Legislature Approves Bill that Confirms Oregon is Weaning Itself from Coal Power

The Oregon House passed a bill that confirms a 2009 policy reducing the amount of coal in Oregon’s power supply.  SB 242 was approved by a vote of 44-15.

“We are gratified that legislators reaffirmed Oregon’s emissions performance standard,” said CUB Executive Director Bob Jenks.  “The policy assures ratepayers that their utilities will gradually be using less dirty coal and the utilities have greater clarity about how to make that transition.”

The legislature adopted an emissions performance standard in 2009 to inform utilities about what new electric generation resources they can and cannot use to serve future demand for electricity.  The original bill was intended to apply to power generated both in-state and out-of-state.  However, since the standard was adopted, it became clear that it was difficult to apply it as intended to out-of-state resources.

SB 242 does several things:

• It restates the language applying the standard to out-of-state power;

• It confirms the emissions level of 1100 pounds, which is the emissions level of a modern natural gas plant;

• It allows utilities to convert existing coal plants to natural gas plants; and

• It reforms the Public Utility Commission review process to assess if future federal emissions policies negate the need for the state policy.

“We had a problem with implementing the original bill,” noted Jenks. “But customer groups and other stakeholders were able to work with the utilities to fix the original standard and make improvements.  It’s great that what was a consensus policy in 2009 is still a consensus in 2013.” SB 242 has already been approved by the Oregon Senate and is on its way to the Governor who is expected to sign the bill.

The Citizens’ Utility Board of Oregon is a nonprofit organization founded in 1984 by Oregon voters.  CUB’s mission is to represent the interests of Oregon’s residential utility customers before administrative, judicial and legislative bodies, such as the Oregon Public Utility Commission and the Oregon Legislature.