top of page
Back to All Legislative Reports
Climate Emergency

Legislative Report - Week of 3/10

Climate Emergency Team

 

Coordinator: Claudia Keith​

  • Efficient and Resilient Buildings: Bill Glassmire

  • Environmental Justice: Nancy Rosenberger

  • Environmental Rights Amendment: Claudia Keith

  • Natural Climate Solution - Forestry: Josie Koehne

  • CEI - Critical Energy Infrastructure : Nikki Mandell and Laura Rogers

  • Community Resilince & Emergency Management: Rebecca Gladstone 

  • Transportation: Claudia Keith

  • Joint Ways and Means - Budgets, Lawsuits, Green/Public Banking,

  • Divestment/ESG: Claudia Keith

  • Find additional Climate Change Advocacy volunteers in Natural Resources

Please see Climate Emergency Overview here.

Jump to a topic:



At this point in the session, we have submitted a number of policy Climate Emergency testimonies For the first time, this year most of our priorities are included in the bipartisan 2025 Legislative Environmental Caucus Priorities,  Citizens Utility Board (CUB) Priorities and/or Oregon Conservation Network (OCN) priorities. OCN is the only formal environmental lobby coalition group in the building. 


Consequently, for some of these bills (especially those in a package) the League may just join coalition sign-on letters rather than providing individual testimony.



Climate Priorities with League Testimony


Energy Affordability and Utility Accountability Package


HB 3081  (League testimony) creates an active navigator to help access energy efficiency incentives all in one place. SB 88 (League testimony)  limits the ability of utility companies to charge ratepayers for lobbying, litigation costs, fines, marketing, industry fees, and political spending. In addition to our testimony, LWVOR has signed on to letter support each of these bills.  The Public Hearing was March 4th.


Natural and Working Lands



Other Priorities 


  • HB 3477: Update to Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Goals, PH 3/11, League testimony will be posted 3/10. Bringing back SB 1559 (2024) moved to H CEE, Sponsored by Rep GAMBA, Sen Frederick, Golden, Patterson, Pham K, Taylor

  • HB 2566: Stand-alone Energy resilience Projects – H Governor Tina Kotek
, Public Hearing held  2/11/2024, 2 amendments proposed (H CEE), DOE presentation



  • HB 3365: climate change instruction /curriculum in public schools, Chief Sponsors: Rep Fragala, McDonald, House Education Committee Rep Andersen, Gamba, Lively, Neron, Senator Patterson, Pham, Taylor. House Cm Educ

  • SJR 28: Environmental Rights Constitutional – Referral, Senate Rules, Amendment Leg Referral - Senator Golden, Representatives Andersen, Gamba, Senators Manning Jr, Prozanski, Representative Tran
. The League has tentative plans to write testimony (comments) on this bill later this month.



  • SB 679: Climate Liability, (Sen. Golden, Senate Energy and Environment 



  • SB 680: Climate Science / Greenwashing, Sen. Golden and Manning, moved to Judiciary, no recommendation, (S J) PH was 2/26 Campos, Frederick, Gorsek, Patterson, Prozanski, Taylor



  • SB 681: Treasury: Fossil Fuel investment moratorium
, Sen Golden, Senate Finance and Revenue



  • SB 682:  Climate Superfund Cost Recovery Program Sen. Golden, Rep. Andersen, Gamba, Sen. Campos, Pham, SEE

  • SB 688: Public Utility Commission performance-based regulation of electric utilities, PH 3/12, we are planning League testimony, Sen. Golden, Sen. Pham, SEE  


  • SB 827: Solar and Storage Rebate, SEE Work session 2/17, Gov. Kotek & DOE, Senate vote 21-7, moves to House 3/4

 first reading.

  • HB 3546, the POWER Act, PR was 3/6, The bill requires the Public Utility Commission (PUC) to create a new rate class for the largest energy users in the state. (data centers and other high-volume users). These regulations would only apply to customers in the for-profit utility's service areas of PGE, Pacific Power, and Idaho Power. The League has approved being listed on a coalition sign on advocacy letter.    


