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A perfect example of what is wrong with the energy picture on Oregon

The Energy Trust Of Oregon has a great thing going for it. Whenever rates are raised for electricity, the trust is guranteed an ever increasing percentage of the new rate increase. Oregonians who are unfortunate to have their power supplied by Pacific Power(we are a victim of PP) has had the misfortune to have had our rates raised 4 times in the last two years. It is a despicable thing that the legislators did to the citizens of Oregon when they created the Energy Trust. Here is what the Energy Trust does with the funds it collects: The Energy Trust, which uses the electricity tax revenue to fund energy conservation programs and subsidize renewable energy projects around Oregon and the Northwest. Pacific Power just hit us with another rate increase of almost 15%! PP is rationalizing this increase due to increased costs and for providing new infrastructure and providing future supplies of green energy. So the stinking environmentalists and econazis are partly to blame for this fiasco as they set the table for Oregonians for years to come. They ruined the timber industry, the fishing industry, ranching and farming has taken a hit and Oregon's economy is still in a tailspin. Now we get a double digit rate increase on top of spiking gasoline prices.


Before I forget, in this next post check out what the Bulletin exposes about the fees(taxes) we pay to remove some days that we never had a say in whether we wanted them removed. Makes me furious and almost rabid with rage.





Your pain is the Energy Trust’s gain
Bend Bulletin
Published: January 26. 2011 4:00AM PST

Pacific Power customers scrambling to work this year’s double-digit rate increase into their electricity budgets should be sure to set aside a little extra for the tax man, better known as the Energy Trust of Oregon. Their pain is the Energy Trust’s gain.


Most people know the Energy Trust as the government-created nonprofit that conducts free home-energy audits. Of course, nothing the Energy Trust does is really free. But many of the people footing the bill know little about the trust or, we suspect, its claim on their hard-earned money. So here’s a little history.


Back in 1999, the Legislature told the state’s two big utilities (Portland General Electric and PacifiCorp, which operates in Oregon as Pacific Power) to apply a 3 percent charge to all retail electricity sales. This charge is merely a tax by another name, and the money it generates is used for a variety of purposes. Some goes to education service districts to make schools more energy-efficient. Some pays to weatherize low-income housing. But most, almost 75 percent, of the so-called “public purpose charge” goes to the Energy Trust, which uses the electricity tax revenue to fund energy conservation programs and subsidize renewable energy projects.


The tax revenue that flows through the Energy Trust’s hands is significant. During the 18-month period from January 2009 through June 2010, the trust’s portion of the electricity tax amounted to nearly $86 million, or roughly $57 million per year. Among the projects subsidized with that money, according to a December 2010 Energy Trust report, are numerous wind generation facilities, solar installations and, last but not least, a project that collects methane percolating through the Douglas County landfill.


The trust’s funding mechanism ensures that Oregonians will continue to pay for more of the same — lots more. When you receive a fixed percentage of an ever-rising number, as the trust and its electricity-tax partners do, you collect more and more money whether you need it or not. Thus, while Pacific Power had to make a case to the Public Utility Commission for the rate increases that kicked in last month, the Energy Trust automatically capitalizes on Pacific Power’s work. You know, kind of like a parasite.


PUC spokesman Bob Valdez acknowledges that “as retail bills go up, the share that goes to the Energy Trust for energy conservation ... goes up as well.” But he says the “Legislature did that so it would keep track with inflation and also accommodate a growing number of customers and ... be there for any emerging technology that might come up.”


Maybe so. But it’s hard to believe lawmakers back in 1999 supported the weirdness at work today. One of the justifications for Pacific Power’s recent hikes is the cost of “green” power, which Oregon’s renewable portfolio standards require utilities to provide. Thus is the high cost of Oregon’s renewable energy mandate forcing Oregonians to pay more money to a nonprofit that subsidizes ... renewable energy.


But it gets crazier still. Last September, the PUC allowed Pacific Power to apply a 1.7 percent surcharge to electricity bills in order to pay for the removal of several dams. The electricity tax applies to that portion of Oregonians’ electricity bills, too, says the PUC’s Valdez. Thus, must Oregonians pay the Trust more simply because they have to cough up money to help fish. One environmental tax begets another.


Fortunately, the burden imposed by Oregon’s electricity tax can also be a great opportunity. It all depends on the willingness of lawmakers to help taxpayers despite the certain objections of environmentalists and organizations that feed on electricity tax revenue. Lawmakers who do respect taxpayers should ask, first, whether the Energy Trust has become obsolete. It seems to us that the proliferation of subsidies and mandates supporting efficiency and renewable energy are quickly making it so.


Moreover, the trust’s funding mechanism forces Oregonians to pay an environmental tax on other environmental taxes. They must pay twice, for instance, for the state’s renewable portfolio standard. They pay once in the form of higher electricity costs and once again in the form of increased electricity-tax contributions.


Well, here’s an opportunity for lawmakers to prove that they can cut expensive programs that have outlived their usefulness. Better yet, by doing so they can pat themselves on the back — with justification — for doing something to moderate electricity costs that their own policies are driving skyward.

Original article is here.

4 Comments - Share Yours!:

HermitLion said...

This self-feeding tax loop is mind boggling.

