Paying for power

By Julia Shumway | Editor

If you’re in one of the hundreds of thousands Oregon households stuck buying electricity from Portland General Electric or Pacific Power, your rates have gone up a lot in recent years — roughly 50% since 2020. There could be some relief ahead, as PGE and now Pacific Power comply with a new state law requiring data centers to pay for their own electricity demand rather than spreading costs around other ratepayers.

Also in today's edition:

Federal appeals court reverses judge’s ruling that incarcerated trans women should automatically be placed in women’s prison
Washington wins its voter roll lawsuit
Columnist Randy Stapilus on wildfires

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Pacific Power to charge new Oregon data centers for all costs associated with growing energy need

By Alex Baumhardt

Powerlines in Hood River County above the Columbia River July 25, 2024. (Photo by Jordan Gale/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

Oregon’s second largest investor-owned electric utility could soon directly assign the costs of new energy projects and infrastructure needed for data centers to data center operators.

Federal appeals court blocks restrictions on placement of trans women in Oregon prisons

By Shaanth Nanguneri

The Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. The state’s prison system recently won a ruling in a federal appeals court that deals with how the state houses transgender women in its custody. (Photo by Ron Cooper/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

Oregon does not need to presume transgender women should be housed in women’s prisons and may continue to make case-by-case placement decisions that have allowed most of them to remain in custody with men, a federal appeals court ruled.