20080730Vol I Status Conference.pdf

ORIGINAL
.BEFORE THE IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
IN THE MATTER OF THE APPROPRIATE
DISPOSITION OF IDAHO POWER
COMPANY iS S02 EMISSION PROCEEDS
TO FUND AN ENERGY EDUCATION
PROPOSAL
)
) CASE NO. IPC-E-08-11
)
)
) STATUS CONFERENCE
)
BEFORE
COMMISSIONER JIM KEMPTON (Presiding)
COMMISSIONER MARSHA SMITH
COMMISSIONER MACK REDFORD
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DATE:July 16, 2008
PLACE:Commission Hearing Room
472 West Washington Street
Boise, Idaho
en..J
VOLUME I - Pages 1 - 70
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CSB REPORTING
Constance S. Bucy, CSR No. 187
23876 Applewod Way * Wilder, Idaho 83676
[phone] * [phone]
Email csb~heritagewifi.com
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12.13
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1 APPEARANCES
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3 For the Staff:
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5
For Idaho Power:
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For Office of Energy
Resources:
For State Dept. of
Education:
For Idaho Energy Education
Proj ect:
For Idaho Rural Council:
For Idaho Conservation
League:
For Snake River Alliance:
For Citizens Protecting
Resources:
22
23 Also Present:
24
Mr. Donald Howell
Deputy Attorney General
472 West Washington
Boise, Idaho 83720-0074
Mr. Barton L. Kline
Ms. Theresa Drake
Idaho Power Company
Post Office Box 70
Boise, Idaho 83707-0070
Mr. Paul Kj ellander
Post Office Box 83720
Boise, Idaho 83720-0098
Mr. Tom Luna
Post Office Box 82720
Boise, Idaho 83720-0027
Mr. Bill Chisholm
19073 East Highway 30
Buhl, Idaho 83316
Mr. Richard Carlson
Post Office Box 21
Filer, Idaho 83328
Ms. Sara Cohen
710 North Sixth Street
Boise, Idaho 83702
Mr. Ken Miller
5400 West Franklin
Boise, Idaho 83705
Mr. Jim Sylva
Post Office Box 115
Hansen, Idaho 83334
Alla Langston
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APPEARANCES
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1 EXHIBITS
PAGE
Marked 69
Admitted 69
Marked 69
Admitted 69
2
3 NUMBER DESCRIPTION
4 FOR THE IDAHO ENERGY EDUCATION PROJECT:
5 1 - Think! Energy Idaho, Professional
Development Workshop
6
2 - Energy Acti vi ties Guides
7
8
9
10
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13
14
15
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EXHIBITS
.1 BOISE, IDAHO, WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 2008, 1: 30 P. M.
2
3
4 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: This is the date,
5 time and place. It is the -- I always have to look at
6 this -- the 16th of July, 2008, and it is the time and
7 place to conduct a status conference on Case No.
8 IPC-E-08-11, more specifically in the matter of the
9 appropriate distribution of Idaho Power Company IS
10 emission proceeds to fund an energy education proposal.
11 On my right is the President of the Idaho
12 PUC, Mack Redford. On my left is Marsha Smith, and just.13 by way of explanation, Marsha is the National Chairman of
14 all of the PUC's in the United States this year and I am
15 the Chairman for this status conference. I'm Jim
16 Kempton.
17 The proceedings in this case are being
18 conducted in accordance with Commission jurisdiction
19 under Title 61 Idaho Code and Commission Rules of
20 Procedure under IDAPA 31.01.01. As I mentioned, the
21 status conference will be recorded and that the
22 appearance of any interested party in attendance before
23 the Commission today is not restricted and there is no
24 designated lead party. The appearances, what I would.25 like for you to do as we go around the room, and I'll
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1 start with Don Howell for the Idaho PUC, is to give your
2 name and who you represent and if the recorder needs a
3 spelling on your first or last name, why, we i 11 take a
4 second and do that. Don, if you would lead off.
5 MR. HOWELL: Than k you, Mr. Cha i rman . My
6 name is Don Howell. I i m a Deputy Attorney General
7 representing the Commission Staff in this proceeding.
8 MS. COHEN: Thank you. My name is Sara
9 Cohen. I i m with the Idaho Conservation League.
10 MR. CARLSON: My name is Richard Carlson
11 wi th the Idaho Rural Council.
12 MR. CHISHOLM: My name is Bill Chisholm.
13 I'm the coordinator of the Idaho Energy Education
14 Project.
15 MR. MILLER: My name is Ken Miller. I 1m
16 with the Snake River Alliance.
17 MR. KJELLANDER: Paul Kjellander with the
18 Office of Energy Resources, and also with us is
19 Superintendent Tom Luna, the Superintendent of Public
20 Instruction in support of the proposal that we have
21 today.
22 MS. LANGSTON: I am Alla Langston, A-l~l-a
23 Langston, representing myself. I i ve done a lot of
24 proj ects, conservation proj ects, for private industries,
25 so I i m now curious how it i S done on the state level.
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1 MR. LUNA: Tom Luna, State Superintendent
2 of Public Instruction.
3 MR. KLINE: Bart Kline. I'm an attorney
4 appearing on behalf of Idaho Power Company. I i 11 let
5 Theresa introduce herself.
6 MS. DRAKE: I'm Theresa Drake. I 1m
7 manager of our customer relations and energy efficiency
8 department of Idaho Power.
9 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: And would you give
10 us your name again? I missed it.
11 MS. DRAKE: Theresa Drake, T-h-e-r-e-s-a.
12 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Okay, anybody else?
13 Before we actually get going in this, what I want to do
14 is take a minute and go through a brief recap of where
15 we i ve been. We've changed case numbers on this
16 particular case historically, so I want to go back a ways
17 and recap this, if you i 11 bear with me, and I i 11 give you
18 a copy so that you have it. Okay, beginning with Case
19 No. IPC-E-07-18 which was an Idaho power rate case in
20 which the issue of possible distribution of sulfur
21 dioxide funds was discussed in terms of an amount that
22 could be made available for energy education in Idaho
23 schools that are served by Idaho Power and how that
24 program would be established, so in the matter of the
25 appropriate distribution of proceeds for the sale of
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1 Idaho Power Company's S02 emissions in CY 2007 which was
2 the official title under Case No. IPC-E-07-18, there was
3 an Order No. 30529 on April 14, 2008 where the Commission
4 addressed the Idaho Energy Education Proj ect proposal to
5 use 500,000 of the proceeds from the Idaho Power sale of
6 S02 allowances for energy education and associated
7 proj ect grants in schools served by Idaho Power Company.
8 Under the IEEP proposal, 250,000 would be dedicated to
9 classroom conservation and efficiency education and the
10 remaining half would be used for grants for renewable and
11 efficiency proj ects in participating schools.
12 The Commission found that classroom
13 instruction on energy conservation efficiency may be in
14 the public interest. No clarification was made regarding
15 the use of the term instruction, but neither should there
16 have been any presumption that the term related to
17 anything other than classroom conservation and efficiency
18 education and/or grants for renewable and efficiency
19 proj ects.
20 IEEP was directed to provide the
21 Commission with additional information regarding its
22 educational proposal such as a syllabus, curriculum, and
23 any arrangements it had made with school districts or
24 state agencies.
25 In the response to Order No. 30529, IEEP
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1 addressed both the 250,000 for education and the 250,000
2 for grant proj ects. Idaho Power responded by stating
3 that it would support use of a portion of the S02
4 allowance proceeds for energy efficiency education.
5 There were no other respondents.
6 In Order No. 30557 on 6/2/2008, the
7 Commission determined that additional work needed to be
8 accomplished before any energy-related education proposal
9 or specific projects could be endorsed by the Commission.
10 It was ordered that a status conference be convened in
11 approximately six weeks to allow IEEP and other
12 interested parties to advise Commission on their
13 respecti ve positions.
14 It was further ordered that Case No.
15 IPC-E-07-18 be closed, that new Case No. IPC-E-08-11 be
16 opened, which is the one we i re working under today, and
17 that the Commission would continue to reserve judgment on
18 the appropriate disposition of the 500,000 for energy
19 education purposes in schools served by Idaho Power
20 Company.
21 Under IPC-E-08-11 which I introduced this
22 morning or this afternoon as the first part of this
23 meeting, Order No. 30588 on July 1st, 2008 provided
24 Commission notice of the date, time and place for today's
25 status conference, framed the history of Case No.
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.1 IPC-E-08-11 in terms of Order Nos. 30529 and 30557 and
2 provided guidance on the purpose and conduct of today' s
3 status conference.
4 Specifically, this status conference is
5 convened with the understanding that IEEP and other
6 interested parties are to advise the Commission of
7 progress in relevant communications and stipulate whether
8 there is, or can be, a consensus organizational structure
9 that will support moving forward with the educational
10 proposal.
11 There is no designated lead party for the
12 status conference, and the Commission continues to.13 reserve judgment on the appropriate distribution of the
14 500,000 for energy education purposes.
15 Well, after setting the stage with that
16 history, I would like to add that it's the first time, to
17 my knowledge at least, that the Commission has moved into
18 an education purpose using funds, ratepayer funds, moved
19 from a rate case into the education process. It is a
20 little new to us, so consequently, the information that
21 you provide today will help us make a decision as to how
22 we move forward in either finally deciding to go forward
23 wi th the 500,000 for education purposes or to back away
24 from it and return the 500,000 to ratepayers..25 Just yesterday we received a proposal from
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1 the Office of Energy Resources. Some of you who may be
2 presenting today may not have seen that. I don i t know if
3 it has been provided to others that would be providing
4 testimony. How many have not seen that?
