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Council delays forming joint electrification committee, asks staff for clearer scope and legal briefing

ECC (advisory committee) · January 9, 2026

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Summary

City staff told the Energy and Climate Committee that the City Council deferred establishing a joint public-engagement committee on electrification after adding scope items; council asked staff to return Feb. 11 with fee-level options and a legal briefing on risks and statutory constraints.

City staff told the Energy and Climate Committee on Jan. 14 that the City Council chose not to pass a resolution last night to establish a joint committee intended to help design public engagement and incentives for the city's electrification policy. The council postponed the decision after requests to expand the committee's scope, including adding Human Rights and Equity Commission representation and consideration of pilot projects suggested by business groups.

Staff said the council's December direction remains that the council will make final decisions about fee calculation and fee level while a joint committee would focus on incentives and exemptions. "They did not pass a resolution establishing the committee last night," a staff presenter said. The council asked staff to return to a Feb. 11 work session with fee-calculation options, a month-by-month work plan for any committee, and additional consideration of public-engagement approaches.

The crosscutting legal issues were a recurring theme in the committee's discussion. In response to members' questions, a city attorney explained that the distinction between a tax and a fee under Oregon law is not a bright line and that fees generally must be related to the city's cost of a service. "There is not a case out there where a city has looked at a fee like what we're looking at and a court has said definitively, 'Yes' or 'No'," the attorney said, describing the legal landscape as ambiguous. Staff and counsel said they will present legal risks and potential refinements at the Feb. 11 work session.

Business groups and advisory bodies have asked the city to consider a pilot to gather local data on costs, greenhouse-gas effects, grid impacts and affordability. Staff noted the letters requested more detail on what such a pilot would measure and how it would inform fee design. Committee members discussed two distinct pilot concepts: (1) a pre-fee pilot to collect baseline data and (2) a fee-with-sunset pilot that would put a fee in place temporarily while collecting evaluation data.

Next steps: staff will prepare the fee-level options (using the fee-calculation model presented in December), coordinate with the city attorney to outline legal risks and bounds, and present to council at the Feb. 11 work session. The committee's role in any future joint committee or alternative engagement format remains under discussion.