The Oregon Legislature concluded its 160-day session on June 29, 2025. The top issues that Oregon’s 30 Senators and 60 State Representatives sought to address this session aligned with Governor Kotek’s 2025 legislative priorities: solving a $354 million funding gap in the Department of Transportation budget, funding the state’s schools, and addressing increasingly severe wildfire seasons and the ongoing homelessness crisis.

Projections of an overall decrease in state funding of $500 million for the 2025-2027 biennium also defined the 2025 session and hamstrung many pieces of legislation, making funding both existing programs and new initiatives difficult.

CETI has been supporting the Oregon Department of Energy since April 2024 with energy pathways modeling and complementary environmental justice- and equity-focused analyses to underpin the Oregon Energy Strategy. This deep engagement in Oregon’s clean energy landscape made the CETI team keenly interested to see which bills would move through during the legislative session.

A record high of over 3,400 bills were introduced this year with several pieces of legislation that stand to impact Oregon’s clean energy transition and climate action making it to the Governor’s desk. Here is an overview of key bills that made it over the finish line and those that did not:

What Passed

• HB 2065  – Allows contracting with third-party consultants to perform necessary studies or evaluations required by a public utility for applications to interconnect microgrids or community microgrids. It also requires a public utility to approve or deny applications based on safety, reliability, and compliance with published standards.
• HB 2066 – Directs the Oregon Public Utility Commission (PUC) to establish a regulatory framework to allow the ownership, deployment, and use of microgrids and community microgrids within the service territories of electric companies. The policy also requires the Department of Consumer and Business Services to create rules to support the integration of buildings into community microgrids and allows local governments to designate microgrid zones and adopt land use regulations that correspond to those zones.
• HB 2370 – Raises the annual fee amount that the PUC may impose on public utilities to cover costs of the PUC.
• HB 2375 – Requires wind energy facility developers to apply to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or the Federal Communications Commission (if applicable) for approval for the installation and use of light-mitigating technology systems. Systems must be installed within 24 months of application approval or as soon as reasonably possible. The bill also prohibits a wind energy project from being permitted if the developer does not apply for the installation and use of a light-mitigation system.
• HB 2425 – Establishes a Task Force on Ethical Procurement to ensure goods and services that public bodies in Oregon buy do not involve forced or child labor. This includes public bodies that buy electric cars or solar photovoltaic panels, specifying that those entities need proof from the vendor that no forced or child labor was used in producing, assembling, transporting, or the sale of the car or panel. The legislation includes penalties for the false supply or knowing acceptation of a false certification.
• HB 3336 – Requires electric companies to file a strategic plan for deploying grid enhancing technologies, where cost effective, with the PUC to boost transmission capacity using existing lines. Electric companies must conduct cost-effectiveness and timetable analyses of multiple strategies when proposing additions, improvements, or modifications to a transmission system. Plans must be updated every two years with a utility’s integrated resource plan and first actions must be carried out no later than January 1, 2030.
• HB 3179 – Directs the PUC to examine the cumulative economic impact of proposed residential rates or schedule of rates and allows the PUC to adjust rates to mitigate increases.
• HB 3546 – Directs the PUC to provide for a classification of service for large energy consumers and requires that the costs of serving such large energy use facilities are allocated to the facilities themselves to mitigate the risks to other classes of retail electricity consumers. Ultimately aims to ensure large energy users, like data centers and cryptocurrency mining operations, do not unfairly burden Oregon households with energy costs.
• HB 3681 – Amends Energy Facility Siting Council (EFSC) permitting processes by, among other provisions, requiring EFSC to conclude a contested case and issue of a final order within 12 months from the date of a proposed order.
• HB 3792 – Expands the Oregon Energy Assistance Program by raising the minimum amount to be collected from $20 million to $40 million to help with low-income customers’ electric bill payment and crisis assistance. The bill also allows the PUC to adjust the amount to be collected based on changes to electricity rates but stipulates that the PUC must report an increase to the Legislature if it is over 2.5%.
• HB 3874 – Increases the threshold for a wind energy facility to be required to obtain a site certificate from EFSC from 50 megawatts to 100 megawatts. It also requires that an applicant for a county land use permit to establish a wind energy facility that generates at least 50 megawatts but less than 100 megawatts submit a decommissioning plan to restore the site to useful, nonhazardous conditions.
• HB 3963 – Extends the date to January 1, 2027 by which the Department of Land Conservation and Development must report its assessment of the state policies that may be used in the federal consistency review of offshore wind leasing decisions and related actions.
• SB 688 – Allows the PUC to developed a performance-based regulatory framework, utilizing incentives and penalties to induce electric companies to bring electric utility operations more in line with public interests and other objectives, including: reducing greenhouse gas emissions; increasing energy efficiency; improving electric utility reliability and resiliency; developing distributed energy resources; enhancing services for low-income customers; and improving the efficiency of utility operations to reduce costs to ratepayers.