5 MR. CHISHOLM: I saw it today.
6 COMMI S S IONER KEMPTON: Ha ve you seen it
7 today?
8 MR. CHISHOLM: Just this afternoon when I
9 walked in here.
10 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Okay, what I'm
11 going to do before I go any further is to take a
12 ten-minute recess. Don, would you pass those out to --
13 are they on the table over there?
14 MR. HOWELL: Yes, they are.
15 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Okay, I'm going to
16 take a ten-minute recess and the purpose is to allow time
17 to efficiently look at that paper so that no one is going
18 into this without having had a chance to review it. We
19 will get back to business at 10 minutes till.20 (Recess. )
21 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: If you'll come back
22 to order, the court reporter is now recording, so moving
23 forward, I would like to recommend from the Chair that
24 the presentation order start with IEEP and then probably
25 just go in the order of introductions. As a process, I
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.1 think it would work well to let whoever is presenting
2 finish a full presentation and then, again, going through
3 the order in which people signed up, we i 11 find if there
4 are any questions they would like to ask. We i 11 go
5 through that, through one complete repetition of
6 everybody here and if there 's additional discussion that
7 needs to take place, we i 11 just do that at the direction
8 of the Chair, so before we begin, are there any other
9 preliminary matters from anybody?
10 Okay, Mr. Chisholm, if you would like to
11 begin with your presentation.
12 MR. CHISHOLM: Mr. Chairman and Members of.13 the Commission, I appreciate the opportunity to be here
14 today and I'd like to start out with one of the
15 statements out of the 2007 energy plan that says in order
16 to protect and enhance Idaho's quality of life, it is
17 incumbent on all citizens to use Idaho i s precious natural
18 resources, including energy, in a wise and responsible
19 manner, and I know no better way to meet that goal than
20 through energy education, because we have to know what
21 the components are of energy, both on its consumption and
22 production side, in order to make wise decisions and I
23 know no better place to do that than in schools and that
24 was one of the reasons why I put the proposal on the.25 table in the first place.
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1 First off, I would li ke to note, really,
2 that this is ratepayer money, this portion we're talking
3 about is ratepayer money, and I believe it really is in a
4 sense public interest money. It i S not taxpayer money.
5 It i S not money that belongs to Idaho Power. It is the
6 ratepayer i s money. I believe they have a slightly
7 different interest in some of the energy decisions than
8 Idaho Power would, so I think it 1 S important that they be
9 included in the process.
10 In my original proposal, I asked to
11 propose a partnership that included Idaho Office of
12 Energy Resources, Idaho State Department of Education,
13 Idaho Power and Idaho Energy Education Proj ect to make
14 sure that it had that sort of ratepayer public interest
15 component in it and that's what I see as really is
16 missing. On June 9th, there was a meeting at the Idaho
17 Power headquarters of the Northwest Energy Efficiency
18 Alliance in which there was representatives of utilities
19 and various interests, including the design lab, Idaho
20 Power's efficiency department, different folks, and it
21 came up that you don't have to sell industry any more
22 energy efficiency, they know it. What is lacking is
23 really all the vendors and the technicians. An engineer
24 got up and said what is lacking is we don't really have
25 trained engineers. The architect said we don't really
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1 have enough qualified lead educated architects and it
2 came up that we really need a K-12 sort of track that
3 will sort of get students interested in energy and move
4 them along and hopefully, move them on into the higher
5 education to make the decision.
6 I did the first soldier school's project
7 in Idaho. I was the coordinator of the first soldier
8 school i s proj ect partnered with Idaho Power and through
9 the green power proj ect and when we had the dedication of
10 that facility, Mark Bowen who is the Idaho vice president
11 of CH2M Hill was at the dedication and he said I would
12 expect I would find my future engineers, you know, coming
13 from a school that has you know, our soldier schools
14 that are thinking outside the box, so there's good reason
15 for the Public Utili ties Commission to be moving into and
16 looking at energy education as an important public
17 interest aspect of how the money, how this money is used
18 and hopefully, how some other future monies is used.
19 So today is the first day I saw what the
20 Idaho Office of Energy with this other partnership minus
21 the Idaho Energy Education proj ect proposed and I think
22 it i s got some serious shortcomings. There iS, like,
23 $160,000 out of $500,000 for administration. I think
24 that's way more than would be necessary. I really.25 foresaw a lot more of that money actually going into, the
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1 250,000 of the education component going into, education
2 and more of the $250,000 for student-driven projects.
3 One of the things I did after the
4 invol vement in the council for the soldier school i s
5 proj ect, one of the things -- one of the shortcomings I
6 saw in that particular proj ect was that it was an
7 adult-driven project. We had a good time putting that
8 proj ect together, but we didn't involve the students
9 enough in that proj ect, so it wasn't too long later
10 that -- I worked with Castleford quite a bit, but the
11 superintendent said we've got this greenhouse we got from
12 Albertson's and it i S a really great educational tool, but
13 it's costing us an arm and leg to heat that school and I
14 said okay, we i re going to do it different this time, so I
15 went to the school and one day I taught the students how
16 to assess that greenhouse, you know, where was it losing
17 energy, where you could stop energy loss, where you could
18 get energy sinks, heat sinks into that thing so that we
19 could cut the loss, and then I gave them information
20 where they could do some research and then came back at a
21 place for them to come up with a plan, and part of the
22 process, part of my involvement as an activist, I was
23 involved in a water transfer of (inaudible J and as part
24 of our settlement, I got some money for Castleford
25 School, so the dairy owner and myself signed a letter to
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1 the school board and said we want this money to get
2 invested. We don i t want it just merely spent, so that
3 money was then available for the students to implement
4 their plan in saving energy for that proj ect, so that's
5 what I see in terms of how this proj ect would go is that
6 you would train the teachers. You would have curriculum,
7 and then by the proposal put forth by Office of Energy
8 Resources and the Department of Ed, it sounds almost like
9 you have to reinvent the wheel to a certain extent, where
10 on June 9th when the Energy Efficiency Alliance was
11 meeting in Boise, over in Pocatello and Idaho Falls there
12 was an energy training the teachers, Think Energy Idaho
13 Professional Development, teacher training workshop,
14 Idaho, ISU continuing education credits available, energy
15 acti vi ties guides correlated to Idaho content standards
16 for science, technology, math, and social studies, so
17 that says to me that there doesn i t have to be as much
18 money going into administration as there is in this
19 proposal, and so at this juncture, I think that it would
20 really be incumbent upon this proposal to include the
21 Idaho Energy Education Project or some public interest
22 enti ty as a partner in this proj ect so that we could have
23 had the discussion.
24 I invited these people to participate.
25 The Department of Ed and actually Idaho Power both
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.1 assigned somebody to talk and I met with them and then
2 all of a sudden, for reasons beyond my comprehension,
3 that was pulled out, but we could have been six weeks
4 ahead with this proj ect right now, but I think that it's
5 really important, this proj ect is important. I don't
6 want to see this money just dissipate back into you
7 know, $500,000 back to the ratepayers is not going to be
8 significant, but $500,000 invested in energy education
9 could be very substantial, because you get the kids
10 thinking about energy education, it's going to go back
11 into the community. You're going to have a real impact
12 and I think it i S very, very important that these proj ects.13 heavily involve the students, that they have some
14 ownership, that they go in and they have an opportunity
15 to assess what's happening in their building or some
16 public entity in their community and have ownership in
17 the plan and then have the money there to facilitate that
18 proj ect becoming part of their community, saving energy
19 and saving money in a very important time, saving both,
20 so that's what I have to say for now.
21 I do have a fall-back position in terms of
22 if we can't if these other parties won't cooperate in
23 forming the partnership as I envisioned in the original
24 thing, then I have another al ternati ve as to how this.25 project can move forward with far less cost than $160,000
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1 in administrative costs.
2 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Okay, thank you,
3 Mr. Chisholm. Would you provide those Idaho Falls papers
4 that you had for the record?
5 MR. CHISHOLM: I will, yeah.
6 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Marsha?
7 COMMISSIONER SMITH: I just had a
8 question. Thank you, Mr. Chisholm. I think it i S an
9 important thing, too, and one of your statements jarred
10 my mind about work force issues, which in the electric
11 industry, work force issues are a very big concern these
12 days. We don i t have enough qualified electrical
13 engineers, the utilities, and I know the Western
14 Electrici ty Coordinating Council which now has to run out
15 of reliability centers are always searching for qualified
16 people, but what it made me wonder is whether K-12 is the
17 right place to put our focus and maybe we'd get there
18 faster in terms of work force issues if we applied this
19 to higher ed and sponsored students to go into
20 engineering, electrical engineering, fields and nuclear
21 engineering fields and the fields where I think we are
22 most lacking right now, so I'd appreciate your response
23 to that.
24 MR. CHISHOLM: Well, I think that seeds
25 need to be planted and it takes some time that if you
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1 invested in $500,000 at the top end, it would be more of
2 a bubble, it would be a quick bubble, because it couldn't
3 do the kind of work; whereas, if you invested that money
4 in a longer term process -- I mean, I think both have to
5 happen somehow, but I don't think this $500,000 that
6 we're talking about at this juncture would do as much
7 good up there as it would starting to plant those seeds,
8 because I always look at energy. I started this Energy
9 Education Proj ect sort of as a response to the
10 (inaudible) plant because people were talking about being
11 against this one particular type of energy production and
12 I'm going, you have to talk about the whole issue. You
13 have to talk about the consumption side as well as the
14 production side, that the consumption side, if we're
15 trying to produce this level of consumption, i. e., last
16 week sometime Idaho Power, you know, maxxed out on its
17 peak load higher than it ever had before, so if you have
18 an educated public in terms of energy and really the
19 impacts, then I think that you'll see an impact on this
20 end of the thing and that will affect some of the drive
21 and need on the other side of the equation, so I really
22 see this energy education as a component for balancing
23 the equation and that it's not all a production-oriented
24 discussion, that consumption is as big a player or
25 actually the bigger player in this thing and it i s
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1 basically sort of been ignored.
