Victory for Protection of Ratepayer Funds in Oregon Legislature

There are a few things in life that you can expect in June: school lets out, Father’s Day, Flag Day, and the Oregon legislature tries to raid ratepayer funds.

It seems as though toward the end of nearly every legislative session for the past several years, legislators try to divert ratepayer dollars, collected through the public purpose charge dedicated to energy efficiency and renewable energy, to various pet projects. We’ve often written about those various attempts, such as the one last session. Each time we’ve been able to ward off these attempted raids on ratepayer funds.

2015 is no exception. The legislature again tried to raid ratepayer funds, and again CUB members and supporters were a key part of the overall effort to stop the raid.

The attempt this year was around the transportation package to dedicate funding to upkeep of roads and bridges as well as bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. As part of developing this important package, some legislators who were opposed to a Clean Fuels Standard that was passed and signed into law earlier in the session tied their support for any transportation package to repeal of the Clean Fuels Standard. A key part of the Clean Fuels Standard was reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. So, legislators tasked with negotiating the transportation package tried to put together a series of proposals that would equal or exceed the emissions reductions the Clean Fuels Standard would have achieved if it were repealed as part of the transportation package.

That’s where the ratepayer dollars came in. They proposed diverting the ratepayer funds from energy efficiency programs in schools and from renewable energy investments to electric vehicle investments.

As we’ve written about before and work on as part of our EV program, CUB is very supportive of electric vehicles as a strategy to address climate change. But to divert funds from high-value, emission reducing activities like energy efficiency and renewable energy makes no sense. The proposal suggested putting ratepayer dollars just into charging stations, which by themselves do not reduce emissions. In addition to diverting public purpose funds to charging stations, the bill granted PGE and Pacific Power the ability to spend millions more on electric charging stations while exempting those investments from basic consumer protections. In short, it was not a good deal for ratepayers.

When we put an alert out on Monday afternoon, as usual the response from CUB members was immediate and strong. Other groups – energy efficiency companies, solar companies, schools, and advocacy organizations – all delivered messages to legislators that taking funds away from key ratepayer investments in efficiency and renewable energy was ill-considered. By the time a hearing on the proposal was held on Wednesday afternoon, there was growing doubt about the emissions reduction projections. By Thursday morning, the proposal was being set aside.

This is a victory for ratepayers and CUB members were central to that victory. But we must also add that the state still needs a strong transportation package that deals realistically with climate impacts. CUB still believes that electric vehicles can be part of that strategy. We are ready to be part of those conversations to create proposals that achieve what CUB always looks for: policies that benefit both consumers and the environment.

Thanks once more for all your support!

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