Big Wins in the 2007 Legislative Session

(Jeff Bissonnette speaks to CUB Board members outside the Oregon House of Representatives during the 2007 Legislative Session.)

Yet another session of the Oregon legislature has passed into the history books and CUB, with the help of its members, delivered some big wins for consumers. Of course, the session ended many weeks ago, but CUB, and our lobbyist Jeff Bissonnette, couldn’t call it a day until the controversy surrounding the proposed diversion of public purpose funds was resolved. Now, we can finally report on the accomplishments of the session as a whole. The wins included ticking off just about every item on an ambitious Clean Energy Agenda, turning aside anti-consumer deregulation legislation for the telecommunications industry, and adding a layer of protection for consumers when a utility is the subject of a proposed purchase. All this during one of the shortest sessions in recent memory.

Energy

SB 461: Passed and signed into law. Increases the Oregon Energy Assistance Program from $10 million to $15 million per year (indexed to load and residential customer growth), helping many more Oregonians pay their electric bill. This helps all consumers because keeping ratepayers connected to the system, rather than being disconnected and reconnected, lowers costs for everybody.

SB 838: Passed and signed into law. The Oregon Renewable Energy Act requires that 25% of the state’s energy needs be met from renewable resources by 2025. Allows smaller utilities to meet a lower standard, but requires every utility to integrate renewable energy into future planning to meet future energy needs. In addition, the bill also allows for additional energy efficiency measures above the 3% public purpose charge already dedicated to energy conservation. Since efficiency is the lowest-cost way to acquire energy, this is a big step forward. Finally, the bill also extended the public purpose charge (which currently funds renewable and energy efficiency projects through the Energy Trust of Oregon) to 2025, beyond the former sunset of 2012. This demonstrates Oregon’s continued commitment to a clean energy future and will help to stabilize the electrical system as a whole.

HB 2620: Passed and signed into law. Requires that 1.5 percent of all new public building construction be dedicated to including solar as part of the design.

SB 375: Passed and signed into law. Increases energy efficiency standards for certain named appliances. As a companion to the groundbreaking bill CUB helped pass last session, the 2007 bill added energy-saving standards for more appliances. The bill also allows the state Department of Energy to align Oregon standards with other standards adopted by other states.

HB 2211 and HB 2212 (included in HB 3201): Passed and signed into law. Originally HB 2211 increased the state Business Energy Tax Credit and HB 2212 increased the Residential Energy Tax Credit to provide additional incentives for using renewable energy in homes and businesses around the state. The Business Energy Tax Credit was also amended so that homebuilders could get a tax credit for including renewable energy systems in homes they were building and selling. Both bills became a part of an omnibus tax credit bill, HB 3201, which gained legislative approval and the governor’s signature.

HB 3488: Passed and signed into law. Provides two innovative ways to increase renewable energy use, especially solar. First, the bill amended an existing statute that allows a utility to front the cost of energy conservation projects to a customer and then be repaid through the customer’s electric bill. HB 3488 added the ability to do the same thing for a renewable energy system. The bill only provides the authorization for such a program, with the Public Utility Commission to later approve the details. Second, the bill provided a tax incentive for third-party investment in large renewable energy systems that would offset the energy usage of a facility owned by a public entity or non-profit organization. The public or nonprofit entity would eventually own the system.

SB 994: Line-item veto of a diversion of public purpose funds. At the last minute, the legislative Ways and Means Committee attempted to divert ratepayer public purpose funds dedicated to energy conservation and renewable energy resources (to pay down a debt owed by the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry). While CUB did not have an objection to helping OMSI, using dedicated ratepayer funds was inappropriate. After much grassroots lobbying and negotiation, the Governor ultimately issued a line-item veto of the diversion.

 

Global Warming

HB 3543: Passed and signed into law. Created the Oregon Global Warming Commission to coordinate state policy development on addressing global warming and climate change long-term. The bill also created the Climate Change Research Institute within the Oregon System of Higher Education and established goals for the reduction of carbon emissions. The bill will be a cornerstone for future global warming policy proposals.

 

Telecommunications

HB 2621: Held in committee. This bill was pushed by Qwest and would have deregulated the telecommunications industry in Oregon. While the bill also provided some additional consumer protections, CUB determined that the trade-off was not good enough for consumers. Although Qwest worked very hard to move this bill forward, CUB—along with a range of other interest groups—managed to forestall the effort. Qwest will likely be back for another try.

 

Consumer Protection/Public Power

SB 443: Passed and signed into law. Provides for the possible creation of Oregon Community Power, a public entity that could purchase a current private utility if the utility was for sale and the customers and municipalities in the utility’s service territory believed it would be in the customers’ interest to bring the utility into public ownership. This bill was similar to another bill from the 2005 session, which CUB helped write but ended up opposing because of a provision that would have limited the benefits of the federal hydropower system to the new utility and raised customers’ rates. This bill adequately addressed those concerns. This provides an alternative path to public ownership which would have been handy when Texas Pacific Group was trying to buy PGE. Consumers now have another way to protect themselves if they believe a potential purchase of an Oregon utility would not be in their best interest.

 

After All Is Said and Done…

Let’s just say it was quite a session. And there’s not much time to rest up because the Legislature has planned a month-long special session in February 2008 as part of an experiment to explore moving toward annual sessions. Rest assured, CUB will be in the thick of things come February and, as always, we’ll need the help of our members to win more victories and turn aside anti-consumer proposals.

But for now, we thank you for your support in the 2007 session and know that we can all claim a part of a history-making session. Thanks, CUB members!

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