How Can You Take Action for Energy Affordability?
Posted on April 21, 2026 by David Beltrán Barajas | CUB Oregon
Tags, General Interest, Energy
Have you been interested in CUB’s work for energy affordability, clean energy, and utility accountability? Have you been looking for ways to get involved and help us out in this fight?
We’ve got actions that community members can take at whatever level of participation you feel comfortable taking on. From sending a simple one-click advocacy email to joining us for a lobby day at the state legislature, there’s something for everyone!
Easy Stuff:
If you’ve never heard of CUB or have only recently started following our work, these actions will be perfect for you. These are easy, quick actions, but meaningful to our work. You may have even already participated in one of these!
Share your personal utility story
Take Action Now: Share your disconnection stories, extreme heat stories, or past due bill stories!
It’s crucial that we talk about how our utilities affect our households and communities. Sharing your story with CUB helps us better understand and advocate for your utility needs and turn them into policies with an impact. Your stories will be shared in public communications and with decision-makers. We will only use your first name, city, and story in CUB materials to protect your privacy.
You can find CUB’s calls for personal stories by checking out our Take Action page or by signing up for our email list.
Fill out an Action Alert (send one-click emails to decision makers)
Use your voice to speak up for affordable, accessible, reliable, and clean utilities! Decision makers need to hear from people like you on utility issues that affect your life. We try to make it easy to get started with one-click email options on the most important issues of the day.
These can be found on our website’s Take Action page, under the Take Action menu. You can also find these in our emails or through our social media.
Donating to CUB
Take Action Now: Donate to CUB and become a supporting member today!
Whether you donate $5, $50, or $500, your support directly funds what CUB staff does best: Conducting economic and legal analyses on utility policy. Engaging community organizations, policymakers, and utility leaders. Advocating to replace unfair and inequitable policies with ones prioritizing communities
Learn more about becoming a CUB member on our Membership page. You can donate directly on our website using the donate button, or you can follow the link to go directly to the donation page.
Follow us on social media and share
Share out information that’s important to you and your community! We share updates on utility bill increases, opportunities to speak out, and resources you can use every day.
Help us put the social in social media by sharing with friends, family, and other organizations in your community.
Get a Little More Involved with CUB
Feel like you’re ready to dive in deeper? These actions will get you more familiar with our work. They’ll also help our organizers understand what issues are important to you, so that they can plug you into the places that are of interest to you.
Schedule a 1:1 with CUB’s Community Organizer
We want to hear from you about the issues you care most about! Whether you have a specific question about your utility bill or you want to get involved with holding utilities accountable, we’re here to help. A 1:1 meeting with CUB’s Community Organizer will get you plugged in to the right places to take action.
You can email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), or you can request a 1:1 using this Calendly link.
Attend a recurring Community Call
Our monthly community call focuses on introducing you to CUB, our work, and the areas our community organizer is currently working in. The goal is to give you a broad overview of what we are doing and where you can plug in.
The Community Calls also serve as a chance to get a report back on the past month of organizing. You can get 1:1 time to learn more about your specific issue area or brainstorm unique ways to organize around your interests.
Sign up for a Monthly Community Call today!
Want To Get Even More Involved?
For most of these actions, you’ll have to connect with CUB’s Community Organizer to be able to get plugged in. Email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), or sign up for our monthly community calls. CUB’s Organizer will be able to point you in the right direction and find areas for you to participate in.
These bigger actions are where we really start branching out and getting creative! The most important big actions are getting our community to speak at a public hearing for legislation or new rules for utilities at the Public Utility Commission (PUC). However, one of our Community Organizers’ goals is to find fun and engaging ways to organize around our goals of ensuring all Oregonians have affordable, accessible, reliable, and clean utilities.
Group Field Trips
On CUB’s emissions reduction & electrification campaign, we took out a group of community members interested in community solar on a tour of a Northeast Portland solar park that serves the Cully neighborhood. This tour taught us a lot about what these community projects take to get up and running, as well as the challenges they faced and what kind of advocacy was needed to make the project successful.
Testifying is Better with Friends
For advocacy work, we’ve helped community leaders facing utility issues come down to the Oregon Legislature to give testimony on their experiences. Oregon utility customers are getting squeezed from all areas, and so we fought for a collection of three bills to address affordability concerns in Oregon.
One such community member, pictured above, traveled down to Salem and shared her story with energy affordability, recent price increases on their PGE bill, and how she’s needed to adjust her lifestyle in order to keep her winter-month bills low. Her testimony, along with hundreds of public comments, made a huge difference in getting HB3792 passed through the legislature in 2025. The bill doubled the funding for the Oregon Energy Assistance Program, which was critical when the Trump administration threatened and halted the federal energy assistance program and its funding during the October government shutdown.
Find an Action That’s Right for You
There is a wide variety of big actions for you to take part in:
- Public comment at the state legislature and the Public Utility Commission
- Writing a letter to the editor: reach out to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to coordinate writing a letter to the editor
- Volunteer with CUB at an event
- Lend your knowledge, expertise, and skill set (example: be a speaker at a workshop, community forum, or event)
- Attend a lobby day, chat with your city and state officials about energy issues impacting you
- Work on one of CUB’s current campaigns with other organizations you’re involved with
Stay Up to Date on Oregon Utility Issues
CUB will continue to advocate for people in Oregon on major utility issues. Sign up for the CUB email list for the latest updates, action alerts, and news on policies that affect the utilities your home relies on.
To keep up with CUB, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, and LinkedIn!
04/21/26 | 0 Comments | How Can You Take Action for Energy Affordability?