Support grows for local power over plants.

Byline: Joe Harwood The Register-Guard

SALEM - Legislation that would strip some of a state panel's authority to site power plants even when local governments oppose them is picking up bipartisan support in both legislative chambers.

The Oregon Fair Energy Bill would give counties and cities the authority to rule on whether a plant meets local land use rules when an energy developer seeks to build a gas-fired power plant within their jurisdiction.

Under current law, the state Energy Facility Siting Council makes the final determination on nearly every aspect of permitting gas-fired power plants, such as the one proposed north of Coburg. Energy developers can choose between having the governor-appointed, seven-member panel rule on whether a plant meets local land use regulations, or take their case to local jurisdictions such as the Lane County Board of Commissioners.

In almost every case, including the Coburg proposal, applicants have chosen to have the council review land use criteria rather than local officials, according to state records.

This so-called super-siting authority has angered residents and lawmakers in Turner, Lane County and the Klamath Falls area, where various companies are trying to win permits for gas-fired power plants.

Opponents of those facilities, who testified before a House committee last week and before the Senate Committee on Environment and Land Use on Thursday, maintain that the council and the Department of Energy ignore citizen input - and frequently Oregon law - in approving power plants.

"I think currently the Oregon Department of Energy has no restraint on their legal authority to impose their will on local communities," said state Sen. Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls. "Having appointed commission members making decisions that are not answerable to the laws of Oregon is not a good idea."

Whitsett and Sen. Bill Morrisette, D-Springfield, are sponsoring Senate Bill 527 to try to give local officials more input in such decisions. Rep. Phil Barnhart, D-Eugene, and Rep. Bill Garrard, R-Klamath Falls, are pushing the House version of the bill, HB 3135.

Barnhart said that he grew concerned after realizing that the 900-megawatt power plant proposed on farmland north of Coburg could win approval even if county commissioners decided the plant did not meet land use regulations. That proposal is now on hold and the size of the planned plant could shrink.

"I think the biggest concern I had is the process moves along without reference to local land use laws and without reference to local decision-makers who are charged with interpreting land use requirements," Barnhart said.

At Thursday's hearing, Whitsett said the "council's power is absolute." He and citizens of the Langell Valley east of Bonanza have been fighting the proposed 1160-megawatt California-Oregon Border power plant for two years.

His wife, Gail Whitsett, a petroleum geologist, said the energy department and siting council systematically ignored land use, water and other state laws in voting unanimously to approve the plant.

She said the council allowed People's Energy of Chicago, which wants to build the plant, to locate it on a 10-mile-long seismic fault without requiring the structural assessment mandated by law.

Residents of Klamath County will file an appeal with the state Supreme Court next week in an attempt to get the approval overturned.

Whitsett and her husband both told the committee that they do not oppose gas-fired plants as long as those facilities are sited according to the law.

"Because of their super-siting authority, they are now an out-of-control department who will listen to no one," Gail Whitsett said. "The Oregon Department of Energy is well on the way to a totalitarian or authoritarian form of gov- ernment."

The energy agency's director, Mike Grainey, said that the department is attentive to citizen concerns. "We try to make the (permitting process) as responsive as possible to local governments," he said, adding that the agency always follows the law.

A lobbyist for Portland General Electric said that adopting the bill would bury local governments under a mountain of paperwork and make it tougher for energy generating facilities to win approval.

In addition to giving local governments authority to veto an application if it did not meet local land use regulations, the bill would require the department to collect environmental review information and make it available to the public, said Lisa Arkin, executive director of the Eugene-based Oregon Toxics Alliance and the primary advocate for the bill.

Applicants would also have to demonstrate that there is a regional need for the power a plant would generate, and they would have to prove that they have the technical expertise and financial ability to construct and tear down a power plant.

"They will have to prove that it (a plant) would serve the greater public good," Arkin said.

Barnhart and Whitsett both said that they expect the parallel bills to make it out of the respective House and Senate committees and for the full Legislature to vote on a consolidated bill.

"I have high hopes for this one," Barnhart said. "It has support from members of both parties."