Utility Consumer Advocates Gather In St. Louis

I recently traveled to St. Louis for the Annual meeting of National Association of Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA). The meeting brings together people who work on behalf of utility customers from around the country, and now that I am back in my beloved home state, I’d like to share some impressions.

Many folks may not know that there is a national organization that connects all the disparate consumer advocate groups throughout the United States. But there is. NASUCA helps utility consumer advocates trade experiences, work together on broad issues, and project our concerns into national policy discussions at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the United States Congress. The annual meeting allows us to share information, attend workshops and conduct Association business (elect officers, approve a budget and set policy). The annual meeting is held in conjunction with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), the national body of commissioners including our own from the Oregon Public Utility Commission. Shared sessions allow open debate and dialogue among advocates ad regulators from all over the United States.

Utility consumer advocates exist in most states. In Wisconsin, Illinois and Oregon, utility consumers are represented by non-profit Citizens’ Utility Boards. In most other states, it is a section of State government, such as the Attorney General’s Office or an Office of Public Advocate that represent customers. Sharing our experiences, from both the non-profit sector and the governmental sector, help us all to do a better job of representing customers in the many issues that we face today, including low-income support, renewable power integration, Smart Grid investments, and many others.

I appreciate Oregon whenever I attend these kinds of events for a lot of reasons.

1. While we at CUB don’t always agree with all the decisions made by the Oregon PUC, Oregon has a tradition of smart, fair regulators. In a lot of other states, regulators are political cronies of the governor and have little independence.

2. As an independent non-profit, CUB has a lot of flexibility, and can intervene on a broad set of issues on behalf of ratepayers and, broadly, Oregonians. The Ohio Governor, at the urging of natural gas marketers, recently proposed cutting the budget of the Ohio Consumers’ Council by more than 50%. In Oregon, we don’t have to worry about political attacks on our budget when the positions we take offend a powerful interest group. The New Jersey Consumer Advocate attended the meeting for the first time in several years because the State Government had previously restricted non-essential out-of-state travel for state employees. Here in Oregon, your Citizens’ Utility Board can represent you on regulatory, legislative, and policy matters without our work being subject to political attacks or bureaucratic policies.

3. We have the Energy Trust of Oregon (ETO), our independent non-profit that runs energy efficiency programs for electric and gas utilities in Oregon. A lot of states continue to grapple with establishing good energy efficiency programs, and many look to Oregon and the success we’ve had with the ETO. CUB helped establish the Energy Trust of Oregon 10 years ago, because utilities have an inherent conflict of interest when it comes to encouraging customers to use less of their product. Most states cannot overcome the opposition from utilities to establish an independent non-profit model. But the consumer advocates who have looked at energy efficiency programs recognize that establishing a trust to support energy efficiency investments is the best model for consumers and for increased energy efficiency measures.

4. Finally, I am glad that we did not go down the path of deregulation when Enron proposed it more than a decade ago. States that deregulated have seen significant rate increases. Currently, several Northeastern deregulated states are worried that blackouts are coming because no new peaking capacity is being built. At least two states are looking towards state government to ensure that additional capacity is built, because the deregulated market is failing.

There are a set of issues that all states are facing.

1. We need to figure out ways to keep the heat on during the longest and deepest recession in decades. Here in Oregon, we saw 27,000 residential shut-offs in the first half of the year due to non-payment. Now, in December, freezing weather has rolling in throughout the state and we’re very concerned with keeping Oregon families warm. But this is not true only of Oregon: throughout the country, states are seeing record numbers of customers struggling with payment of this most basic need. Consumer advocates, federal, state, and local government, and the utilities need to work together to support our communities in this period of recession.

2. Even as we struggle with keeping the power on, we must continue to look to the future. Smart Grid investments and electric vehicles are two key components of facing the real challenge of climate change and addressing energy security concerns here in Oregon and throughout the country. Smart Grid, as we here at CUB discussed at our conference in October, has great potential to benefit utilities, customers, and the region—if implemented correctly. We see the same conversation happening in other states, which tells us there is still work to be done to establish the right policies for Smart Grid investments. And electric vehicles—now coming on to the market in greater numbers than ever before—have the potential to provide a marked impact on greenhouse gas emissions within the transportation sector, and a demand resource that could be matched with wind production at night. Electric vehicles are already here, and making intelligent decisions now about how best to integrate and support their use will benefit the grid as a whole in the long run.

3. Here in Oregon, we can look to the closure of PGE’s Boardman coal plant as a way to understand that with utilities facing huge costs in order to meet clean air requirements, the cheapest option may be phasing out some coal plants. But throughout the country, such action is still only being discussed. We have an opportunity at the national level to push for the retirement of coal plants, and replace them with renewable resource mixes that can address climate change and energy independence in our country. And here in Oregon, we found a way to get a discussion started: by asking if it’s more expensive to keep a coal plant in operation when you have to invest millions of dollars in technology to meet clean air regulation, or more economical to close a coal plant and replace it with cleaner resources. This question needs to be asked in states throughout the country to meet the costs and concerns of our clean future.

Meeting with my colleagues and peers at NASUCA this year, I believe there is the potential to address many of these challenges. But we need to keep talking, and continue to hold the utilities accountable to their customers and to the regulations we have placed on them. Here in Oregon, your CUB will keep doing exactly that for you. And we are grateful for the opportunity we have to share our successes with our counterparts in the rest of the country.

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