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Energy Gets Play in Washington and Idaho
T
he debate in Olympia
this session focuses primarily on the budget deficit and transportation issues. But despite announcements that the energy crisis is over Washington
lawmakers are considering a variety of energy bills during this year's short legislative session. And for the first time in many years, Democrats
in the House
and the Senate
hold the majority, though by the narrowist of margins.
The 19-member House Technology, Telecommunications and Energy Committee
is deliberating on the fate of several bills. Proposals include establishing a one-size-fits-all power cost adjustment for investor-owned electric utilities. House Bill (HB) 2443
would require participating utilities to pass on to their customers wholesale power market price changes if they are greater or less than 15 percent of predicted prices. Committee members passed a bill (HB 2845
) that would require a performance audit of the Utilities and Transportation Commission
(UTC). For the second session running, the committee heard a proposal to gut the Energy Financing Voter Approval Act
of 1981 (a.k.a. Don't Bankrupt Washington), which requires public entities to secure voter approval before issuing bonds to finance new large power plants (HB 1221
). The committee passed a substitute bill that included language to help protect ratepayers. The newly appointed committee chair, democrat Jeff Morris
, introduced legislation to revise how the state develops its energy strategy and who sits on the development team (HB 2637
). The committee passed a substitute bill to Appropriations.
Senate Environment, Energy and Water Committee
members passed legislation that would increase the flexibility for public utility districts (PUDs) to offer low-income energy services (SB 6416
). The Committee is considering amending a law passed in 1999 that granted authority to investor-owned utilities to offer reduced rates to low-income customers. The current bill would allow the State Attorney General
, who represents Washington citizens in utility matters before the UTC, to request low-income energy assistance programs (SB 6355
). The code currently allows only utilities to make such requests. The committee also considered establishing a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target and efficiency/renewables standard for state government (SB 6718
).
The Legislature is considering a package of other bills designed to track and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, some of them focused on electricity generation (HB 2326
, HB 2327
, SB 6450
, SB 6619
). The Washington legislative session officially ends March 14.
Energy-related bills are generating discussion in the Idaho Legislature
as well. S1300
, referred to the Senate State Affairs Committee
, would create a Public Utility Consumer’s Advocate
in the Office of the Attorney General.
The advocate would represent the public interest in proceedings before the Idaho Public Utilities Commission
(PUC) for customers of state-regulated utilities, except railroads and cooperatives. This position would be similar to the Public Counsel
section of the Attorney General’s Office in Washington and the non-profit Citizens' Utility Board of Oregon
.
In Idaho
, clean energy advocates developed legislation to provide consistent application of net metering (S 1368), similar to statutes previously adopted in Washington, Oregon and Montana. The Senate State Affairs Committee
referred the bill to the Interim Electric Utility Restructuring Committee
. Net metering permits electricity customers to offset the cost and consumption of utility-provided electricity with electricity generated by their own small-scale generation systems. Idaho Power recently proposed a net metering tariff to the PUC, and several small cooperatives and PUDs have adopted net metering programs. No consistent statewide standard currently exists.
Republican Senator Hal Bunderson
also is pushing for a renewable portfolio standard, which would require utilities to meet 20 percent of their customers’ demand with non-hydro renewable resources by a date to be determined.
— Danielle Dixon