Tillamook County Conservatives:

      This legislation (HB 4036A) takes away the Public Utility Commission’s ability to regulate private utilities.  The PUC was designed to make sure energy monopolies don’t overcharge the rate-payers (us).  They are the only defense we have against utilities that are driven by profit & overcharging the public.  There’s nothing wrong about a business making a profit but gouging the public isn’t fair when competition doesn’t exist.  By law, the utilities are allowed to make a 10% profit after normal costs are accounted for.  The PUD determines what the “normal costs” are and allows an increase or decrease in rates as appropriate.  This bill takes the PUC out of the equation & basically dismisses about 6 recent rulings against the private utilities.  This is a very bad bill.  I urge you to get on the phone to you’re your Senator (Betsy Johnson north county & Arney Roblan south county) and let them know your opinion.  An E-mail will also work but the spoken word does carry more conviction.  As always, be polite.

     Yours In Liberty,

   Thomas M. Donohue

     TCRCC Chairman

the prudent cost standard and removes approval of PUC allowing the pass-through of costs to their ratepayers plus their allowable profit margin.

The bill would force consumer owned utilities, like public utility districts and municipal utility districts, to pay enormous new costs in the event that they took a single ratepayer from a utility holding rate payers hostage and dooming utility districts.

FREE MARKET: Investment-owned Utilities propose this bill to counter Initiative Petition 63.

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY: Bill reverses the energy production tax credit, the most common is the federal credit of two cents per kilowatt hour. The bill allows utilities to shift the cost to ratepayers.Utilities are a monopoly with our protection from PUC. This bill removes our protection and gives free reign to the monopolies making it expensive for customers.

LIMITED GOVERNMENT: PUC indicates it eliminates their ability to maintain control of a reliability power grid that is unstable from intermittent wind and solar resources.

Fails to reduce overall greenhouse gas emission even though it serves to help meet goals. Facts show that complete depopulation of Oregon would not result in a measurable change in global greenhouse gas emissions.

The coal-fired plant in Boardman, Oregon, is already scheduled to close.

The bill also negates other decisions that PUC made through extensive public processes. This bill takes away the public’s voice.
 Read what others have said
Click on title!
State utility regulators were silenced by governor on big energy
Oregonian
Oregon electricity ratepayers about to be ripped off with so-called “clean energy” bill Cascade Policy Institute,

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