By Jake Goldstein-Street | Reporter
Frustrated Puget Sound Energy customers filled the room at the Utilities and Transportation Commission on Tuesday to push back as the utility asks regulators to approve an increase in electricity rates by 29.3% and gas rates by 19.8% over the next three years. One ratepayer in Thurston County told the commission she’s already paying around $600 per month on energy during the winter months.
Also in today’s edition…
• Healthcare company has to pay for withheld discounts for low-income patients.
• Oregon lawmakers reconsider cap and invest.
• And, PacifiCorp proposes selling its Washington service area.
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The entrance to the UTC’s offices. (Photo by Bill Lucia/Washington State Standard)
By Aspen Ford
PSE is also asking to increase its allowed return on equity, or profit that shareholders earn on their investment, from 9.9% to 10.8%. The utility says it’s getting more and more expensive to provide electricity, noting its power supply costs have tripled since 2019, when Washington passed the Clean Energy Transformation Act, a law that mandates utilities make all electricity sales greenhouse gas neutral.
“We recognize that higher bills are difficult for our customers and that more rate increases are not what anyone wants to hear,” reads a Puget Sound Energy statement. “At the same time, the cost of providing safe and reliable energy has increased significantly.”
By Jake Goldstein-Street
Between 2020 and 2026, Puget Sound Physicians, a company of physicians providing emergency care at Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue, failed to refund nearly $347,000 to more than 1,400 patients who qualified for charity care. The company reached a resolution with Attorney General Nick Brown’s office, which has pushed several hospitals in recent years to ensure low-income patients get the discounts they deserve under state law.
By Alex Baumhardt
A 2019 effort to pass a carbon cap-and-invest program in the Oregon Legislature ended in disaster, when state Senate Republicans walked out of the state Capitol in Salem for more than a week to prevent a vote on the program, and several left the state entirely. Now Republican and Democratic lawmakers are meeting to discuss collaborating on such a climate policy that could one day be part of a larger West Coast market, linking up with existing programs meant to reduce climate warming greenhouse gas emissions in Washington, California and Canada.
By Alixel Cabrera
PacifiCorp has proposed to sell its Washington service area to Portland General Electric Company affiliate Gem for about $1.9 billion. But before that, it needs the approval of the public service commissions in the states where it operates: Utah, California, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. In Utah, at least, watchdogs are skeptical.
ICYMI
Ferguson launches council to boost WA’s commercial space industry | by Jerry Cornfield
State lawmaker to resign 3 days before the election | by Jerry Cornfield
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