After a months-long review of NW Natural’s forward looking resource plan, commissioners from Oregon’s Public Utility Commission (PUC) sided with the Sierra Club and our partners and rejected the proposed long-term plan and expressed frustration in their short-term projects. Required to detail their Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) every two years, this process sheds light on how the company is preparing for the future. The company outlines forecasted energy demand, system analysis, and strategies for how it will meet the new regulations. This year is a first for them to demonstrate how they will comply with the new pressure from the state’s Climate Protection Program, requiring utilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2050.
This decision was a partial victory for advocates of climate and consumer protections. NW Natural’s initial proposal envisioned massive spending on hydrogen and biogas in the coming decades, a vision that advocates said was unrealistic. These fuels are less affordable and less effective than electric alternatives at cutting pollution from homes and buildings, which the PUC agreed with. Also rejected was the company’s plan to procure expensive, out-of-state Renewable Natural Gas instead of local Community Climate Investment credits. The disappointing short-term acknowledgments included investments in infrastructure along the Willamette river, where the site possesses risk of liquefaction due to earthquakes from the Cascadia Subduction zone.
(Note: Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) is misleading terminology and a false climate solution used by the utility to designate methane that comes from sources other than fossil fuels (i.e. landfills). No matter the source, methane is a potent polluter with a warming potential 86 times as carbon dioxide)
Demonstrated in the recent planning process is a pattern of NW Natural’s incapability in achieving the emissions reductions that are demanded by the crisis. This non-acknowledgment comes a year after the commission aligned with testimony from the Sierra Club and other advocates, ordering the utility to reduce its use of customer money it spends on new customer connections. A win in removing subsidies was a forward step in reversing gas system expansion.
The commission will give the largest gas utility monopoly in the state another year to rework their plan. The company will continue to sell fossil fuels and turn a profit for shareholders, while record setting temperatures are sustained across the globe. This has been time lost to false solutions, when it could have instead been reimagining their business model (such as utilizing their infrastructure for district heating projects - a move that brings in jobs, improves housing conditions, and is an effective decarbonizing method).
NW Natural sees the writing on the wall, they are fighting desperately to delay inevitable regulation. The utility has already spent millions in public relations campaigns to further entrench their own interests over the public health and common good. Recently, NW Natural was caught spending $1 million to a front group (Eugene Residents for Energy Choice)m to repeal an electrification ordinance. Earlier this year, NW Natural landed on the front-page of the New York Times after having been discovered paying for testimony that down-played the health impacts of burning gas indoors.
In an imperative for the rapid decommissioning of the gas system in order to protect ratepayers and mitigate the worst impacts of the climate crisis, making PUC advocacy and urgent work by state officials unequivocally critical. However, there are more proactive steps that can be taken today to set up an equitable and prosperous energy transition in years to come. Private utilities have shown their inadequacy through this process, all well extracting wealth from the community. Thankfully, imagining how we might make a just transition is not a challenge. Public control over utilities has happened all over the country - and over 2,000 communities have garnered control. While the struggle for public control will be an uphill battle, seizing Taking control generates public wealth while generating power. This is no panacea, but allows for more democratic accountability to ensure we can protect the environment too. An energy transition is upon us, whether it will be just is our work to do.
How can you contribute?
- At the Sierra Club, we work to hold these companies accountable and advocate for a just transition and energy democracy. Our local chapter depends on the efforts and support from volunteers, consider joining us.
- Support building electrification campaigns in cities and municipalities across the state and ask your local elected officials to require that new construction is all electric.
- You too can comment at a Public Utility Commission meeting! You can find out more and learn about how to make a public comment. Cascade’s IRP filling is coming up.
John is a volunteer with the Oregon chapter and a passionate mechanical engineer. “I am motivated by technologies that will help us decarbonize and create massive public wealth in the process.”
At the Sierra Club, there are volunteers, lawyers, and activists working for a just transition. Jim Dennison and Rose Monahan, staff lawyers with the club’s Environmental Law Program, collaborated with a coalition of climate advocates to track this IRP process and seek to hold the private utility accountable against their own private interests. The team of advocates included the Green Energy Institute At Lewis & Clark Law School, Climate Solutions, Columbia Riverkeeper, Community Energy Project, Electrify Now, Metro Climate Action Team, Natural Resources Defense Council. You can read the opening comments here.