2 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you.
3 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Commissioner
4 Redford.
5 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Yes, I have a
6 couple of questions. In addition to the very laudable
7 accomplishments and goals that you have talked about and
8 understanding that $500,000 in a program like this isn i t
9 that much, we Ire, of course, very interested in not only
10 the way the program will be directed, but also how the
11 proj ect elements will be funded. I've gone through the
12 records before me and have you submitted a pro forma
13 statement as to how this cost will be broken out as to
14 administration, training, so on and so forth?
15 All the things that you've said are great,
16 but I just want to know, at least from my standpoint, how
17 the buck is going to be spent.
18 MR. CHISHOLM: I haven't gotten it, but
19 it's actually in development. I've been talking to the
20 National Energy Foundation. I've been talking to the
21 people about the curriculum, how much the curriculum is
22 going to cost. I mean, basically the National Energy
23 Foundation has curricula that's broken down for the
24 elementary grades, the junior high and the high school
25 grades and those booklets are about $100 a booklet.
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1 There's 379 schools in the Idaho Power service area and
2 so I'm in the process of getting that all broken down,
3 but I don't believe that there has to be -- you know, the
4 administrati ve costs have to be as high as is in this
5 other proposal, that I think it can be -- the curriculum
6 is there and there are various teacher associations, the
7 Idaho Environmental Educators Association, there are
8 associations we can plug into, people already moving and
9 have interest in training in that that we can be plugging
10 into, so I think that we can shift more of the money into
11 actually getting to the curriculum and I will present
12 dollars, a dollar summation, to the puc.
13 COMMISSIONER REDFORD:You complained a
14 li ttle bit about the Office of Energy, their
15 administrati ve costs; yet, in your initial statement, you
16 provided that one-third of the cost would go to actually
17 teaching teachers and that's an administrative cost which
18 comes up to about 166,000.
19 MR. CHISHOLM: Well, I don't think
20 training the teachers has to be that much of the money.
21 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Well, I'm just
22 going by what you said.
23 MR. CHISHOLM: That a third of the
24 200, OOO?
25 COMMISSIONER REDFORD:I thought it was a
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1 third of the 500 or is it 250?
2 MR. CHISHOLM: It 1 S a third of the 250,000
3 would go to teacher training, so basically I see the
4 classroom portion, the $250,000 is a classroom, teacher
5 training, curriculum part of the package and then the
6 proj ects, the proj ects themselves, are hopefully out of
7 that. You get teachers and students who are interested,
8 they apply for grants, they do an assessment in their
9 school, they come up with the math, they apply for grants
10 and then that $250,000 that's for proj ects is then
11 granted to the school to implement the project, so that's
12 about $80,000 for the teacher training, and the
13 curriculum figures I've got, you know, getting the
14 booklets and everything is about $40,000.
15 COMMISSIONER REDFORD:Well, in addition
16 to being public employees, we're also business people and
17 I for one could not in good conscious award or direct
18 this money to go anywhere until I have an absolute penny
19 by penny pro forma statement as to where it's going to go
20 and I just can't -- I mean, this overall thing just
21 doesn't do anything for me.
22 MR. CHISHOLM: I concur. I mean, I think
23 what we're talking about is development of a program. In
24 the initial phase, I said I think this money should be
25 invested in energy education and then the next process
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1 came down to more detail about how that would happen and
2 if the people I invited to partner would have partnered,
3 i think we would have had at this exact moment, we would
4 have been a little further down the process, but it is
5 coming together and I certainly agree. I think you don't
6 want to say okay, here's a blank check. I mean, okay,
7 I'LL actually move into my al ternati ve thing is that
8 if -- I mean, I think it i S really important that there be
9 a partnership and my preferred partnership would be the
10 original partnership that I proposed and if somehow that
11 didn't happen, then what I would propose is that there be
12 an Idaho energy trust established, something like you
13 have the telecommunications thing for the Universal
14 Service Fund, something like that, that there would be a
15 fund set up that would control that money and that the
16 thing would be -- money would be distributed as, for
17 instance, the curriculum bill comes in and then we go
18 okay, the curriculum has gone out to the school, the
19 letters of invitation have gone out to the school
20 districts, to individual schools, teachers working
21 through the teacher associations, so I see that there is
22 an al ternati ve and I think when you make the decision
23 that you do need to have all the pieces of the puzzle
24 laid before you.
25 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Right. Well, our
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1 Order came out on April 14th and I believe we invited all
2 the participants or anyone to come forward with some sort
3 of a plan and I think this is an important program and
4 speed is a thing that we need to address and it i S been
5 four months now and we haven't received anything. I
6 don i t have anything further.
7 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Any other
8 questions? Okay, thank you, Mr. Chisholm. I'm going to
9 reorder slightly from what I said early on the order of
10 presentations. I i m going to get the big four, so to
11 speak. Bill, you've done yours, so Director Kjellander,
12 would you present, please?
13 MR. KJELLANDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman
14 and Members of the Commission. I appreciate the
15 opportuni ty to meet before you today. First of all, I do
16 appreciate the enthusiasm that was exhibited by the
17 previous presenter, and I also recognize that without
18 having knowledge of the presentation prior to today, it's
19 very difficult for him to provide an analysis of what it
20 does or doesn i t do, but with regard to questions or
21 concerns about the Office of Energy Resources and its
22 involvement in this case, I think I'd like to just
23 clarify that up front before I move forward with the
24 specifics of the proposal.
25 The OER was not a party to the original
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1 S02 case as an intervenor and, quite realistically, if we
2 look at the order that created the OER, there would be no
3 reason for the OER to have played that role, so when this
4 grew out of that specific case and we received an inquiry
5 from someone who was involved in another modified
6 procedure, it seemed fairly inappropriate for the Office
7 of Energy Resources to engage itself and interfere in a
8 matter before the Public Utilities Commission, because,
9 in essence, being the Governor's Office of Energy
10 Resources, that would be equivalent to the Governor
11 coming in and then being engaged in a process where it
12 wasn i t invited.
13 We do believe, however, that the Order
14 that created this status conference workshop opened that
15 door for us and at that point, then we began to develop a
16 partnership with both Idaho Power and with the
17 Superintendent of Public Instruction for the Department
18 of Education to present a program and project proposal
19 that we fully believe meets the intent of the orders that
20 we reviewed in relationship to the S02 case, which was
21 the origins of the half million dollars that are in
22 question today, so with that said, then, I would like to
23 move forward with at least the proposal that we have here
24 today and afford an opportunity for some of the other
25 parties that are involved with our proposal to comment as
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1 they see fit in relationship to support for this specific
2 venture.
3 What we have in front of you is a very
4 short proposal, including a brief budget outline, that is
5 created with the intent that the Idaho Office of Energy
6 Resources would be the lead agency in a proj ect going
7 forward. What we believe we have is a good relationship
8 and partnership now with Idaho Power Company and with the
9 Idaho Department of Education which provides a level of
10 establishing accountability which we believe is essential
11 to ensuring the revenues of this proj ect are used for the
12 intended purpose and can withstand any audit review. The
13 Department of Education and the Office of Energy
14 Resources are fully subj ect to audits from the state
15 level, so any proj ect, any funding we had would go
16 through that full scrutiny, similarly to the way in which
17 the Idaho Public Utilities Commission is engaged in audit
18 review.
19 Outside of that, with Idaho Power
20 Company's involvement here, clearly, not only do they
21 have independent audits in relationship to their business
22 environment, but also through the oversight that the
23 Commission brings to the table, so we do believe that
24 this collaborative effort will provide the certainty that
25 I believe has been articulated that the Commission would
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1 like to see with regards to the fair and reasonable and
2 just use of those funds for the intended purposes
3 outlined.
4 Specifically, this proposal establishes
5 the OER as the lead agency for an energy education
6 project and intends to utilize the S02 proceeds of half a
7 million dollars that were referenced in Case No.
8 IPC-E-08-11. The project has two main thrusts: an
9 energy efficiency curriculum component and an enhanced
10 energy efficiency funding element. Both efforts we
11 believe are consistent with the scope of the IPUC IS
12 recent orders.
13 As a brief overview, the energy efficiency
14 curriculum component has two distinct phases. The first
15 phase identifies teachers who will work with the
16 Department of Education to identify a curriculum, adjust
17 it to meet Idaho's needs, and utilize it in the
18 classroom. It i s the intent to look at existing
19 curriculum without having to reinvent the wheel and to
20 adapt that to meet the Idaho standards that the
21 Department of Education could outline more fully in
22 reference to the fact that not all curriculum is created
23 that will meet the standards for the State of Idaho, so
24 there would be the need for some adaptation.
25 Under the first stage of the curriculum
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.1 development component, they would identify the actual age
2 group in which they would move forward with this
3 curriculum, identify the curriculum, and then identify
4 two teachers that would be used to help develop the
5 curriculum, adapt it and then utilize it in the classroom
6 so that we can gain more firsthand information and
7 understand what further needs to be adapted in
8 relationship to that curriculum. From that point, then,
9 the knowledge gained from that first initial phase of the
10 pilot proj ect would be used to help adapt the
11 train-the-trainer component.
