Senate committee hears wide support and local concerns for bill requiring utilities to plan for grid-enhancing technologies

The Senate Energy and Environment Committee on May 12 heard hours of testimony on House Bill 3336, which would require investor-owned electric utilities to analyze the cost-effectiveness of grid-enhancing technologies and include strategic plans for their use in utility planning documents.

Representative Mark Gamba (House District 41), the bill sponsor, told the committee the state faces an “unprecedented” load-growth trajectory and that “the primary holdup to getting more energy online is the lack of transmission capacity.” He said GETs can be deployed faster and at far less cost than building new lines and called installing them “low hanging fruit.”

Supporters — including Joshua Bassifin, clean energy program director at Climate Solutions, and Julia Selker, executive director of the Working for Advanced Transmission Technologies (WATT) Coalition — urged the committee to adopt the bill with a dash-2 amendment that proponents say would speed siting for many GET projects. "GATs are an important part of the solution, and we strongly support HB 3336 with the dash-2 amendment," Bassifin said. Selker cited out-of-state examples in which dynamic line ratings and other GETs unlocked large amounts of existing capacity and said regulators and utilities should model GETs alongside new transmission.

Witnesses from a range of interests described the bill’s two main components: a reporting and planning requirement so utilities must model GETs alongside other transmission options, and an amendment (dash-2) intended to streamline permitting and siting for some upgrades in existing utility rights-of-way. Proponents said the measures will expand capacity more quickly and at lower cost than building new lines, help integrate renewables, and reduce wildfire risks through better monitoring.

Local governments, consumer-owned utilities and intervenors raised concerns about the dash-2 amendment’s scope and speed. Nolan Pleasure, lobbyist for the League of Oregon Cities, said the League supports GETs but requested more time and broader stakeholder engagement on the amendment’s siting changes, noting uncertainty about how much right-of-way footprint increases might be authorized and how cities would retain their land-use oversight. The City of Wilsonville’s development engineering manager, Amy Papper, and Jennifer Jolley of the Oregon Municipal Electric Utilities Association testified that the amendment, as posted, could sweep in city-owned transmission and might affect ongoing reconductoring work. "All amendments that impact existing operations need to be carefully thought through with all impacted parties at the table," Jolley said.

Portland General Electric’s Meredith Armstrong said PGE is neutral on the bill in principle but seeks alignment of statutory timing with existing Oregon Public Utility Commission processes and a standardized permitting approach to reduce project-by-project delay. A resident who had recently intervened in a PUC contested case urged the committee to consider existing PUC rules and their enforcement, saying the problem in practice has been inconsistent enforcement of requirements that already exist.

Labor and environmental interests also testified in favor. Jim Holland of BlueGreen Alliance and Ben Brent of the Oregon Environmental Council said GETs could create work for local trades and deliver immediate capacity and emissions benefits if deployed appropriately.

Representative Gamba told the committee stakeholders are continuing to negotiate language; he said a dash-3 amendment is expected to be posted and that the intent of the amendments is to keep rights-of-way changes limited to utility-owned property while streamlining reconductoring and other upgrades.

No formal committee vote on HB 3336 occurred during the May 12 hearing; the committee held the public hearing and moved on to other business.

Next steps: the sponsor and stakeholders said they expect further amendment language to be posted for committee review before any work session vote.