Carbon sequestration/storage: See DOGAMI Agency Budget (see Natural Resources Legislative Report) – Geologic Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Interactive Map | U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov).





Energy Issues


House CE&E 3/6 Public Hearing on HB 3546


The committee heard testimony on HB 3546, which would direct the PUC to create a separate classification of service for large energy user facilities (data centers and potentially crypto mining facilities) that draw >20 MW of electricity. PUC would require utilities to enter a 10-year contract obligating such users to pay a minimum amount or percentage for the term of the contract, which could include an excess demand charge. Rates for this customer class would have to be proportional to the costs of serving them, including for transmission, distribution, and capacity. Utilities would have to mitigate the risks to other customer classes of paying for the utility’s increased load requirements. The bill would apply only to large users that submit an application for service on or after the effective date of the act.


Rep. Marsh and Sen. Sollman spoke for the bill, noting that growth in energy demand used to be balanced across all users, but data center growth has upset that. Without intervention, the high costs of growing demand will be borne by residential customers rather than large users. The bill is not  asking large users to subsidize other users, nor challenging their tax benefits, but requiring them to pay their fair share of the infrastructure needed to serve them. Ten-year contracts would prevent stranded assets from being shifted to other ratepayers. Data centers have a specific massive impact on the grid that is not true of other large energy users. Small businesses as well as residential users are at risk.


Bob Jenks of CUB also testified in support, saying we need a rate class for data centers because they put a unique and significant cost on the system. Over the past 10 years, PGE’s load would have actually shrunk if not for this new large load—unprecedented for a single customer class. AI data centers that are coming will draw more load than the city of Eugene. We already have rate classes based on specific usage – irrigation, street lighting, etc. PGE charges residential customers more than twice as much per kWh as it charges data centers. Assigning rates for the data centers will not be unilateral—they can make their case in specific rate cases before PUC.


Rep. Osborne objected that Oregon needs more business, and these large users provide a lot of construction jobs, so we don’t want to overburden them or discourage other businesses from locating here. Marsh pointed to generous tax credits that are available to encourage this form of economic development. Green Energy Institute noted that data center owners are among the largest, richest corporations in the world and should not be subsidized by residential users.


Google spokespeople took a neutral stance, saying they can support many elements of the bill but want to work with the committee to "improve" it by bringing other large energy users under its requirements. They said load growth reflects economic opportunities as well as challenges, and recent growth points to the need to reverse our underinvestment in critical infrastructure. In other states, Google has been able to strike agreement with multiple constituencies to come up with a framework that can work elsewhere. Key pillars: (1) Require all new large loads to sign long-term contracts so the new load is committed. (2) Commit the large users to pay minimum infrastructure charges to “de-risk” investments. (3) New large loads need to back up their load requests with "significant collateral"—e.g., multiple years of minimum payments have to be posted as a letter of credit so the utility can pay for these investments if the large user leaves the system. They would like to see a similar model adopted in Oregon.


Senate E&E heard testimony 3/5 on Sen. Brock Smith's three nuclear bills


SB 215 – Repeals the requirement that there be a licensed repository for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste before a site certificate for a nuclear-fueled thermal power plant may be issued in Oregon. If the bill is enacted, the repeal would have to be submitted to a referendum of Oregonians at the next regular general election. 

 

SB 216 – Repeals the above requirement by legislation alone.

 

SB 635 – Directs OSU to conduct a feasibility study on nuclear energy generation in Oregon—advantages and disadvantages, maximizing jobs for Oregonians, technical issues.


The meeting began with invited testimony from ODOE's Max Woods, mainly on nuclear safety and storage methods; an upbeat sales pitch by Kati Augsten, Nuclear Energy Institute, for nuclear plants in general and small nuclear reactors in particular; and a more sober assessment by Chris Hansen, Institute for Western Energy, who despite being a self-proclaimed nuclear enthusiast, poured some cold water on the previous presentation. According to Hansen, we are not seeing cost reductions in the marketplace for nuclear as we've seen for renewables. Unless we can lower the cost by more than a third, "nuclear power will have only a marginal role in the U.S. energy portfolio going forward." Clean options such as geothermal and hydro provide stiff competition for new nuclear units in the West. Grid enhancing technologies and grid expansions are likely to be more cost-effective in the near- to mid-term. 


Brock Smith and Rep. Diehl spoke for the bills, saying Oregonians need to have another vote on this (SB 215) as a lot has changed in the past 45 years. According to them, without nuclear, we won't have the baseload capacity to achieve all the electrification we need in order to decarbonize. Brock Smith said amendments are coming, some conforming and others to authorize our agencies to start looking at regulatory changes.


Sen. Frederick spoke in opposition, saying he is skeptical of glorifying and overhyping nuclear power, as we were told 50 years ago that the waste issue would be solved by now. He noted that the outlook from Washington (DC) is unsettling, as the Project 2025 team has decided we can live with a larger amount of radiation, and they have fired some federal employees with nuclear expertise.


Testimony followed from Sierra Club, Columbia Riverkeeper and some pro-nuclear advocates with predictable claims and counterclaims. Chair Sollman carried over the hearings until next Monday 3/10 so more people can testify



House CE&E reported out the following bills with do-pass recommendations CE&E reported out the following bills with do-pass recendations:

HB 2567-1 would adjust the rules and reporting requirements of the Heat Pump Deployment Program. ODOE could establish an allowable percentage by rule for administrative expenses and marketing costs for eligible entities, removing the existing statutory cap of 15%. The -1 amendment would allow ODOE to provide an additional incentive of up to $1,000 for contractors to install residential heat pumps in rural and frontier communities. The bill would replace the phrase “environmental justice community” with the phrase “disadvantaged community” throughout the statute, defined as “a community that has a socioeconomic burden and an environmental, climate or other burden.” It would extend the program’s sunset date from 2026 to 2032. The bill has minimal fiscal impact as it provides no additional funding for the program. 

 

Moved as amended to the House floor, rescinding subsequent referral to Joint W&M.


HB 3170 would modify the grant requirements for Resilience Hubs and Resilience Networks and appropriate an additional $10.2M from the General Fund and $227K from federal funds to DHS for the grant program in 2025-27. It would clarify that the purpose of the grants is to pay for equipment, technical assistance, contracted services, and any other type of support needed to create or sustain a Resilience Hub or Network. DHS received more than 700 applications with $176M in grant requests during the first award cycle, and expects similar interest in the coming biennium. 


Referred to Joint W&M by prior reference.


The committee also heard testimony on HB 3081 (One-Stop Shop 2.0), which would require ODOE to create a statewide clearinghouse for household energy efficiency incentive programs. It would create an active navigator to provide Oregonians with easier access to the hundreds of different incentives and cash rebates available for upgrades like heat pumps, weatherization, and sturdier doors and windows. HB 3081 would build on the One Stop Shop 1.0 search tool by offering live phone support to help Oregonians navigate their options and connect with trusted contractors. It would also require the information and assistance to be provided in the five most prevalent non-English languages spoken in Oregon. 


Oral testimony in support came from Climate Solutions, OLCV, Earth Advantage, Home Performance Guild of Oregon, and others. OMEU and ORECA posted written testimony in opposition, noting that consumer-owned utilities and coops already provide expert advice to their customers on BPA-funded and utility-specific rebates, and already invest heavily in developing their own rebate websites and marketing strategies, making HB 3081 a duplicative effort.


Senate E&E 3/3 and 3/6 Hearings on SB88


Senate E&E heard testimony on SB 88 on 3/3 and 3/6.  The bill would prohibit an electric or gas company from recovering from ratepayers’ expenses associated with advertising, political influence activity, litigation, penalties or fines and certain compensation. PUC would have to limit by rule the amount that a utility could recover from ratepayers to defend such expenses in a contested rate case. Each utility would have to file an annual report with PUC identifying such expenses. PUC would have to establish a fine for noncompliance and could order a utility to refund any amounts recovered for violating the act.