12 The train-the-trainer component is.13 outlined in the proposal we have. It's an established
14 element in many education curriculum developments and is
15 used throughout the nation. More information could be
16 provided on that by the Superintendent of Public
17 Instruction if you so choose to have more detail, so at
18 that point, then, we would have teachers that would be
19 trained to use a curriculum. Without that training
20 component, a curriculum is of no value. A curriculum by
21 itself without trained educators who know how to utilize
22 it simply will have no benefit in the classroom, so
23 that's why that is such a key component moving forward,
24 and, again, that would focus in large part on energy.25 efficiency.
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1 The second piece of the proposal looks
2 more fully at trying to develop a direct cash incentive
3 that would be on top of those incentives already
4 available to schools through Idaho Power Company. We
5 look at a target amount of about $185,000 that, again,
6 could be used for additional incentives. In talking with
7 schools, the Superintendent of Education and others
8 invol ved directly with schools, the biggest problem they
9 have with deploying energy efficiency and even trying to
10 take advantage of some of those incentives that exist
11 today is the lack of capital and without additional
12 capi tal, the cost effectiveness of it simply isn't wi thin
13 their budgets and trying to find that money is a
14 difficul t venture, so an additional incentive could
15 certainly help kick start some of the incentive packets
16 that are already there and immediately begin to deploy
17 more energy efficiency in schools wi thin Idaho Power IS
18 service terri tory, and, again, since this money was
19 generated through S02 funds directly tied to Idaho Power
20 Company i s terri tory, the proj ect scope for this venture
21 would be limited to Idaho Power's territory.
22 That said, we would hope that we could
23 come up with a model that may well be utilized should any
24 other funding come forward to look not just at Idaho
25 Power i S terri tory in the future, but look at Avista and
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1 Rocky Mountain Power as well as potentially with some of
2 the publics and munis that exist wi thin the state. We
3 believe that we could come with up with a model that is
4 extraordinary and would indeed be with the intent of the
5 orders that were issued by the Idaho Public Utilities
6 Commission.
7 As a final point, when we look at the
8 marketing component and the cash that is set aside for
9 that, we then met with Idaho Power again to talk about
10 their Idaho Power Solar 4R Schools venture, and we met
11 with Boise State University in relationship to their wind
12 for schools project and while we don't identify specific
13 money for those proj ects to try to deploy them in the
14 schools, we do think that if we have some money for
15 marketing to reach those schools that we ought to find
16 many of the other projects that exist like that within
17 their service terri tory included in that marketing
18 program so that schools have better access to knowing
19 what is available and we certainly would want to get the
20 biggest bank for the buck as we move forward with this
21 venture, so, again, I think what we bring to the table
22 today is an established relationship with educators who
23 understand the Idaho education system, with the utility
24 and with the Office of Energy Resources who already has
25 contacts with the schools in relationship to energy
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1 efficiency, and we also bring an added layer of
2 accountabili ty that I believe is needed and required to
3 serve in the public interest as it relates to the
4 deployment of funds identified in this proj ect.
5 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Thank you, Director
6 Kj ellander. I have some questions. Actually, they
7 will -- they're addressed to you at this point in time,
8 but they'll also migrate downstream to the following
9 presenters as well. I think Mr. Chisholm brought up a
10 real good point in the costs associated with some of this
11 and, for example, without going into detail right now,
12 but just as a surface observation, in the administration
13 side with .80 FTE for two years, that i s 1,664 hours per
14 .80 FTE and apparently, there's just one here, but it's
15 for two years. One has to ask exactly how a person would
16 be used like that and how much of that money could be
17 conserved if as a matter of fact the administration cost
18 wasn't that high. There i s also a term train-the-trainer
19 models utilize curriculum coordinators to both train and
20 support educators, and I guess my question is what would
21 a curriculum coordinator know about energy efficiency
22 programs and how would he pass on that knowledge in
23 training and supporting educators? I mean, the language
24 is there, but I don't see a curriculum coordinator
25 necessarily being an expert or having the knowledge that
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1 it would take to move forward and train and support
2 educators.
3 The 500,000 in my mind is not something
4 that should be used to supplant the education budget and
5 so I'm looking forward to Superintendent Luna 's
6 presentation in a minute, because I would like to know
7 what kind of an interface you intend in what you
8 presented here in moving from a curriculum which
9 apparently can be developed with the assistance of
10 outside programs, the National Energy Foundation, NEEA,
11 others, where I don i t think that we necessarily need to,
12 as has been mentioned before, reinvent the wheel if those
13 things are already there, there are core classrooms that
14 you need to adapt them to the Idaho way of doing
15 business. I'm not so sure that the presentation so far
16 has been convincing that we really are looking at the
17 efficiencies that outside organizations may already have
18 in place and could be adopted and thereby reducing some
19 of the costs in the program.
20 On the one hand, half a million dollars is
21 qui te a bit of money. On the other hand, when you get to
22 expending it, it can go out the window really fast and I
23 know we preach on that, it's just that it's not a whole
24 lot of money and there's no provision for recurring
25 dollars, so consequently, it's a one-time thing and what
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1 you're left with when the money is gone is the basis for
2 the program from that point forward and you would hope
3 that it doesn It just simply stop there because we haven i t
4 built the inertia and the momentum to move that forward.
5 I think rather than developing more
6 questions along that same line, I would simply ask two
7 questions. No.1, do you see an ability in using the
8 organizations that you have brought together in your
9 proposal and hopefully, input from IEEP because I don i t
10 think in this case that the experience of others that
11 have participated in these kinds of programs should be
12 lost to discussions among all the relevant parties who
13 are interested in the potential for the $500,000, so
14 that i s the first question.
15 The second question is if you have the
16 organizational structure to do this, can we put it
17 together in a time period that will allow it to be
18 implemented without going clear over into 2009 before you
19 see anything going on in the classrooms?
20 MR. KJELLANDER: Mr. Chairman, I i 11 take
21 the last question first and again, I'll allow
22 Superintendent Luna to elaborate as he'd like to. In
23 looking at curriculum development, the reality of that is
24 unless you have people trained and ready to roll in how
25 to use the curriculum, the curriculum identified if
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1 modified to meet Idaho standards, you can't use it in the
2 classroom in an effective way unless you find the
3 appropriate incentives as well to get the teachers there
4 and to make sure that the schools are motivated to
5 utilize it, it simply won't get utilized and so we need
6 to make sure that the time is right and that the material
7 is appropriate and makes sense going forward.
8 What we don i t want is a failed proj ect in
9 the area of the energy education component. The energy
10 efficiency component is one we i re looking at as one year
11 because that's something we get out there and get it done
12 now and have direct results to report back, but the
13 curriculum piece of it isn't something you just throw
14 together and quite realistically, when you look at the
15 type of training that needs to go in for instructors to
16 use that, you can't really put it together in that quick
17 time line. Even if a plan had been proposed in April of
18 this year that was fully funded, I think that the time
19 line to even try and get a curriculum identified and
20 modified with the intent that you could use it by the
21 beginning of January would be aggressive and perhaps
22 impossible, but I'll leave the remainder of any comments
23 in association with that to someone who is far better at
24 understanding the needs of education and teachers and the
25 classrooms than myself.
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1 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Okay, Commissioner
2 Smith.
3 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you so much. I
4 want to talk a minute about the portion for the
5 efficiency project and let 1 s see, I noticed that in the
6 IEEP' s response that was filed with the Commission on
7 April 28th, they had suggested that the proj ect monies
8 could be used either in participating schools or in some
9 project in the local community that was in need of such a
10 project, so I wondered under your proposal, is there any
11 flexibility to use it for anything other than a school
12 building?
13 MR. KJELLANDER: Mr. Chairman and
14 Commissioner, at this point we were looking primarily at
15 schools to be the beneficiaries of this proj ect since it
16 was an education piece. Just to kind of illustrate a few
17 points that we heard from some of the Governor's
18 Capital-for a-Day event, when educators there come to
19 talk about the problems they're facing, they know that
20 they need to do energy efficiency. They know that they
21 need to help reduce their bills and they i ve seen what i s
22 happened to them in the way of transportation costs, but
23 the reality is that they just don i t have the capital to
24 match projects or to even put up their share for some of
25 the existing incentives, so we thought with this specific
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1 proposal that this was a tremendous avenue and
2 opportuni ty to aggressively pursue energy efficiency in
3 those school buildings and to leverage some of this
4 addi tional cash incentives, some of the existing cash
5 incentives that exist through Idaho Power Company with
6 the belief that we could help bust down some of those
7 barriers with access to this funding and genuinely get
8 the kind of energy efficiency we all want to get, which
9 is that which is immediate, quick and cost effective and
10 ul timately helps us look at potentially having some
11 non-wire alternatives as being a result of those efforts
12 and so that i s why we targeted the schools because we
13 think it's an opportunity, too, to begin talking about
14 some of the other potential opportunities for schools
15 once they get hooked.
16 There i s going to be a big proj ect that is
17 going to be a ribbon cutting next week in Caldwell with
18 some performance contracting they did there for public
19 schools in energy efficiency that our office was involved
20 with. We i re always involved with schools in trying to
21 work with them in relationship to deploy energy
22 efficiency in the most cost effective manner to live
23 within their own budgets. This could be another avenue
24 to get into that forum and talk more about some of those
25 other options so that when they get hooked on the reality
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1 that energy efficiency really can mean cost savings for
2 them or at least an ability to contain those rising costs
3 that we all know are coming down the horizon that we have
4 a group of people that now can look to us in a sense of
5 some additional credibility and trust going forward.
6 COMMISSIONER SMITH: So that was a no?
7 MR. KJELLANDER: Okay.
8 COMMISSIONER SMITH: With regard to the
9 educational part of the proj ect, I need clarification. I
10 got confused. In your proposal, you talk about the
11 National Energy Education Development or NEED project and
12 when Mr. Chisholm spoke, he spoke about the Idaho Energy
13 Education Proj ect. Is the Idaho Energy Education
14 Proj ect, is that the same -- and the National Energy
15 Foundation, are these like three different organizations
16 and entities that pass like ships in the night doing
17 similar things but never really coordinating and, if so,
18 what i s the best one to get on board with?
