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Rates for residential gas customers of NW Natural are likely to be half of what they could have been next year following intervention from environmental and social justice groups. (Ervins Strauhmanis/Flickr)
Environmental and social justice groups are claiming victory after the state’s largest natural gas provider agreed to increase residential rates by less than half of its original proposed price hike.
Rate increases for 2025 won’t be finalized until October, but NW Natural’s residential customers are likely to see a 7% increase, instead of the nearly 17% the company asked the Oregon Public Utilities Commission to approve this spring. That’s on top of an 18% increase approved last year. The company said in its April request that the additional revenue – about $155 million – was needed to pay for infrastructure and software upgrades that are more expensive due to inflation, as well as pipe replacement and higher profit margins.
Following a challenge from a slate of nonprofits including the Oregon Environmental Council, Climate Solutions and the Coalition of Communities of Color, – rates for 2025 are likely to increase about 7% rather than 17%, to bring in about $95 million in additional revenue for NW Natural in the year ahead. The groups were represented by the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice and the Green Energy Institute at Lewis & Clark Law School.
“This settlement prevents unjustified rate hikes and will help ease the growing burden of energy bills faced by struggling families and low-income communities of color,” Nikita Daryanani, climate and energy policy manager at the Portland-based Coalition of Communities of Color, said in a statement.
The Public Utilities Commission will meet in October to discuss rate increases one more time, including incorporating any changes in the price of fuels, and any final rate increase would be approved by Nov. 1.
“Since the rate case is ongoing, we do not have a comment to share at this time,” NW Natural spokesperson David Roy said in an email regarding the settlement. “We have always worked to deliver energy in a safe, reliable and affordable manner to our customers and communities.”
As part of the settlement, the company will also increase discounts offered to low-income customers, in some cases doubling the percentage of savings and offering up to 85% off for the lowest income customers, such as a family of four with income of $16,000 per year or less. It will also develop a debt-forgiveness program that will roll out in 2025 for customers struggling to pay back overdue bills. NW Natural agreed not to charge ratepayers more than $720,000 in legal fees that the challengers argued were used to pay lawyers fighting Oregon and Washington climate laws. The company denied that the money was spent on challenging those laws.
Some of the concerns of environmental and social justice groups were not resolved, meaning lawyers from Earthjustice and Lewis & Clark will continue to litigate them with the Public Utilities Commission. These include concerns that NW Natural is using ratepayer money to fund certain lobbying efforts that it is not allowed to, and that it’s using ratepayer money to subsidize growth that is counter to state climate change legislation.
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