Consumer Advocates Come to Portland
Posted on July 18, 2019 by Bob Jenks
Tags, Energy, Telecommunications, Conference & Events
The national network of utility consumer advocates came to Portland in June for their annual mid-year conference. The conference gave them a chance to visit Portland, eat from our food carts, enjoy local beer, wine, and cider, and explore critical issues facing consumers of energy and telecommunications service, including much discussion of how Oregon seeks to address some of these issues.
CUB is a member of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA), an organization composed of 55 consumer advocate offices around the country who represent utility customers before state regulators and legislative bodies. The conference was held June 19-21, but advocates were invited to come a day early and attend part of the EV Roadmap conference hosted by Forth.
CUB was pleased with the way the conference focused on how Oregon is dealing with the various challenges consumer advocates face.
CUB’s Outreach Manager, Samuel Pastrick, joined a panel with Elizabeth Uzelac from Oregon Department of Justice to discuss key information and communications technology (ICT) issues facing Oregonians. CUB’s role on the panel was to share our recent advocacy efforts regarding modernizing and resolving fairness issues with Oregon’s Universal Service Fund, telephone companies’ increasing objection to their carrier of last resort obligations, expanding rural access to and usage of broadband, and protecting consumers’ digital privacy.
A point of emphasis for Sam was to break down the unique and sometimes contradictory role CUB plays in the ICT arena. Whereas most of CUB’s energy policy work occurs in the context of a well-defined regulatory system, CUB’s consumer advocacy on ICT policy issues occurs in an increasingly non-competitive and unregulated environment.
Friday morning highlighted Oregon’s work to decarbonize its electric grid. First, PGE’s CEO, Maria Pope, and I discussed how CUB and PGE continue to collaborate on public policies relating to energy efficiency, renewables, and carbon emissions reduction while recognizing that we at the same time often disagree on ratemaking issues (rate levels, allocation of risk between shareholders and customers, and a utility’s profit margin, among other things). This session highlighted the need for utilities and consumer advocates to equally participate as states work to address climate change.
That session was followed by a panel I moderated, entitled The New Oregon Trail: Decarbonizing the Electric Grid. Angus Duncan - Oregon Global Warming Commission, Elaine Hart - PGE, Jason Eisdorfer - Oregon PUC, and Susan Stratton - Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance filled out the panel to discuss the immense challenge of climate change and how Oregon’s energy policy intends to address it.
The feedback we received was encouraging. Conference attendees loved what Portland had to offer and were intrigued by the discussions of Oregon’s telecommunications and energy policy.
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07/18/19 | 0 Comments | Consumer Advocates Come to Portland