19 MR. KJELLANDER: Commissioner, that i s
20 really the intent of this phase of the project is to
21 identify which one makes the most sense and that we can
22 pull up and adapt the easiest for Idaho. It i S a lot like
23 many of the organizations that exist within the
24 regulatory front, all the acronyms that are out there.
25 Many of them end up doing the same thing and wouldn i tit
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1 be nice for someone to assess which one really was the
2 best and which one you wanted to get behind and work
3 forward with and that i s what we intend to do with this is
4 go through and evaluate some of those.
5 That i s why this first phase, to pull two
6 teachers in to help us identify that curriculum and then
7 to actually use it in the classroom, I think, is
8 extraordinarily significant before we move to that next
9 training component with a broader number of educators is
10 to clearly get to that issue, because there i s a lot out
11 there. There may be the potential to meld some of them.
12 There may be an ability to take one off and use it just
13 as is, but we need to do some additional evaluation,
14 because when you talk to the people that are marketing
15 them, it's their business, of course, everyone has the
16 best, we'd like to weed through that and through Scott
17 Smi th, I i 11 refer to him as the science guy at the
18 Department of Education, we i ve already got a tremendous
19 level of expertise through him to help us get into that
20 and assess that very issue in much more granularity.
21 COMMISSIONER SMITH: And finally, if I
22 could do one more, I have the same question to you as I
23 gave to Mr. Chisholm, if our work force issues are
24 imminent, which they are given, I think, maybe up to 40.25 percent of the trained people in this industry are going
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1 to retire in the next five to ten years, would we be
2 better looking at higher education as opposed to K-12?
3 MR. KJELLANDER: Madam Chairman and
4 Members of the Commission, I mean, we talk about the
5 graying work force, I hate to look in the mirror in the
6 morning because I see it. The effort with education can
7 go a lot of different directions and with the amount of
8 money here, I think we have to realistically look at what
9 could be done. Certainly, there could be a target to
10 higher ed. There are people already working on that. In
11 fact, we i ve begun working directly with a small business
12 center over at Boise State Uni versi ty to look at a
13 combined grant project that would actually create from
14 their pool of students a group of people who can actually
15 go out to do energy efficiency audits in buildings and so
16 those efforts are occurring, but we look at the long
17 term, I think if we can get in and touch the hearts and
18 minds of those young people, and in my perspective and
19 granted, we haven i t targeted an age group yet, I 1m
20 looking at fourth, fifth and sixth graders and get them
21 exci ted about the fact that there could be careers in
22 energy.
23 By the time I was in college, I kind of
24 already knew what direction I wanted to go and what
25 directions I wasn't going to consider, but when I was
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.1 younger, that i s when I formulated those ideas and I
2 think, again, if we can get and inculcate into the young
3 hearts a desire to move into that direction, that might
4 be a great place to be instead of waiting until maybe
5 they i ve already made their decision going forward.
6 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Director
7 Kj ellander, another question because maybe we're getting
8 a distinction in what we i re actually looking at in terms
9 of "education" and what I i m speaking to specifically is
10 the distinction between education for school building
11 conservation and efficiency and K-12 education for future
12 knowledge in an energy constrained world. I mean,.13 there's two separate things here. One is the K-12 level
14 as a pure education process that leads on into their
15 future lives and their knowledge of what's going on now
16 and the other is to build efficiencies into school
17 buildings that currently exist or we i re talking about
18 going as far as building standards what would be used in
19 future construction, so is there a division in terms of
20 the proposal that you made here? Are you separating it
21 into roughly those two kinds of categories or are you
22 not?
23 MR. KJELLANDER: Mr. Chairman, if we look
24 purely on the focus of education, there is clearly a.25 classroom education piece and then there i s actually that
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1 educating the educators from the energy efficiency side
2 and the administrators of those school buildings; letting
3 them know what i s out there today that they need to be
4 taking advantage of and what better way than to help
5 introduce them to those incentives that are there and
6 actually help them deploy that in their schools so that
7 when they go to their patrons for that next bonding issue
8 down the road and need to get a building, there i s no
9 question as to whether or not they're going to be
10 building energy efficient buildings. That i s going to be
11 a piece of it. They're going to be sold on it and that
12 piece of education, I think, can be a huge part of this.
13 Once they recognize the value of it, there won i t be the
14 need to pass legislation down the road that mandates that
15 they utilize a certain standard in going forward. It
16 will be a cost effective thing that they're aware of
17 because they i ve been educated through this process, so I
18 see those as being two very distinct, different types of
19 educational components but certainly very related and,
20 again, very rooted in the essence of what education is.
21 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Commissioner
22 Redford.
23 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Again, we only have
24 $500,000 and we all I'm sure agree that that's not an end
25 to all ends as far as education and so on. What I 'm
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1 hearing you say, and correct me, please, if I'm wrong, is
2 that this is really seed money to get curriculums
3 established to go out through the state, to make sure
4 that the teachers have utilization of a curriculum and to
5 the extent the monies we can offer to begin the program
6 of teaching the students at a certain level and you 're
7 not suggesting, are you, that we go out and start
8 programs and projects and all those various things, that
9 this is really a seed, a dollar one type of program and
10 one that, frankly, I hope that i s what you're saying.
11 MR. KJELLANDER: Mr. Chairman and
12 Commissioner Redford, the answer is yes. I'm learning
13 from Commissioner Smith, yes.
14 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Thank you.
15 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: If there i s no
16 objection, I'm going to do this a little differently.
17 Instead of questions at this point other than what the
18 Commission has asked, I i m going to go to the other two
19 presenters so that we i ve got a solid base of people
20 presenting and then we i 11 come back in with the questions
21 so that we can direct them, because we i re getting
22 piecemeal questions coming in to individual presenters
23 and we probably need the whole schmeer out here to see
24 where we are.
25 Superintendent Luna, would you present,
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1 please?
2 MR. LUNA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
3 Members of the Commission, I suspect if we could just
4 learn to harness the energy of our first and second
5 graders we wouldn i t have this issue before us today, but
6 we have yet been unable to do that. I want to thank you
7 for giving me the opportunity to be here today and to
8 speak to you a bit about the importance of increasing
9 energy efficiency programs in our schools and
10 implementing energy efficiency curriculum that will teach
11 Idaho students how to be wise stewards of energy and wise
12 consumers of our precious energy resources. This is a
13 timely discussion. Having attended some of the
14 Governor's Capi tal-for-a-Day and being in schools for
15 those meetings, we i ve had superintendents and other
16 school administrators stand up and talk about the
17 increased cost of energy and what that's doing to their
18 precious education dollars and so this is timely.
19 This program that i s been developed with
20 the Idaho Office of Energy Resources and Idaho Power
21 Company will assist our schools in the short term and the
22 long term. $500,000 is a lot of money, but it is a
23 finite amount of money and so it's important that we
24 focus those dollars in the best way to make sure that we
25 get the best return on that expenditure and that
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1 investment. In the short term, the program will help
2 save our schools money, there iS just no doubt. Education
3 dollars are precious and when I travel across the state,
4 I hear from people on both sides of the political aisle
5 and from all walks of life that believe that education
6 should be adequately funded, but I hear very few people
7 say we i re not spending enough money on energy, we're not
8 spending enough money on administration or we're not
9 spending enough money on bussing or transportation. What
10 they're saying is we're not spending enough money in the
11 classroom and I agree with them.
12 What this proposal would do would help
13 free up precious education dollars that are being spent
14 outside the classroom and make them available to be spent
15 in the classroom on important tools for education, things
16 like textbooks, classroom supplies and materials,
17 remediation for students who struggle, opportunities for
18 those students who are advanced. Every dollar that we
19 spend outside of the classroom is obviously $1.00 that is
20 not being spent on those important needs and so this is a
21 program that is a great way for us as a state to increase
22 the awareness of the incentive programs that schools have
23 available to them and also great ways for our schools to
24 learn the simple, best practices for conserving energy,
25 as simply as turning off their computers at night.
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1 At one of the schools we were visiting,
2 Paul took the opportunity to explain to them the money
3 they could save by putting an apparatus on each one of
4 their vending machines. These kinds of energy saving
5 ideas in the short term will be an immediate benefit to
6 our schools. In the long term, Idaho students will
7 ul timately benefit. Not only will this program have
8 schools dedicate more money to the classroom where it i s
9 needed the most, but this program also has an educational
10 component that will teach Idaho students important
11 lessons about energy efficiency.
12 My staff at the State Department of
13 Education will work with the Office of Energy Resources
14 and the Idaho Power Company to develop a curriculum that
15 meets Idaho content standards and teaches students the
16 importance of conserving energy, and why is this an
17 important lesson for students? Because if we teach
18 students at an early age, they will not struggle to
19 conserve energy later in life. It will be natural to
20 them. An example I would ask you to consider is that of
21 seat belts. It took about a generation, but because of
22 the focus of using seat belts, we have raised a
23 generation of children and now teenagers and moving into
24 adulthood that it's just second nature for them to use a
25 seat belt. I'm not there yet and so I'm reminded by my
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1 kids and grandkids to put on my seat belt, but because
2 we've educated a generation in the wise use of seat
3 bel ts, it's second nature to them and that's the
4 long-term value of this.
