Portland Clean Energy Fund

HISTORY

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty helped lead the Portland Clean Energy Fund initiative. As a former Representative in the Oregon Legislature she understood what a law could do. After her 1995–2001 term, she worked with a group to register voters and somewhere along the line she started to look into the disparity in financing for energy efficiency assistance available for homeowners through Energy Trust of Oregon and for people who don't have a home that qualifies.

The initiative process to create the Portland Clean Energy Fund was a massive work of coalition building among under represented communities, creating a network of hubs, working with leaders of local nonprofits to raise awareness, funds, support — all while wrangling a legal challenge (that's the tactic opponents often use against a ballot initiative, get it tied up in court, stall them out so that when it's finally approved the organizers don't have enough time to collect signatures). She emphasized the ability to know who the opposition will be and what they'll do. And to counter with eyeball to eyeball community meetings, house parties, talking with people where they are. She said it was important to get out in advance of the opposition, a year out, talking with people even when they didn't have the legal text of the measure.

The passage of the measure allows the City of Portland to collect a 1% percent surcharge from retailers with one billion in national sales and at least a half million of sales in Portland. The big box stores, Nike, Intel. This revenue is dedicated through the language of the measure to fund energy efficiency (weatherizing low-income apartment buildings and single-family homes) and to train workers in these skills so they can go from pre-apprenticeship to journeyman status—with enough hours, they've gained a family-wage job and can go anywhere in the country. So it's climate mitigation (less use of fuel if homes are weatherized), energy efficiency and workforce training.

During the initiative campaign it'd been said that the Fund would generate around 30 million dollars annually and now analysts have estimated it could be more like 54 to 71 million dollars a year. The measure has the potential to be a model for other cities, and Hardesty compared its potential impact to the Oregon Bottle Bill, which created a deposit redeemable upon return, and really increased the recycling of all those containers.

City laying groundwork for Clean Energy Fund - January 08, 2019

CITY OF PORTLAND MAKING IT HAPPEN

Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund, Portland Clean Energy Fund, PCEF, or, colloquially, "pee-seff", is housed in the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability — it is possible that it could be housed in a different bureau later but they are in the process of creating and hiring four staff positions at BPS to manage, coordinate, reach out to the community, and do performance metrics for the fund.

Andrea Durbin is the new Executive Director of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability

Their first job announcement: Program Manager, Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund