Potential changes to initiative alarm supporters of clean energy

The clean-energy initiative approved by voters in 2006 has taken a beating in the 2009 state Legislature.

The state Senate passed Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5840, which would roll back the requirement in Initiative 937 that utilities with at least 25,000 customers secure 15 percent of their energy by 2020 from new renewable resources such as wind and solar power and through energy conservation.

"We're in danger of making Washington the first state in the country to go backward on clean energy," said Joan Crooks, executive director of the Washington Environmental Council.

The bill, which was passed on a 27-21 vote, would allow utilities to use some of their existing hydropower and biomass energy plants to meet the green-power standard and increase their renewable resources at a slower rate, provided that the utility isn't experiencing load growth.

It also would expand the geographic boundary for eligible resources from the Northwest to include the entire western United States.

"There are a lot of things in the bill we like," said Dean Boyer, spokesman for the Washington Public Utility District Association. "If it stays as it is, it will have our support."

The Senate bill could face rougher sledding in the House and probably is headed for an overhaul and further negotiations between the House and Senate, said state Sen. Karen Fraser, D-Thurston County, who opposes the bill.

"The whole idea behind the initiative was to turn the ship of energy in a new direction," she said. "This would turn back the clock considerably."

Supporters of the 2006 initiative said the clean-energy act would steer utilities away from investments in coal- and gas-fired power plants and do more to meet the state's greenhouse-gas emission reduction goals than all other state climate-change policies combined.

Clean, homegrown power will create jobs and prepare the state for a new clean-energy economy that doesn't rely on fossil fuels, they said.

"Climate change is happening faster than previously thought," Olympia energy economist Jim Lazar said. "If anything, we need to increase our investment in renewable-energy resources."

The state Constitution allows the Legislature to amend a voter-approved initiative with a simple majority vote two years after its passage.

Backers of the bill are using many of the same arguments they used in the unsuccessful campaign to defeat the initiative: It ties the hands of utilities, defines renewable resources too narrowly and will be costly to businesses and ratepayers.

"We're not opposed to renewables," said Chris McCabe, government-affairs director for the Association of Washington Business. "The Senate bill provides utilities with flexibility to help prevent skyrocketing utility bills and it levels the playing field with other states such as California and Oregon." Those two states can purchase clean energy from throughout the West, McCabe said.

Puget Sound Energy, the state's largest private utility, is neutral on the bill, spokesman Andy Wappler said.

The utility set its own renewable-energy portfolio standard in 2003. It says that the utility will be 10 percent green by 2013.

"We believe we're on track to meet the 3 percent requirement by 2012 spelled out in the initiative," Wappler said.

This year, 5 percent of the utility's power supply is generated by two wind farms in Eastern Washington. That's enough electricity to meet the needs of 100,000 homes.

And PSE is working on an even larger wind-power project in the Lower Snake River that would more than double the utility's wind-power production, Wappler said.

"Wind power has proven to be cost-effective and a solid producer for us," he said.