5 Now, the other benefit long term to
6 children that's been addressed here is it will open up
7 the world of energy to them and as we struggle to help
8 students see the relevance of math and science when they
9 get into middle school and high school, opening up the
10 world of energy to them, they will begin to realize the
11 relevance of the math and science they're learning and it
12 will encourage many of them to become more proficient in
13 those subj ect matters so that when they get to college,
14 Commissioner Smith, they i 11 have the skills to pursue
15 that career. Today too many of our students graduate
16 from high school and even if they were to choose once
17 they get about college to pursue a career in energy,
18 unfortunately, too many of them do not have the science
19 and math skills to take advantage of that desire.
20 I'll also remind you, I guess you know
21 this, but I'll just state that the ratepayers are also
22 the beneficiaries of this proposal, because they are the
23 same ones who fund our schools on a daily basis and the
24 more efficient use of tax dollars in our schools is more
25 efficient use of ratepayers i dollars that they're either
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1 paying in energy costs or to fund our schools.
2 We have developed a plan to develop this
3 curriculum through the 2008-2009 school year so that it
4 will then be implemented in 2010. That's a time line
5 that we've stated, but if the desire is there, I'm
6 convinced it's a time line that can be moved if that's
7 the desire in order to get this curriculum into the
8 schools. January would be very difficult, Mr. Chairman,
9 but it's not out of reason in my mind to think that we
10 could have something going by the beginning of the
11 following school year or the 2009 school year.
12 I'm confident that this program will make
13 a great difference in schools throughout Idaho and
14 develop a model that will encourage more public utility
15 companies to get involved in public education in a
16 similar way and so I urge your expeditious support of
17 this program which will incentivize our schools to save
18 money at the administrative level and teach our children
19 how they can become more energy efficient throughout
20 their lifetime. Thank you.
21 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Thank you,
22 Superintendent Luna.
23 Mr. Kline, Idaho Power.
24 MR. KLINE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
25 We're not going to make a prepared statement today. I
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1 think Idaho Power views its role in this process as being
2 a supporting role. To the extent that the Commission
3 provides us with some direction as to how we should go,
4 that's certainly what we will support. That being said,
5 as you probably know, I'll say it again, I'm sure you
6 already know it, Idaho Power does have a number of
7 programs that it i S currently operating in the schools and
8 as part of the education process. We do have employees
9 that go to the schools, that make presentations in the
10 classroom regarding utility matters, safety, generation,
11 and they also talk about energy efficiency as a part of
12 those presentations.
13 We also, of course, provide energy
14 efficiency programs that schools can take advantage of to
15 increase the efficiency of schools, and based on our
16 discussions with the Office of Energy Resources, I think
17 Idaho Power is very comfortable that what we are
18 currently doing will fit very well with the goals that we
19 have discussed with the Office of Energy Resources and
20 we're very comfortable that the Office of Energy
21 Resources can provide the coordination, I think, that we
22 need to dovetail what we i re currently doing, the programs
23 that we're currently operating, with what others are
24 doing and hopefully, that coordination can make it more
25 efficient and economically beneficial for everyone.
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1 Certainly, we're available to answer any
2 questions that the Commissioners may have regarding what
3 role we might play.
4 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Mr. Kline, the
5 programs that you have are very good programs and in this
6 coordination process, would you see your involvement in
7 defining the curriculum and input from Idaho Power into
8 that curriculum process so that perhaps some of your
9 programs could actually be expanded where they would
10 appear to be more efficient or to be addressing the needs
11 of the students K-12?
12 MR. KLINE: Well, certainly Idaho Power is
13 an electric utility. We're not a school, we're not
14 teachers, but to the extent that we can provide perhaps
15 expertise, perhaps resources, those are the kinds of
16 things that we see that Idaho Power would bring to a
17 program like this one.
18 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: You have a working
19 program right now that already is in the school and has
20 merit because it is there and it is obviously providing
21 some benefit or the schools would have rejected them and
22 so it would look to me like that it would be advantageous
23 for Idaho Power to be at least a part of the planning
24 process in the curriculum.
25 MR. KLINE: Following the lead of Mr.
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.1 Kjellander, the answer is yes.
2 COMMI S S IONER KEMPTON: Than k you.
3 Commissioner Smith? Commissioner Redford?
4 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: No questions.
5 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: I'm going to go
6 through the list so that we can get everybody on board.
7 If you have a question at the time you're doing your
8 presentation for any of the panelists, simply indicate as
9 you're going through your presentation that you have that
10 question and who you would like to address it to, and as
11 soon as you've finished presenting, we'll have your
12 question addressed, so Ms. Sara Cohen..13 MS. COHEN: Thank you, Commissioners. I
14 actually do not have a presentation, but I do have a
15 question. If I may, I'd like to address it to whoever,
16 I'll put it on the table. On Task 2 in the proposal that
17 was presented by Mr. Kj ellander, it discusses the energy
18 efficiency proj ects in relation to the schools
19 themselves. Mr. Luna mentioned that this would also
20 include identifying areas in which the schools can
21 increase their energy efficiency on the ground; in other
22 words, turning off lights, turning off computers and that
23 sorts of thing , although I don't see that necessarily
24 described in this proposal and I do think if you'll.25 pardon the adage, it's kind of a give a man a fish, you
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1 feed him for a day, you know, teach a man to fish, you
2 feed him for a lifetime. I mean, we can provide schools
3 wi th cash incentives to increase their energy efficiency,
4 but it may be beneficial at the same time to provide them
5 wi th the education on the administration/operations side
6 on how they can directly reduce their operation and
7 maintenance costs, so my question is, is that going to be
8 a part of Task 2 as was hinted at by Mr. Luna or will it
9 primarily be just cash incentives?
10 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Mr. Kj ellander?
11 MR. KJELLANDER: Mr. Chairman, first, I'd
12 just like to note that Superintendent Luna needs to leave
13 at 3: 00 and unfortunately, I have a Fish and Game meeting
14 that I need to be leaving for.
15 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: You better answer
16 the question quick.
17 MR. KJELLANDER: So that was where we were
18 headed.
19 MR. KLINE: It's about fishing.
20 MR. KJELLANDER: First, let me add to the
21 thing about teach a man to fish, let's talk about get the
22 energy efficiency today and you get to count on it for a
23 lifetime, so I think that i s really another key component
24 to look at going forward. That to me is extraordinarily
25 important. We have people on staff today, when you look
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1 at our administrative component of this, that they can
2 get out and can help look at identifying some of those
3 energy audit areas where we can do those improvements and
4 the utility as part of their incentive program has that
5 available as well, so we're going to take advantage of
6 those resources to get out there and work with people
7 internally so that folks on the ground understand what it
8 is that's there in the building, depending on what they
9 use or what cash incentives they take advantage of and
10 what they additionally use to deploy. Maybe they're
11 looking at specific metering devices that they want to
12 put into the building to continue to monitor how they're
13 using their energy. You have to have somebody trained on
14 that going forward so you're going to get that
15 educational piece as well.
16 Not following all of your question, but
17 I i m sure it was a great question, the other piece I would
18 add is that I do agree that if you can get people to
19 understand the value and through that there will be an
20 education tie-in, they're going to go out and do more.
21 The minute that they get that first bill back that shows
22 that reduced cost and they do the math on the payback,
23 they i re going to be educated very quickly. You will have
24 taught them to fish because they're going to see what
25 that cash value is for themselves going ahead in looking
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1 at the general fund budget. You do it at your home, I do
2 it at mine. That's why you probably have CFL' s allover
3 your house, as do I.
4 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Mr. Carlson, I
5 think I'll work through questions given the limited time
6 of the presenters, so if you have a question, please feel
7 free to ask it.
8 MR. CARLSON: Mr. Chairman, I didn i t have
9 a question, but I had some comments. I don't have a
10 presentation either.
11 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Let me just get
12 through questions here right now because I'm going to
13 lose some of our presenters here briefly. Mr. Chisholm?
14 MR. CHISHOLM: Well, I guess the question
15 I would have is my proposal is that these energy
16 efficiency proj ects were really student driven, that you
17 had the students involved. It's not just an
18 administrati ve process that okay, we need energy
19 efficiency, that you actually involve as part of the
20 educational process the students in the assessment of the
21 school's efficiency and its deficiency and them
22 participating in any the plans so that you really not
23 only have you had a classroom experience in education,
24 but you also actually had a proj ect educational.25 experience. I think that deepens the educational process
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1 and gives ownership to the students.
2 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Is that a question?
3 MR. CHISHOLM: My question is how does
4 your project -- it seems like it 1 S more aimed at just the
5 energy efficiency in the schools.
6 MR. KJELLANDER: Mr. Chairman and
7 Mr. Chisholm, the first things that we would look at,
8 we'd look at ways in which they provide interaction with
9 students and those would include proj ects, I would
10 assume, going forward. Any curriculum that simply
11 preaches at someone, the sage on the stage, that i s been
12 ruled out for quite awhile. We don i t even use that at
13 the uni versi ty level anymore and that's a blessing, so as
14 we look at these curriculums, they i re going to be
15 encouraged to engage and interact and certainly that will
16 be a piece of it going forward, and I'll yield to
17 Superintendent Luna for some comments as well.
18 MR. LUNA: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chisholm, I
19 think Paul said basically what I would say. I think it's
20 just a given that the development of the curriculum and
21 the kind of curriculums that we develop today are much
22 student participation-type learning acti vi ties and the
23 development of the curriculum and those ideas and those
24 projects would be part of the curriculum that teachers
25 would be trained in and then go back to the schools and
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21
1 use. We already do it in technology. When we teach
2 students about technology, we begin to use -- many of
3 those students actually provide computer support in our
4 schools. It's that hands-on type of an approach.
