Gov. John Kitzhaber vetoes $4.8 million that was intended to subsidize home energy retrofitting program Clean Energy Works Oregon.
Gov. John Kitzhaber vetoes $4.8 million that was intended to subsidize home energy retrofitting program Clean Energy Works Oregon.
Kitzhaber vetoed nearly half of the total $9.8 million that Oregon lawmakers steered toward the program because he feels it’s an “inappropriate” use for those funds. The money was to have come from “public purpose charge dollars” that are collected from a 3 percent charge on customer bills of investor-owned utilities.
However, Kitzhaber noted that the program, which contractors credit for adding hundreds of jobs to payrolls, is a critical component of his 10-year energy plan. He pledged to ensure that Clean Energy Works Oregon “has the financial resources necessary to scale their business model.”
Read more at Sustainable Business Oregon.