I'm sure all the people who get a nice pay-check from the 'non-profit' organization don't mind having more funds to squander. In other words - who is checking up on them?

Either way, wrecking dams and increasing the electricity bill during times of economical distress is unnecessary, deliberate cruelty towards struggling citizens - the same ones the environmental organizations' tax-money comes from.

Anonymous said...

So let me get this straight. This company that was already utilizing 3%, and figured that out by doing a study on it's budget, and only separated the 3% public purpose charge after that study, is just wasting all of that money. Even though they have saved their customers $600 million in energy costs. It's not like we're dependent on importing fuel sources. Oh wait, yes we are. It's not like these projects, that might not have been able to move forward without their help, are creating local jobs for contractors. Oh wait, yes they are. It's not like they are overseen by the Public Utilities Commission, and would be put to bed if they were ACTUALLY ripping people off. Oh wait, yes they are and yes they would. Really though? They are investing in a safe and reliable future for our energy? The nerve.... You are an idiot! Here is a link
(http://energytrust.org/about/who-we-are/), I encourage you to get some REAL information on a company before you go on a bashing spree, and maybe hear all sides. Go to one of their meetings or seminars, go talk to the contractors and consumers that they help on a daily basis and try and convince them how crooked ETO is. I guarantee you that you wont get a warm response. Yes, customers are charged a public purpose charge, that goes right back to the public: consumers, schools, municipalities, and the list goes on. You are the one that is actually a parasite and need to get a life!

PatriotUSA said...

Coward, 'anonymous' ya, well do YOU
live in Oregon? Have you seen my power bills go through the roof, my frinds, my neighbors bills?

I am all for reliable, renewable
energy but not this way, at the
expense of average person who
CANNOT afford it, to pay all these
hidden TAXES, called FEES tacked
onto our power bills that we have NO SAY in approving or not approving them? Don't lecture me
about the ETO or anyone else till
you have seen the damage and poverty that these fees and bills
contribute to. EVERYDAY, moron I
work with the jobless trying to
help these people find work in a region that has an average unemployment rate of almost 18%.
Everyday I assist people who have lost everything and then some asswipe, foreign owned power company jacks their bill up 15%.
You want to come show all these out of work, sometimes homeless
people where all the jobs are here.
Jobs from local contractors? That is a joke in this region and state.
I help alot of these contactors who now have no work and they cannot pay their power bill.
They have no work either.

Right now you know who buys into the solar power programs here? The
rich do. They are the ones who can afford to drop $20,000 to $35,000 on a complete solar system offered by Pacific Power. How does PP fund this program? By fees and hidden taxes piad by the average joe, me and many others. That is what happened here last summer. So the
rich can buy into a program, built on the back of those who can afford it the least and then the rich can sell back the extra energy produced to PP. You call that fair? Crappy, inferior solar
garbage, made in China for the most
part because it is cheaper. Better
quality is available from Europe but more expemsive. Never mind they have better warranties and are vastly superior in quality and workmanship.

I would rather see this country
use all of the sources we have domestically. COAL(like that?), natural gas, OIL, Biomass power plants, hydroelectric, solar and NUCLEAR until we can get the majority of our energy from renewable resources. You sir or madam, or it, are a complete ass.

I KNOW and am friends with some of the contractors still left in our region. Most have left to others states where there is work. To refresh you tree hugging little brain, I work with the 'consumers'
and homeowners(the ones who are still hanging on to their homes if they have not lost them already)and even with the tax breaks, incentives offered through the ETO,
state and fedreal gov't, they still are UNABLE to afford these renewable energy sources you are so sold on.

I would love to have solar panels on our home. It is a perfect set up but even with all those incentives I would have to cough up around $22,000. Are you going
to pay that for me, my friends?
Didn't think so.

I have been to numerous seminars and some meeting run by the ETO and the local power company robber
barons. Not impressed as they are
peddling the same crap that obama
tried to force upon us with cap and trade garbage.I have gotten
an energy 'audit' from the ETO.

The NERVE of these power companies to jack up our rates for the third
time in less than two years in such a wretched economy.
It is the same as raising our taxes.

I have friends who work in the solar industry here and in California. They are NOT impressed with ETO programs nor the quality
of the materials ETO contarctors use. They are the ones fighting the chinese flood of inferior parts and trying to help get the European products sold and used here.

I posted your vile comments so all
could see how nasty you are and you accuse me of being an idiot
and having nerve? I have kept my comments rather reserved and proper. More than I can say for yours. You are a perfect example of why I usually do not publish comments left by anonymous, libtarded cowards.

Don't look for more of your comments to be posted even if
they are civil in disagreement.

HermitLion said...

You gotta love someone who says "hear all sides", after calling the other side an idiot in the previous sentence.

And taking any company's marketing declaration as reliable information, rather than checking the actual facts in the outside world, makes one (care to guess?) a real idiot.
These are the same people who would cry out, "but Stalin only wanted what's good for the people! He said so himself!"

Patriot,
The problem with this shadow company is that it was shoved on the population without them having a say, and instead of being abolished during hard times, it is instead getting more money, despite not showing any beneficial results.
Shouldn't this information be spread around, to try and create some public outcry?