5 As I said in my comments, 500,000 is a lot
6 of money, but it is a finite amount and so if we look at
7 the best place in a focused approach, I think that this
8 proposal does that. I'm always concerned about a shotgun
9 approach where there i s a lot of good ideas. Sometimes we
10 have to make a choice between two good things and choose
11 the better one and I think this proposal represents the
12 better part of the ideas we've heard as we considered how
13 to move forward with the monies that were available.
14 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Mr. Miller,
15 questions?
16 MR. MILLER: No, Mr. Chairman, I have no
17 questions. Just some comments, but it can wait.
18 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Ms. Langston?
19 MS. LANGSTON: Same here. I have some
20 comments. It can wait.
COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Any there other
22 questions from anybody for our presenters?
23 MR. HOWELL: Mr. Chairman, Staff has a
24 couple of questions, but in the interest of time, it may.25 be more efficient for us to engage in some
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1 interrogatories either with the OER or the Department of
2 Education to get at some of our technical questions.
3 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: We've got a couple
4 of minutes, Mr. Howell, why don't you pick one of those
5 and let's see where it goes.
6 MR. HOWELL: Sure. On the Task 2 dealing
7 wi th the proj ect efficiencies, the proposal noted that
8 there are about 355 buildings. The Staff was wondering
9 if there's a breakdown between how many of those
10 buildings are portable buildings, in other words, like
11 temporary buildings, like single wides, double wides in
12 an effort to try to figure out what would be an efficient
13 usage or maybe a limitation on efficiency monies.
14 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Superintendent
15 Luna?
16 MR. LUNA: Mr. Chairman, I believe what
17 you i re looking at is the number of schools in those 62
18 districts and the footprint can be different. It can be
19 one school with a number of portables. It could be one
20 school, but it's made up of a number of different wings.
21 We can get you that information, but I believe what
22 you're looking at is in those 62 school districts we have
23 355 schools.
24.25
MR. HOWELL: Following up, then,
Mr. Chairman, in the estimated costs it had approximately
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1 $14,000 in marketing. We were wondering what entity
2 would do the marketing and how that marketing proposal or
3 process would differ from the efficiency programs
4 administered by Idaho Power with schools.
5 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Superintendent
6 Luna?
7 MR. LUNA: I'm going to yield to Paul if
8 thatl s okay.
9 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Director
10 Kjellander.
11 COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Mr. Chairman and
12 Mr. Howell, it would be in addition to the efforts that
13 are already occurring with Idaho Power and it would go
14 well beyond what those efforts are in working directly
15 with the schools. The marketing, while not completely
16 mapped out, would go far beyond just getting into some of
17 the publications that the schools have, but actually the
18 marketing would be on-si te visits, discussions, attending
19 various conferences that are tied to that to ensure that
20 the message is there and that access is there and then
21 also coordinating the efforts that we have with the
22 Department of Education, the utility and the Office of
23 Energy Resources to ensure that you can go to a central
24 website and find that material and actually have the
25 applications available for proj ects that you might be
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.1 moving forward with, but it would be in addition to, but
2 also coordinating and not losing sight of what's there
3 but to build upon it and to, again, I think take
4 advantage of some opportunities that getting into those
5 forums would bring us which is to promote some of the
6 other energy efficiency education projects that exist
7 today, but most notably, the new one that was awarded to
8 Boise State Uni versi ty for wind in schools and to work
9 with them and make sure that that gets more deployment, a
10 very hands-on proj ect they developed and also to again
11 look at other opportunities to help expand some of the
12 projects that Idaho Power has with solar in the schools,.13 so I think it can be in addition to that, but certainly
14 also promoting what is available through incentives and
15 also the curriculum itself. That would include a piece
16 of the marketing tied to the curriculum as well, so it
17 wouldn i t just be broken down to the actual energy
18 efficiency itself.
19
20
COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Mr. Howell.
MR. HOWELL: On page 1 of your
21 introductory overview letter, you discuss the National
22 Energy Education Development proj ect and in the middle of
23 the third paragraph down it says, "NEED also provides
24 each state with a budget for implementing the project.25 statewide," and I'm wondering whether Idaho has received
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.1 any budgetary dollars and, if so, where those dollars
2 reside.
3 MR. KJELLAN DER : And Mr. Cha i rman and
4 Mr. Howell, that's a question that quite honestly I
5 haven't done any investigation with NEED. Scott Smith
6 from the Department of Education has worked with them
7 closely and in lieu of giving you an answer that would be
8 subj ect to check, I i 11 simply say that would probably be
9 a question best addressed to Scott. He has more
10 knowledge there.
11 MR. HOWELL: My direction, Mr. Chairman,
12 is more or less to determine where we might be able to.13 bring more efficiencies out of the proposal, especially
14 if the NEED curricula looks good to the curriculum
15 evaluators.
16 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: I think we're going
17 to have to let our presenters go and I think those other
18 questions, technical or otherwise, can be addressed by
19 separate correspondence, so we'll plan to do that.
20 Superintendent Luna and Director Kj ellander, thank both
21 of you for taking the time to come over and present to
22 us. It was very informative and in advance of a final
23 decision today, I think probably there will be additional
24 correspondence on this and possibly another status.25 conference, but very probably the Commission will move
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1 forward on a modified procedure which would invite more
2 technical information coming in, possibly a hearing under
3 that procedure and a chance for anybody and everybody to
4 participate in the process of being an intervenor or to
5 be a party to decisions the Commission would make under
6 modified procedure. Thank you.
7 MR. KJELLANDER: Thank you,
8 Mr. Chairman.
9 MR. LUNA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
10 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Mr. Sylva, would
11 you take one of the chairs that's being vacated, please?
12 While Mr. Sylva is doing that, I'll only introduce him as
13 a party that came up after we had already done the
14 introductions and he has a written comment he wants to
15 make on behalf of Citizens Protecting Resources and in a
16 minute I'll allow him to do that, but first I want to
17 come back. Sara, have you finished all of your
18 presentation, then?
19 MS. COHEN: Yes, thank you,
20 Mr. Chairman.
21 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Okay, Mr. Carlson,
22 if you would like to present then, please.
23 MR. CARLSON: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman
24 and fellow Commissioners, my name is Rich Carlson here on.25 behalf of the Idaho Rural Council. Our organization
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filed written comments in support of the initial IEEP.1
2 plan some time ago for several reasons. Many of our
3 members are now grandparents who realize that there are
4 big changes occurring on the energy front. Our
5 grandchildren are facing great challenges, but also have
6 great opportunities.
7 I'm going to read just a short paragraph
8 from a website that an affiliate organization of ours has
9 put out. In 2006, energy efficiency generated more than
10 8 million new jobs in the American economy. For the most
11 part, these are not jobs that can be out sourced or
12 exported, but instead rely on skilled labor, carpenters,.13 plumbers, welders, electricians, sheet metal workers, and
14 certified weatherization technicians. More than 50
15 percent of these jobs were in the manufacturing center
16 wi th additional large numbers in the construction and
17 recycling centers. By pursuing an aggressive public
18 policy agenda, and I want to emphasize that word
19 aggressive public policy agenda to echo Mr. Kj ellander' s
20 use of that word, by pursuing an aggressive public policy
21 agenda to address climate change and energy security at
22 every level of government, energy efficiency jobs would
23 grow from over 8 million in 2006 to over 32 million in
24 the year 2030, so we see great opportunities for our.25 grandchildren.
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1 We would expect great dividends from both
2 sides of the proj ect as originally proposed in the IEEP.
3 We would hope like introducing computers into the
4 classroom in the 1990s, putting hands-on projects into
5 the schools like was proposed would give Idaho students a
6 head start facing, you know, the challenges and
7 opportunities that we are facing now. I would say that
8 I've only had since the time this started to go through
9 the proposal from the Governor's office, but I have three
10 basic off-the-seat-of-my-pants comments about it, and I
11 don't mean to disparage their proposal. I'm just
12 thrilled that we're here talking about energy education
13 and there doesn i t seem to be much debate that we need
14 energy education in our K-12 schools, but nevertheless, I
15 have three criticisms of it.
16 No.1, a venture like this really does
17 need public participation. This is ratepayer money and
18 we think it's important to have public participation
19 along the lines Mr. Chisholm proposed in the IEEP and
20 that's not part of the Governor's office proposal.
21 Mr. Chisholm, and we've known him for some time and
22 participated in the solar for schools proj ect along with
23 him and supported it to some degree, has some experience
24 and has been an advocate for ratepayers and public
25 interest for a long time, has a long record with that.
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1 The second criticism is that, and this has
2 been said already before, I think, or commented on, that
3 this proposal seems to underestimate how far along the
4 development of energy education curriculum already is,
5 and it looks like this proposal from the Governor's
6 office proposes spending too much on administration and
7 training; and thirdly, the lack of the hands-on
8 participation by school children. You may not believe
9 this, but I have a grandson who 's 11 years old and
10 al though I may look very young, I do have a grandchild
11 who's 11 years old and he would love to get his hands on
12 a solar panel or a wind turbine. He is able to absorb
13 technical stuff, and I'm sure you've all seen this, just
14 like a sponge and our organization believes that that's a
15 really critical part of what was originally proposed in
16 the IEEP rather than as the Governor's office has
17 proposed giving some break to the school districts who do
18 have a high energy budget burden.
19 We think it i S critical that young people
20 have that hands-on exposure, direct exposure, to
21 renewable energy technology and also, hopefully, someday
22 will be telling their parents like our parents told us
23 turn down the thermostat, turn the light down, close the
24 door, it's cold outside, we're wasting heat. You know,
25 we think that the hands-on experience and the proj ects
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1 that were proposed by the IEEP will generate that level
2 of commitment and interest by the children who are going
3 to be facing these big challenges quicker than some
4 reduction in a school district budget that may not have
5 any impact whatsoever on the school children. We think
6 the hands-on part of the project as proposed is critical,
7 so that's all. Thank you.
