Energy & Telecommunications

Senate and House Energy & Telecommunications Committees Update

During the final committee assembly of the year, members of the House Technology, Energy & Communications Committee outlined their goals for the coming legislative session.

Representative Jeff Morris, Chair of the Committee, described the bills he intends to bring forward:

• High voltage transmission authority to EFSEC (see article below)
• Integrated Resource Plans for electric utilities
• Renewable portfolio standards for state agencies
• Net metering law changes
• Interconnection standards for electric utilities (see article below)
• System benefit charges on utility ratepayers
• Exemptions for critical infrastructure from public disclosure (see article on Pipeline Safety)
• Package of proposals on biofuels
• All bills from last session that are still in play

Representative Haler listed a few bills and joint memorials relating to the nuclear reactor in the Tri Cities and hydrogen cars.

Representative Nixon wants to pursue bills relating to computer crime, junk faxes, operation of the legislature in a disaster, and changes to Initiative 297.

Representative Kilmer will be preparing a package of bills on biofuels and will look into improving telecommunications infrastructure in rural areas.

It looks as though this committee will be very busy in this short 60 day session, and their primary focus will be on energy issues. For further details, contact Victoria Lincoln at victorial@awcnet.org or Sheri Sawyer at sheris@awcnet.org.

Interconnection Standards

A group of public power and investor-owned utilities attended the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (WUTC) work session on interconnection standards last week to present draft standards that the combined public/private utilities developed over this past summer and fall. There was a presentation to the Commission by the drafting utilities and a discussion about some of the details. A few members of the public and a few members of the solar community also attended and provided comments. The result appears that most interest groups are satisfied with the draft standards so far and are anxious for the rules to be adopted so the rebates in SB 5101 can be released.

Next steps: It is up to the WUTC to finish taking public comments on the draft (by December 12), and publish a draft with any changes they recommend. At that time, municipal electric utilities should take a close look and consider adopting the standards. Once a critical mass of utilities has adopted the standards, then SB 5101 can take effect.

Representative Jeff Morris attended the work session and told the participants that he was amenable to a phased approach to creating and adopting standards, but that he expects the utilities to diligently work until all standards were written and adopted. The utility group will begin developing standards for generation projects of between 25kW and 300kW right away, and will tackle the third phase of generation projects of between 300kW and 1MW at a later date.  As the size of the projects gets bigger, the standards will become more difficult to develop, so cities should anticipate that the work group will continue through 2006. City representatives participating in the work sessions include Seattle, Tacoma and Port Angeles. Other cities are welcome to participate. Please contact Victoria Lincoln at victorial@awcnet.org for further information.

Transmission Siting

Over the past several months, staff from the Governor’s Office, CTED’s Energy Policy Office, EFSEC, and others have been discussing the impact of the new federal Energy Bill on this state’s transmission siting process. It is the opinion of these energy policy specialists that Washington State is vulnerable to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) preemption if Washington State does not designate a state entity to oversee transmission siting. AWC has, for the past two years, opposed state oversight of high voltage transmission siting. Now, we have been told that the governor is supportive of state agency oversight (through EFSEC) as it is the only way to prevent a broader FERC preemption. Representative Morris intends to bring forth his bill again for the third year and the above listed policy specialists will all support the proposal.

City and AWC staff are reviewing existing state land use policies with the intent to provide comments to the energy policy specialists about how local land use policies and statewide oversight might coexist. AWC continues to oppose preemption.

Pipeline Safety

The Governor’s Citizen Committee on Pipeline Safety met last week to discuss a legislative proposal by the Northwest Gas Association (NWGA) to exempt pipeline GIS data from public release. NWGA has made clear that the intent is to continue to provide GIS information to the WUTC Pipeline Office so that information could be available to local governments, first responders and emergency preparedness personnel, but not to members of the general public. NWGA is asking for comments from cities about this proposal. Please contact Victoria Lincoln at victorial@awcnet.org or Sheri Sawyer at sheris@awcnet.org for an electronic copy of the draft bill and to provide comments about this proposal.

 
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