, regulators, and advocates in the audience to get to work, pointing out that “there is no Planet B” and there is no time to waste.

CUB Executive Director Bob Jenks then delivered the day’s opening presentation, beginning with the timeline and impacts so far of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aside from having infected nearly 1 percent of the state’s population, the pandemic has yielded extremely uneven economic consequences. Certain sectors of the economy have recovered well, while others are cratering. These consequences magnify existing inequities in employment: Black, indigenous, and other people of color are more likely to work in jobs that have been lost as a result of the shutdowns, or in jobs with high exposure to the public, making them more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection.

Meanwhile, the consequences of climate change are being felt around the globe. In Oregon, this summer’s wildfires represented 100 typical fire seasons burning simultaneously. Oregon has built more renewables capacity and flattened the carbon curve in the past decade, but emissions are still increasing in the transportation sector and from natural gas. So, where can hope be found?

Bob asserted that hope lies in action. He outlined some of the steps CUB and other advocates have taken with the utilities and other parties in recent months, such as utility consumer protections necessitated by the pandemic crisis that were recently approved by the Public Utility Commission. Hope lies in not waiting for national leadership to get started – Bob cited the examples of rising ownership of electric vehicles and municipal climate change initiatives, as well as the youth movements in support of climate and racial justice. And hope can be found in Oregon’s progress in removing coal from our energy system. (Just one day prior to the conference, Oregon’s last remaining coal plant, Boardman, depleted its last pile of coal and shut down for good.)

In the opening panel, The View From the Top, Bob Jenks facilitated a conversation between five NW Utility CEOs. All the CEOs touched on how the companies collaborated early in 2020 when shutdowns occurred in Oregon and across the country, and it became evident that many customers would need significant accommodations to weather the economic downturn. Bob asked a series of questions targeted to each of the panelists. Lisa Grow – President and CEO of IdaCorp and Idaho Power, who was promoted to her position early this year, discussed what it was like to jump into her role feet first just as the pandemic was taking shape. Maria Pope – President and CEO of Portland General Electric described PGE’s mission-oriented approach to serving customers with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. David Anderson – President and CEO of NW Natural shared his thoughts about what is needed to adequately cover the demand for low-income assistance for all customers who need it. Stefan Bird – President and CEO of Pacific Power described what his company is doing to manage risks that are evolving rapidly due to climate change. And Dennis Vermillion – President and CEO of Avista discussed how the 2020 wildfires have affected Avista and its customers.

This was a fascinating panel that could easily have gone much longer, but the conference had to move on, and so must this recap, to our second morning panel, Once-in-a-Century Crises Require Once-in-a-Century Solutions for Customers. This panel discussed electricity as a human right, the disproportionate burdens being carried through this crisis by low-income customers, the elderly, communities of color and other frontline groups, and the question of whether enough has been done to protect consumers throughout 2020. Keith Kueny - Energy Policy Coordinator at Community Action Partnership of Oregon shared moving stories of the countless calls he’s taken this year from customers desperate for bill assistance, at risk of homelessness, and having to choose between paying for their bills or their medications. Dr. Holmes Hummel - Founder of Clean Energy Works (a national group and not the Oregon organization that used the same name) discussed how current funding levers and financing options for home energy efficiency and distributed resources are inadequate and regressive, and how CEW is carving a path to home ownership for residents who invest in these improvements. And Karen Lusson - Attorney at National Consumer Law Center emphasized the importance of “walking the talk”: if electricity is an essential service, which is the position of most state utility commissions, then those states’ policies need to ensure that no customer is ever put at risk of disconnection or unreasonable energy burden.

The 2020 CUB conference’s midday panel brought together the leaders of three state agencies tasked with significant responsibilities to implement Executive Order No. 20-04, which Governor Brown issued in early March. Megan Decker – Chair, Oregon Public Utility Commission (PUC), Janine Benner – Director, Oregon Department of Energy (ODOE), and Richard Whitman – Director, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) all participated. Each panelist shared details from their agencies’ draft plans to meet the Order’s objectives, and discussed how the agencies are collaborating in new ways to “row in the same direction together.” The PUC work plan’s four areas of focus are planning, services, transportation, and wildfire mitigation. DEQ is focusing on capping and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in partnership with ODOE, expanding the Oregon Clean Fuels Program, reducing methane emissions from landfills, and reducing food waste. And Janine Benner described ODOE’s plans to adopt more stringent efficiency standards for appliances and building codes, advance Oregon’s transportation and electrification strategy, and serve as a central repository of data and analysis. The panelists also touched on what their agencies are doing to implement the Order in an equitable way, such as ongoing consultation with the Governor’s environmental justice task force, and ensuring access to the table by frontline groups who are most affected by carbon pollution and climate change.

Our final panel of the day, Moving Forward: Beyond the Status Quo, examined what comes next. After the pandemic subsides and the full scope of its economic fallout becomes clear, how do we move forward with a more resilient utility system that can weather the next crisis and adequately protects our most vulnerable communities? Panelists Sam Baraso – Program Manager of the City of Portland’s Portland Clean Energy Fund, Senator Jeff Golden – District 3, Ashland, and Pam Kiely – Senior Director of US Climate Regulatory Strategy for the Environmental Defense Fund all emphasized climate change as the most urgent coming crisis, with its compounding and accelerating impacts, for which our utility systems must be prepared. The panelists called for strategies that measure the factors that really matter, are laser focused on reducing total tonnage of emissions and bettering the lives of the people most impacted, and that are adequately funded. One of the most illuminating and emotional moments of the day came when Senator Golden discussed the 2020 wildfires that devastated his home district, and brought his expertise to bear in describing Oregon’s lingering baggage from the timber wars that did so much to shape the state’s politics throughout the late 1900s. And he called for an end to regressive tax policies that limit the amount of funding available to tackle climate change and aid vulnerable communities.

Given that finding hope was the theme of the day, it was clear from all the panel discussions that Oregon and the Northwest have made great progress in recent months and years, but there is still a great deal of work to be done. And that to fully prepare our energy systems for what lies ahead, we must see hope as a call to action. For our part, CUB finds hope in - and is deeply grateful for - the participation of Governor Brown, our audience, and our expert panelists, as well as our generous sponsors, particularly Polar Bear sponsors NW Natural, Pacific Power, and Portland General Electric; Grizzly Bear sponsor Avista; and Media sponsor Clearing Up.

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