Article by Erik Smith. Published on Friday, February 05, 2010 EST.

Passes Bill That Can be Changed Later – Billions of Dollars in Power Bills at Stake in Initiative 937 Rewrite

By Erik Smith

Staff writer/ Washington State Wire

OLYMPIA, Feb. 5—There’s no agreement in sight on one of the biggest energy disputes that has hit the state in years – but that didn’t stop a Senate panel Friday from passing a bill that keeps the issue alive in the 2010 Legislature.

            At issue is Initiative 937, the renewable-energy ballot measure passed by Washington voters in 2006. The initiative requires utilities to purchase a steadily-increasing percentage of wind, solar and other non-polluting forms of alternative energy.

            Utility and business interests maintain that the initiative is all but unworkable, and will dramatically increase electricity costs while doing nothing to reduce pollution. The environmental lobby says that if the initiative is reworked, utilities ought to be required to purchase even more alternative power. There the utilities draw the line. Efforts to forge a compromise brought the Legislature to a standstill last year, and lawmakers say they hope the players will come to an agreement this time around. So far there’s nothing to show. Talks will continue next week.

            On Friday the Senate Environment, Water and Energy passed a bill to serve as a placeholder while the negotiations continue. Senate committees faced a Friday deadline to pass legislation and advance it to the floor.

            Committee Chairman Phil Rockefeller, D-Bainbridge Island, said that Senate Bill 6672 does not represent a final agreement. But if things come together during the back-room talks, the bill could be amended on the Senate floor and advanced toward final passage. Legislative rules give the Senate until Feb. 16.

            “They’ve been struggling for months,” he said. “They agreed to talk but there’s not yet an agreement. We wanted to keep it alive.”

The bill as it stands right now includes some of the modifications utility and business interests would like to see, but it also includes the stepped-up purchasing requirements they violently oppose.

            An identical bill died in the House energy committee when another bill-passage deadline fell in that chamber earlier this week.

            No Deal Means Bills Will Skyrocket

            Though the issue is seen in Olympia as a battle between interest groups, it affects every business and residential customer in the state of Washington that pays an electric bill. Without changes utilities will be forced to buy additional power they don’t need. That means higher bills. Exact amount of the increase depends on the utility, but one of them – Clark Public Utilities – says the initiative by itself would cause bills to increase 20 percent by the year 2020.

            Meanwhile, pollution impact will be slight or none because Washington already obtains 70 percent of its power from non-polluting hydroelectric dams. One quirk of the initiative, which mirrors similar laws in 30-odd other states, is that the Washington rules do not count hyrdropower toward the renewable-energy quota, nor do they allow utilities to count their energy-conservation efforts toward the purchase requirements.

            “It’s an enormously complicated issue – it’s twisted and turned all session long,” said Erik Poulsen, government relations director for the Washington P.U.D. Association. “We are wrestling with the question of whether the benefits in the bill are worth the price of a bump in the standards.”

            Kristin Sawin, lobbyist for Weyerhaeuser and one of the participants in the talks, said there has been no progress in the last week but there remains potential for compromise. Issues include the way conservation efforts will be counted toward the renewable-energy quotas, she said.

             Party-Line Vote

            The bill passed the Senate energy committee on a 7-3 party-line vote. Republicans proposed an amendment stripping the increase in renewable-energy standards from the bill, but Democrats shot them down.

            “This is a work in progress and it is absolutely essential that the committee send a strong message to support this process moving forward,” said Sen. Chris Marr, D-Spokane.

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