Governor Signs Renewable Bill, CUB Still Has Pots on the Stove
Posted on June 7, 2007 by oregoncub
Tags, Consumers and Utility Customers, Legislative & Political
Yesterday morning, Governor Ted Kulongoski signed into law SB 838, the Renewable Energy Standard, in a room full of those people who had helped make the idea into a bill and then move the bill through the Oregon Legislature (including, in the picture below, CUB Organizing Director Jeff Bissonnette, CUB Staff Attorney Jason Eisdorfer, and CUB Board Member Fred Heutte). The morning signing was a celebratory occasion, crowning months of hard work, and resulting in a movement toward a greener electricity system for Oregon, requiring 25% renewable energy sources by 2025.
This is the second serious move Oregon has taken to address the consequences of global warming, the first being adoption of California’s tail-pipe emissions standards. A third move is the passage of HB 2620, which ensures that all new public building projects will designate 1.5% of construction costs to installing solar power. This is a significant change, adding to an overall “greening” shift in our power system, and the precedent it sets for successfully integrating clean energy technology is a tremendous boon to the state.
Still in the works: We’re very much hoping for a fourth major move toward reducing greenhouse gases, if the Legislature passes the Climate Integration Bill, which would establish requirements for utility reporting of carbon emissions, create a state policy commission on climate change, and establish a university-based research center on climate change policy. Gathering information on climate shifts both worldwide and from local impacts in Oregon would be a great foundation for future actions we can take to protect our land and economy from the difficulties that could be approaching due to global warming.
Two other energy efficiency bills (the cheapest and cleanest power is the power you don’t use, right?) have been sent to the Ways and Means Committee, and still have a shot at passage: SB 576 would require state agencies to construct new buildings to LEED Gold Standards, which could lower those buildings’ energy usage by 15%; and HB 2876 would require state buildings to achieve a 20% reduction in energy usage by 2015.
Also still cooking are amendments to revise and expand the clean energy tax credits for residential (RETC) and business customers (BETC) that already exist. This is especially exciting to add a financial incentive for developers to include clean energy systems, such as solar, onto the houses they build. After all, why should clean energy be only an after-purchase add-on when it could be common practice for all new housing construction? Every energy efficiency, conservation, and renewable bill that we can pass will pay dividends well into the future in reduced energy costs and pollution.
And last but not least is SB 461, the low-income energy assistance bill, which would raise the amount of money available for those unable to pay their utility bills from $10 to $15 million, resulting in an increase of about 20 cents per residential utility bill. This is important because Oregon is not even coming close to meeting the needs of those who cannot pay their energy bills, and because a cycle of shut-offs costs all customers money in the long run. This bill could still pass and we ardently hope that it does.
On the telecommunications front, it looks likely that the Telecomm Consumer Bill of Rights is not going to pass this session, and we are hopeful that neither will any of the several dangerous deregulation bills that were floated this time around by the telecomm industry.
With all of the energy bills still in play, we are clearly not done yet, and with the leadership in Salem hoping to end the session by June 29th, we are looking at an extremely busy next few weeks. Well, that’s all to the good. We’re pushing hard to the end. We may send another action alert on one of our priority bills in the next few weeks - keep your eyes peeled.
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03/10/17 | 0 Comments | Governor Signs Renewable Bill, CUB Still Has Pots on the Stove