Failed

• HB 2062 – Would have required producers of batteries or battery-containing products to join a battery producer responsibility organization and implement a battery producer responsibility program for the collection and recycling of batteries. ‍
• HB 2063 – Would have created an Agrivoltaics Task Force to study and report on energy production on farmland.
• ‍HB 2945 – Would have established a state policy on the purchase of new zero-emissions school buses.
• HB 2985 – Would have modified provisions relating to the administrative proceedings of the PUC.‍
• HB 3081 – Would have required the Oregon Department of Energy to coordinate with other organizations; conduct outreach; establish a statewide navigation and support system; identify and address gaps and overlaps between programs; and provide information in multiple languages for resources and assistance related to available energy efficiency incentives and programs.
• HB 3087 – Would have created an income or corporate excise tax credit for the amount paid by an owner of an eligible generation facility for transmission services.
• HB 3171 – Would have changed the requirements for energy resiliency plans developed by counties.
• ‍HB 3247 – Would have required an electric company to acquire a replacement resource of reliable or dispatchable electricity prior to retiring an electric power generating facility that provides such electricity.
• ‍HB 3313 – Would have established eligibility for renewable energy certificates for certain facilities that generate electricity from the direct combustion of municipal solid waste and became operational before January 1, 1995.
• HB 3346 – Would have required the Department of Land Conservation and Development, in consultation with other departments, to study siting of energy facilities in designated critical ground water areas east of the Cascade Range.
• HB 3422 – Would have added a criterion to the standards that EFSC must find for the council to take an exception to an applicable statewide planning goal for a proposed energy facility.
• HB 3539 – Would have required the Environmental Quality Commission to contract with a third party to study and determine a greenhouse gas reporting emissions factor for electricity purchased from unspecified sources.
• ‍HB 3540 – Would have provided for a single limit on the cost of compliance for an electric utility that is required to comply with a renewable portfolio standard and the statutory clean energy targets.‍
• HB 3597 – Would have authorized the Department of Environmental Quality to reduce the amount of rebates available under zero-emission vehicle rebate programs, subject to certain conditions. 
• HB 3628 – Would have established the Oregon Transmission Authority as an independent corporation to facilitate the improvement and expansion of the state’s transmission system.
• HB 3666 – Would have required electric public utilities to apply for a wildfire safety certificate.
• SB 88 – Would have prohibited an electric or gas company from recovering from ratepayers costs or expenses associated with advertising, political influence activity, litigation, penalties or fines, and certain compensation.
• SB 298 – Would have required the Legislative Revenue Officer to study tax incentives for energy development, storage, and transmission in Oregon.
• SB 634 – Would have specified that electricity generated by a hydroelectric facility or other equipment that generates electricity through use of hydroelectric energy may be used to comply with a renewable portfolio standard. 
• SB 926 – Would have prohibited the recovery from customers of certain costs and expenses that an electric company incurs if a court or jury finds that a wildfire resulted from the negligence or a higher degree of fault on the part of the electric company.
• SB 927 – Would have created an income or corporate excise tax credit for the amount paid by an owner of an eligible generation facility for transmission services. 
• SB 1187 – Would have established a Climate Superfund Cost Recovery Program as an interagency response to the effects of climate change.
• SB 1034 – Would have removed provisions that allow EFSC to find that an energy facility is in compliance with statewide planning goals even when the council determines that the facility does not comply with applicable substantive criteria from the affected local government's land use plan. 
• SB 1143 – Would have directed the PUC to establish a pilot program that allows each natural gas company to develop a utility-scale thermal energy network pilot project to provide heating and cooling services to customers.
• SB 1160 – Would have required the Oregon Department of Energy to study developing certain renewable energy projects in this state.
• SJR 28 – Proposed an amendment to the Oregon Constitution to establish a fundamental right to a clean, safe, and healthy environment and referred the proposed amendment to the people for their approval or rejection at the next regular general election held throughout this state.

Budget Cuts for Climate and Resiliency

Under increased strain from funding cuts that the federal level, the Oregon Legislature’s final biennial budget allocated zero dollars for critical climate and community resilience programs that, among other things, supported community resilience hubs; helped landlords pay for heat pump installation in their rental units; and facilitated the development of community-based renewables and microgrids.

For a recap of what climate and clean energy bills passed in other Northwest legislative sessions in 2025, check out our overviews of Idaho, Montana, and Washington. If you want to receive updates from CETI straight to your inbox, subscribe here.‍

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