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Sponsor seeks property tax exemptions to encourage home and business energy resilience investments
Summary
Representative David Gomberg asked the House Climate, Energy and Environment Committee to forward House Bill 3,823 to Revenue for work on amendments that would exempt certain residential and business equipment used to generate or store energy from property tax assessments.
Representative David Gomberg, sponsor of House Bill 3,823, told the House Climate, Energy and Environment Committee on March 20 that the bill aims to remove tax disincentives for investments in home and business energy resilience, such as whole-house generators, solar arrays and battery storage.
Gomberg recounted losing power for three days during a 2020 wildfire evacuation and described investing in a whole-house generator. He told colleagues he wants to "remove disincentives, so that people could make these investments and not get taxed on them." The bill would exclude certain equipment used to generate or store energy from property tax assessment; the sponsor said the draft will be narrowed in a forthcoming dash-1 amendment to allow local jurisdictions to opt in, to limit the exemption to new installations rather than requiring reassessment of past investments, and to address wattage limits for residential solar and battery systems.
Nut graf: The bill seeks to encourage residential and business investments in backup power and storage by exempting certain personal or real property from tax assessment. County representatives told the committee they are working with the sponsor because the current draft could reduce local ad-valorem tax receipts.
Justin Lowe, Legislative Affairs Manager for the Association of Oregon Counties, told the committee that counties are concerned about subsection language that would exempt business personal property used to generate or store energy. Lowe highlighted one county that currently receives about $1,000,000 annually in ad valorem taxes on solar, noting those funds are distributed across local taxing districts including schools and fire protection districts. "That's a significant amount, and especially to a lesser resourced county," he said, while adding that AOC is working with the sponsor on narrowing language.
Gomberg told members he expects to file a dash-1 amendment to address opt-in authority for local jurisdictions and to limit real-property exemptions to new investments. He asked the committee to forward the bill to the Revenue Committee without recommendation so sponsors and stakeholders can draft the amendment.
Ending: The committee scheduled a work session for next week to move the bill to Revenue to draft and consider the sponsor’s amendments; no formal vote was taken during the March 20 hearing.
