With your help, we stopped Portland General Electric from locking Oregonians into decades of fracked gas.
Climate Solutions and our coalition partners fought for the past year to prevent PGE from building a new fracked gas plant in Oregon. This week, the Oregon Public Utility Commission made a momentous decision rejecting PGE’s proposal and directing PGE to explore strategies for increasing renewable energy.
We applaud the Commission for supporting stakeholder and customer feedback that Oregonians want a clean energy future by rejecting a plan that would have increased our reliance on dangerous, dirty fossil fuels. We also commend PGE for responding to the groundswell of support for clean energy by suspending its plans for building more fracked gas plants. Instead, PGE is exploring using existing hydro power and renewable energy to meet its growing electricity needs in the short term.
This decision builds on our work and the growing momentum for 100% clean energy. It reflects the recent decisions by the City of Portland and Multnomah County committing to 100 percent clean energy, and also builds on the Clean Electricity and Coal Transition Act, the 2016 legislation that continued Oregon's leadership on climate protection and clean energy.
While we are disappointed that the Commission did not support PGE's proposal for a new wind farm, we appreciate their request that PGE submit a revised plan for increasing renewable energy.We will work with PGE, the Commission, and other stakeholders to support PGE in meeting their customers’ growing electricity needs with energy efficiency, renewable energy, and energy storage.
As we work to address the climate crisis by rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels toward 100% clean and renewable energy, it’s good to take a moment to appreciate our successes. Tuesday was a good day.
