The Oregon Senate last week signed off on a measure that would push back state implementation of electric restructuring into early 2002 from a current schedule of Oct. 1, 2001. The Oregon House was expected to take up the measure as early as yesterday, and if the lower chamber signs off on it, the bill will wind up on Gov. John Kitzhaber’s desk.

At issue is Oregon House Bill (HB) 3633, which would delay the basic provisions of electric restructuring legislation passed in the state legislature’s last session. Among other things, the electric restructuring legislation, Senate Bill 1149, allows industrial and large commercial customers to leave their power-supplying utility and bid for other power sources.

Under HB 3633, implementation of Oregon’s electric restructuring would be delayed five months from the originally scheduled early October timeframe to March 2002. Leann Bleakney, a policy analyst with the Oregon Senate Majority Office, also noted that HB 3633 includes a provision that calls for “at least a 15-month cost of service guarantee for all customers, including residential.” At the end of that 15 months, the state public utility commission will assess whether or not to remove the cost of service option from industrial and large commercial customers.

Bleakney noted that a myriad of bills have been offered in the Oregon Legislature that would delay electric restructuring anywhere from 18 months to two years. In fact, she said that a floor debate was scheduled in the Oregon Legislature yesterday on outright repeal of electric restructuring in the state. “It remains to be seen what happens there,” Bleakney told NGI.

The Oregon House was scheduled to consider HB 3633 yesterday. If the House ultimately passes the measure, the betting is the governor will sign it. “I don’t know that he’s actually said out loud what he will do, but the governor’s office has been supportive about [HB 3633],” Bleakney said. Kitzhaber’s office was “not anxious to have a delay longer than five or six months on the desk, so I think this probably falls within the permissible delay.”

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