Chair Sollman opened by saying this bill won’t save ratepayers a lot of money – it’s first and foremost about transparency – what business expenses should be considered the responsibility of utility customers. CUB, Climate Solutions, Rogue Climate, OSSIA and other organizations testified in support, as did LWVOR in written testimony. They said utilities have the upper hand in rate proceedings and SB 88 is a step toward balancing the scales. Customers should pay for infrastructure improvements and investments in reliability, but not for the utilities’ public image building, lobbying, executive bonuses, etc. Utilities shouldn’t be allowed to "throw items at the wall to see if they’ll stick." The bill would authorize penalties, beyond standard disallowances, for utilities who try to get away with that. Other states have adopted similar legislation.


Cascade Natural Gas, NW Natural, and NW Gas Association opposed the bill, saying utilities already have to justify all their costs before the PUC and they ultimately have the burden of proof. NW Natural denied that it seeks to recover expenses for lobbying, public relations, etc. The current PUC process is transparent and fair. Reporting requirements in the bill are onerous and could wind up costing customers more. Legislative Council has suggested that the bill could violate the 1st, 5th, and 14th amendments with regard to free speech and equal protection. PGE and PacifiCorp offered no testimony.


Following the hearing, PUC furnished a helpful table showing their interpretation of what SB 88 would change with regard to recoverable utility expenses.


Transportation Priorities


Transportation package that prioritizes climate, equity, and wildlife


According to OCN Press Release,   “This package would build on the historic gains of HB 2017 (which included investments in public transit, safe routes to School, and vehicle electrification), to shift the focus to multimodal, safety, and climate-forward investments. This promises to create a system that saves money over time and builds a more resilient, equitable, and healthy future for all Oregonians.”


Fracking


The League continues to be concerned about Fracking issues. The fracking moratorium in Oregon,  expired on January 2, 2025. [1, 2] 

Here's a more detailed explanation: [1, 2, 3] 


  • Moratorium End Date: The temporary ban on fracking for oil and gas production and exploration in Oregon, established by House Bill 2623, was set to end on January 2, 2025. [1, 2, 3] 

  • Governor's Signature: Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed the   legislation on June 17, 2019. [1] 

  • Legislative Action: The Oregon Senate passed the bill on May 29, 2019, with a 17-11 vote. [3, 4] 

  • Exemptions: The bill included exemptions for natural gas storage wells, geothermal activities, and existing coalbed methane extraction wells. [3] 

  • Current Status: The moratorium has expired, and fracking is no longer prohibited in Oregon. [1, 2] 


[1]https://aglaw.psu.edu/shale-law-in-the-spotlight/oregon-and-washington-enact-hydraulic-fracturing-bans/


[2]https://climate-xchange.org/2024/08/policy-explainer-drilling-down-on-state-efforts-to-ban-fracking/


[3]https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/senatedemocrats/Documents/HB2623Fracking.pdf


[4]https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2019/05/29/oregon-senate-passes-5-year-fracking-moratorium/1271400001/


CE Budget Concerns 


In order to stay on track, the Legislature  must prioritize investments for vital climate and community protection programs. Without additional appropriations this session, the following existing successful programs may run out of funding: 


  • Community Renewable Energy Grant Program (ODOE)

  • Rental Home Heat Pump Program (ODOE)

  • Community Heat Pump Program (ODOE)

  • Oregon Clean Vehicle Rebate Program/Charge Ahead (DEQ)

  • Medium and Heavy-Duty Vehicles Rebates + Infrastructure Grants (DEQ)

  • Community Resilience Hubs and Networks (ODHS)

  • Climate Change Worker Relief Fund (DAS)

  • Oregon Solar + Storage Rebate Program (ODOE)

  • Natural & Working Lands Fund (OWEB) (excerpt from OCEN network  message)


Interested in reading additional reports? Please see our Governance, Natural Resources, and Social Policy report sections.


bottom of page