The Energy Affordability Act, as supporters have dubbed it,
allows regulators to consider lower electricity and natural gas rates or bill
credits for “energy burdened” low-income households.
The Senate on Thursday voted 18-11 to pass the bill. All
Democrats except Betsy Johnson supported it; all voting Republicans except Tim
Knopp voted no. The House passed the bill, 36-20, in March.
The bill represents a change to longstanding policy that the
Public Utility Commission treat all customers within a class — residential,
commercial or industrial — the same as it establishes rates for the
investor-owned utilities Portland General Electric, Pacific Power and NW Natural.
The utilities, various activists groups and the ratepayer
advocate Citizens’ Utility Board all supported the bill.
Backers argued that state weatherization and bill assistance
programs still left thousands of people facing a home energy affordability gap.
Six percent of household income is widely seen as the
threshold for a manageable energy burden, with 10% considered “severely energy
burdened.” As a percentage of low-income households, Eastern Oregon counties
have the most energy burdened households in the state.
Smaller bills for low-income households could leave other
ratepayers filling the revenue gap, but one study found such programs can
result in higher collected revenue.
The Oregon legislation also opens up low-income and
environmental-justice advocacy groups for “intervenor funds” from the PUC,
totaling up to $500,000 annually. These are ratepayer-financed grants for
nonprofits that represent broad groups or classes of customers.
That’s the aspect of the bill that generated the most
disagreement.
Some Republicans pushed for a version of the bill that would
have made representatives of small commercial customers also eligible for
intervenor funds, while dropping representatives of “environmental justice
communities.”
That version was defeated on a largely party-line 19-10 vote
on Thursday.
