Okay, so we are going to get started with our Ben City Council work session.

Um, and we have a presentation on building our electrification policy options.

Someone echoing, no, we're good.

Okay, so let's get into it.

Okay.

Um, good evening, City Council.

I'm Cassie Lacey, senior management analyst in the city manager's office, and staff liaison to the environment and climate committee.

Um, we're here to share with you a proposed process and timeline for how we want to analyze options to pursue electrification policies and programs for the city.

So, for some background, we're having this discussion today because um included in council goals are developing new policies to support sustainable development that are responsive to community concerns, including policy related to natural gas and building electrification.

The goal behind electrification is to try and get buildings to use technologies that use electricity rather than natural gas or other fossil fuels for their power needs.

There are many potential benefits of electrification.

The primary climate benefit is that we have well-established renewable and carbon-free electricity sources that can be used, which we don't have at the same level in scale of availability for natural gas in buildings.

There are also emerging research areas about the human health and safety benefits of electrification since electricity doesn't require fossil fuels to be combusted right on site within homes and buildings.

Electrification supports our existing climate action goals because it has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in buildings, especially when paired with renewable electricity strategies.

Electrification programs generally fit within our existing community climate action plan because we have several strategies for promoting energy efficiency, which electrification does.

There's been a lot of community interest in this topic.

Most recently in the fall, there was the Youth Climate Coalition campaign that requested that the council adopt an electrification ordinance.

In addition, the ECC has uh previously identified electrification as a gap in the existing CCAP and had intended to look into it further during the upcoming CCAP update.

There's been just a general increased community awareness about various electrification policies and programs, in large part because other cities, both in Oregon and outside of Oregon, are pursuing the are pursuing these or starting to study them over the last couple of years.

At the same time, we've also heard questions and concerns about what the potential unintended consequences might be of these policies.

So we're hoping to launch this project now with the goal of better understanding our options so that we can consider what the best ways are for promoting electrification in Bend.

There are both voluntary and regulatory options to that can be considered.

And on the regulatory side, there's an evolving legal landscape that needs to be taken into consideration, which Michael's gonna speak to in a moment.

So the goals for the goals for today's discussion are to propose a recommended scope of work and process to consider electrification policies for Bend and to seek direction from counsel on whether to go ahead and initiate that process as recommended, or here if you all want us to take a different approach.

So counsel, I have uh some background on the legal framework.

It's somewhat technical and complicated.

Uh so pardon me as I look down and read some notes from the case.

Um, and I'd also ask if you don't mind to hold your questions until the end uh once you finish hearing my slides and Cassie's, we can go back over because again, some of this is complicated.

So the legal framework, um despite being complicated, is also unsettled.

Uh, and so things are constantly changing.

Uh they generally involve a layer of local authority as well as state and federal law.

So the basic legal principles at play here are familiar, you've heard these before.

Uh it's general home rule authority and preemption.

So then as a home rule city, uh, we have very broad leeway to regulate in areas that protect and the health protect the health and safety, uh, unless we are preempted by state or federal law.

Preempted basically means superseded.

So if there is a federal law, which is the supreme law of the land, or a state law, which is higher than the local authority, if they say we can't do something, then we can't do it.

But generally, otherwise we have the authority.

Uh as we go through this, I'm gonna cover a federal law and a couple state laws that are important, but it's really important to remember number one is that we're legislating in Oregon, so it's Oregon law that's important.

So the rules that apply in Washington or New York don't inform the analysis here in Oregon.

Number two, often there are other levels of government that are acting.

So in other states, it may be a county acting or a state acting.

And so while those might inform some of our policy choices, it's not a good analogy for what we can do because they may have a different level of authority than we have.

So there's some some basic principles.

Let's turn first to federal law.

So through the through the supremacy clause of the federal constitution, federal law is the supreme law of the land.

Uh the main law that's going to bear on our authority to regulate in this sphere to electrify in buildings is the Energy Policy and Conservation Act.

Uh that act sets energy conservation standards for certain consumer appliances, such as refrigerators, water heaters, furnaces, furnaces, washers and dryers, and other products.

Uh and this law has been around for a while.

It's been on the book since 1975.

It has been subsequently amended, so it's changed a bit, but this has been the law of the land for quite a bit of time.

So back to the preemption principle.

The EPCA expressly preempts uh local regulations, quote, concerning energy use of covered products, unless the local government can meet a very complicated seven-part test that I'll touch on quickly later.

So what that means is if a local government tries to do that thing to regulate, quote, concerning energy use, it would be unlawful.

Uh the city of Berkeley did that or tried to do that and was sued by a coalition of restaurateurs and chefs, uh, the California Restaurant Association for what Berkeley did.

So Berkeley's ordinance tried to sidestep the EPCA instead of regulating directly the appliances and their energy standards, they said uh we're gonna prohibit natural gas piping from the gas meter to and within the building.

So prohibit uh piping on the property side of the property line, not within the right of way.

They were sued by the California Restaurant Association, and they said that this ordinance was preempted because even though it didn't directly regulate the appliances, it had the effect of rendering those appliance use uh useless and therefore concerned uh energy use of the appliances.

So this wove its way through the courts, found its way to the Ninth Circuit, uh it was heard once and then heard again on January 20, uh January 2024, so relatively recently, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion and it said that Berkeley's action was preempted by the EPCA.

So it was unlawful.

They said that even though the ordinance did not directly regulate the applied the appliances, the ordinance was preempted because prohibiting natural gas piping in new buildings would have the result of reducing the quantity of natural gas consumed and therefore quote concerned energy use.