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Where sexual minority activists stand
on the proposed public utility district by
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loll h e r (877) 82THW00 Fax (505) 297-082»
F.-Mail: adlcciiwA&mtgvidv« Katcs.com www.nitgarivucatcs.coni
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PHOTOS BY
L esbian E nvironmental
A ctivist S ays PUD
Is W hat P ortland N eeds
Colleen Weed
Office 503 * 297*9900
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ri
ancy Newell doesn’t exactly kx>k
like a major enemy of corporate-
controlled utilities.
The slim, casually dressed 50-
something Portlander is full of
exuberant energy. Her eyes are warm— with a
flicker of devilishness— and she is quick to throw
hack her head and laugh. But what she is fight
ing for is no laughing matter. As the only queer
candidate running for one of the five director
positions of the Multnomah County Public Util
ity District, she is all seriousness on the subject of
citizens taking charge of their utilities.
“Public power is a way to gain hack commu
nity choices that are hxrally decided,” says
Newell, a specialist on deregulation issues in the
utility industry.
The Multnomah County Public Utility Dis
trict is an entity that will he created if voters
approve Measure 26-51 (whether to form the
PUD) and Measure 26-52 (whether to impose a
tax levy amounting to 45 cents on $150,000
property value to fund an engineering study) in
a special election Nov. 4.
If adopted, the PUD would he locally owned
and controlled, with a board of directors elected
by voters. It would acquire Portland General
Electric’s assets at the lowest price hy using emi
nent domain, which means the PUD will not
have to hid at the Enron hankmptcy auction.
The PUD would he* required to honor existing
union contracts of PGE workers.
Activists like Newell have been agitating tor
a PUD ever since the Enron takeover of PGE in
1997. They claim a PUD would lower rates hy at
least 25 percent immediately. According to the
Oregon Public Power Committee, savings
would come in part from removing the charges
for shareholder profits, state and federal income
taxes and exorbitant management salaries asso
ciated with corporate-controlled utilities.
“Overnight, it would become ours,” Newell
says, referring to the general public. “We would
he able to make our own decisions."
Newell says one of the advantages of a PUD
is that it would not have to generate profits, in
the traditional sense. It would be a strictly cost-
based model of energy use— the customers pay
only for the costs of their energy. Currently,
PGE users pay a number of additional costs
each month, including state and federal
income taxes.
And therein lies one of the main rallying
points for the PUD. Proponents say PGE— or,
rather, its defunct parent company, Enron—
owes Oregon $70 million in income taxes that
ratepayers paid to PGE hut that PGE paid to
Enron. However, Enron never paid that money
to Oregon. At a time when public confidence in
large corporate business practices is low, PUD
supporters find no comfort in the thought that
PGE could he sold to another corporate entity
when it goes up for auction.
Beyond fraud and unpaid taxes, Newell says
a utility company owned by a company like
Enron is had news for queers. CEOs at Enron,
"Gays and lesbians should pull a
plug on the Bush/Cheney/Ashcrofl
team. If we adopt a PUD, there
will be more money in people's
pockets to get Bush out of office.
she notes, were major contributors to President
Bush’s campaign.
“Gays and lesbians should pull a plug on the
Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft team,” Newell says. “If
we adopt a PUL'), there will be more money in
people’s pockets to get Bush out of office.”
Newell acknowledges that PGE has a great
track record in terms of queer employees. But
she says there is no reason those benefits would
not continue, especially with a lesbian PUD
board member advocating for queer rights Kith
within the organization and at a state level.
Newell is a 30-year veteran activist on envi
ronmental, energy, sexual minority, peace and
justice issues. She is co-director of the “No
Endmn Committee,” which tried to stop the
Enron merger during the Oregon Public Utility
Commissions deliberations in 1997.
Newell is a former Kiard chairwoman ofCas-
cadia Times and Northwest Environmental
Advocates. She was a key organizer for former
U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Furse, D-Ore., in her first
campaign tor Congress.
In 1998, Newell was appointed as U.S. con
sumer representative to the United Kingdom's
Board of Industry anil Trade deliberations on the
attempted merger by PacifiCorp with an English
corporation that owned and operated most of
the coal generating and mining operations in
the western United States. Her appointment led
to a six-month hearing process in the United
Kingdom that caused the $11 billion purchase
by PacifiCorp to fail. Her main objection was
the failure of PacifiCorp to aid the internation
al effort to reduce global warming.
“We’ve had comfort in the U.S. at the