A bill that could help low-income Oregonians pay their energy utility bills has cleared the House — again.
House Bill 2475 would give regulators the ability to set lower electricity and natural gas rates or give bill credits to "energy burdened" low-income households.
Similar legislation breezed through the House last year but didn't get a Senate vote as a Republican walkout waylaid the session.
As it stands, the Public Utility Commission is required to treat all customers the same as it establishes rates for investor-owned utilities such as Portland General Electric, Pacific Power and NW Natural.
Thousands of low-income Oregon households face energy bills greater than 6% of their income, widely considered the cut-off for a reasonable energy burden, advocates say.
Under HB 2475, the PUC could also establish weatherization or demand response programs to address the issue.
A second aspect of the bill opens up low-income and environmental-justice advocacy groups for “intervenor funds” from the PUC. These are grants for nonprofits that represent broad groups or classes of customers.
Some Republicans pushed for a version of the bill that would have backed groups representing low-income residential customers and small commercial customers, dropping those that represent the interest of residential customers that are members of environmental justice communities from the bill
The House vote was 36-20, with two Republicans — Greg Smith
of Heppner and Ron Noble of McMinnville — joining all the voting Democrats as
“ayes.” Last year, seven Republicans supported the similar bill as it passed
43-11.