8 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Thank you. Well,
9 in relation to your comments and the comment that
10 Superintendent Luna made about harnessing the energy of
11 K-12, I would have visions of us purchasing numerous
12 numbers of treadmills and generating an output there that
13 would be measurable. Thank you very much.
14 Ken Miller.
15 MR. MILLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My
16 name is Ken Miller. I'm with the Snake River Alliance
17 and I appreciate the opportunity to be before you this
18 afternoon. The Alliance was a strong supporter of the
19 Commission's decision to dedicate the $500,000 to
20 education, energy education, and we would hope that
21 regardless of how this turns out that that money does
22 stay in an education component of some form. We are also
23 are strongly supporting the Idaho Energy Education
24 Proj ect 's proposal. I think we all have stipulated that
25 the need to have enhanced energy education curricula is
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1 significant and I think both the OER proposal as well as
2 the IEEP proposal are laudable in that they are shooting
3 for those same goals. I do think that the Idaho Energy
4 Education Project's proposal would be preferable simply
5 because it does include a much smaller amount of overhead
6 and administrative costs in developing the curriculum.
7 The Education Proj ect had also proposed a
8 concept that we support and that was to dedicate the
9 other $250,000 towards some projects, some hands-on
10 projects, and Mr. Carlson has just pointed out and as
11 you've heard from others, it's our belief that as we've
12 seen through the solar for schools and wind for schools,
13 particularly at Skyline High school over in Idaho Falls,
14 we i ve seen these projects engender a great deal of
15 enthusiasm and energy among the students and I really
16 think that kind of an investment will last far longer
17 than the one year that would normally be contemplated.
18 As the Chairman has pointed out, these are not recurring
19 funds barring another sulfur dioxide sale and a similar
20 outcome in another proceeding, but we do think that the
21 concept of setting aside half of this money for energy
22 proj ects and I think Mr. Chisholm's proposal was to cap
23 those at perhaps $12,500 apiece which would allow for
24 approximately 20 projects, these are the kinds of things
25 that will get students very involved.
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.1 It also, I think, would create a situation
2 where you have more buy-in and commitment from the
3 grantees, from those who would be securing the grants,
4 because I would presume that they would have an
5 investment at stake as well. Finally, with regard to the
6 Task 2 from the Office of Energy Resources, I don't know
7 specifically the kinds of programs that Idaho Power
8 provides to the schools, but I know that they 're
9 significant. Idaho Power has, as the Chairman has
10 pointed out, an exemplary energy efficiency program. It
11 has grown significantly over the past couple of years and
12 it will continue to grow thanks in part, at least, to the.13 energy efficiency writer and other proposals. I know
14 that the Company's efficiency programs and their staffing
15 have increased and their dedication, I think, has
16 increased to these programs.
17 I would -- I'm just not convinced that
18 this money needs to be spent to provide what is in great
19 part a service or at least a program that currently
20 exists. The Idaho legislature last year or last session
21 considered a green building program for schools and this
22 was for new schools and the concern was that as the state
23 has taken on the O&M component for school spending and
24 energy spending in schools continues to skyrocket that.25 the state has a vested interest in helping the schools
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1 reduce their energy cost, certainly for new schools, but
2 what we're talking about here primarily, I think, are
3 existing schools and it would be my view that perhaps
4 given that this is, I think, a function that the state
5 has to ensure that the schools are safe and energy
6 efficient that that would be something that the
7 legislature might consider as opposed to a use for this
8 money, and then just as I said, just in closing, we
9 really would encourage that the Commission regardless of
10 how this turns out continue to dedicate this money toward
11 energy education and energy in the schools.
12 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
13 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Thank you,
14 Mr. Miller. Ms. Langston.
15 MS. LANGSTON: I have to make a
16 disclaimer, it's my very first time at this type of
17 conference or any public hearing and it's a blessing and
18 a curse. The curse is that I don't know the procedures.
19 I didn't know how to address you guys that are on
20 stage.
21 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: It's informal. All
22 you have to do is speak.
23 MS. LANGSTON: I have to learn all this,
24 so forgive me if I screw up addressing you improperly,
25 but the blessing over this is that in presenting myself,
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1 I don't have any stake at any of the organizations, so I
2 can look at this as a pool of money available and if it
3 was my money, how would I spend it. As I said before, I
4 have a lot of experience in private industry in energy
5 conservation projects, so my view is more business kind
6 of view. Where can I get the best return on investment.
7 I have $500,000. Which project I think would return the
8 most money to me and under this proposal, granted, I only
9 got ita half an hour before this meeting, but it's not
10 complicated proposal. I kind of agree with the first
11 part of this proposal. I think we do need to educate our
12 kids and that brief moment I spent talking to Idaho Power
13 people, I'm impressed what they're doing in schools
14 already and apparently, there are other programs
15 available with the curriculum established which we can at
16 least look at, so I'm very comfortable going to school
17 and spending some of this money, I call it, brainwashing
18 our kids so that when they grow up, it's already
19 established in their head. Consideration is the key.
20 The only kind of point here is the amount
21 of money, allocation of the money, in the administration
22 fees. Again, being a business person, to me, it i S a big
23 amount on overhead, but there's no explanation where this
24 money goes, so I'll just leave it alone. The case itself
25 is very honorable. I would li ke for Idaho Power to be
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1 more involved because what they are doing already is
2 probably quite a lot of what's proposed to be done and
3 they have experience and they've worked for many years,
4 so apparently, they are doing something right, so that's
5 all about the first piece.
6 The second piece, again, asking if it was
7 my money, what would I do and especially reading the
8 sentence that some incentive programs are already
9 available from Idaho Power, I would probably not spend
10 the money on the second portion of this proposal. I like
11 the idea, again, this is just one person view, I like the
12 idea of higher education investment. I think BSU
13 probably has quite a few proj ects going on already where
14 they are dying for funds, energy conservation projects.
15 I don i t know much about it, but just hearing that there
16 are some free energy audits, just to put some money in
17 that would be great. I think it's great to influence our
18 students to move towards the direction of, I don't know
19 if there are such things, energy conservation engineering
20 or anything like this, but towards that direction, so if
21 it was my money, to conclude my speech, I would probably
22 invest it with BSU or U of I, higher education, to either
23 give them the money as a grant or sponsor energy
24 conservation teams or research at the uni versi ties or
25 encourage them to develop that energy audit program,
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Wilder, Idaho 83676
65 COLLOQUY
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1 anything. Again, second part of this proposal besides
2 that I'm not too crazy about giving addi tional incentives
3 to school, I don't like that administration portion fee
4 again.
5 You look at this, between the first
6 proj ect and the second proj ect, that i s more than 30
7 percent of the total amount is on administration. What
8 exactly are we going to be doing with this money?
9 Anyway, so that i s about it, but again, it's just one
10 person's opinion and this is the very first try, so
11 forgive me if I said something which disagrees with
12 you.
13 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Thank you. Could
14 you tell me where your background is in terms of energy
15 conservation and energy resources?
16 MS. LANGSTON: My degree, actually have
17 double engineering degree with facilitation and power
18 generation, but most of my life has been spent on energy
19 conservation projects for Boise Cascade Corporation. I
20 also spent a lot of time doing proj ects focusing on
21 energy and raw materials for the company, so now I 1m
22 retired and I have time to participate in meetings like
23 this.
.24
25
COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Thank you for being
here.
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Wilder, Idaho 83676
66 COLLOQUY
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1 MS. LANGSTON: Thanks.
2 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: Mr. Sylva, it's
3 been a long day for you and then you don't have a very
4 long statement, would you care to -- let me explain, I
5 think I did before, that Mr. Sylva came in late. We're
6 not running by formal rules, so even though we didn i t
7 introduce him originally in the appearances, it i s
8 perfectly appropriate for him to go ahead and
9 participate, so Mr. Sylva.
MR. SYLVA: Thank you. I appreciate this
11 opportunity. I would like to wear two hats, if I may.
12 One is I i d like to read a statement from Citizens.13 Protecting Resources and I would also like to make a
14 personal comment, if I may. The Citizens Protecting
15 Resources fully and unequivocally supports Idaho
16 Education Project's changing conservation efficiency and
17 renewable energy resources and most important, the shift
18 in our mode of thinking such practices must be our first
19 consideration in obtaining the ultimate goal of a
20 sustainable energy policy and environmentally secure
21 future. Citizens Protecting Resources is a citizens
22 group based in Magic Valley, members from Twin Falls
23 County, Lincoln County and Jerome, primarily. That i s the
24 end of my CPR statement..25 Personally, I view energy conservation in
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Wilder, Idaho 83676
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1 a broader view of climate change and the future of the
2 earth, frankly, and I find thinking about that that it's
3 really going to require a paradigm shift in the way we
4 view everything, and from what I've heard so far tonight,
5 I think what i s going on here today is the state is really
6 trying to pullout the greatest asset that we have in
7 this room and that i s the mind of Bill Chisholm and to
8 push him out of this seems short-sighted in my opinion.
9 The reason I think Idaho Power can work well with the
10 state is they both gain their ideas from the same person,
11 that i s Bill Chisholm. Bill started the project at the
12 school in Castleford which Idaho Power joined up with, so
13 it's easy to see why they think they can dovetail well
14 wi th the state since the genesis is the same source. I
15 just thought it was important to expose the elements in
16 the room. Thank you.
17 COMMI S S IONER KEMPTON: Than k you,
18 Mr. Sylva. Any questions by any of the presenters? Any
19 questions?
20 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: No.
21 COMMISSIONER KEMPTON: The Commission has
22 heard all of the presentations and the diverse inputs
23 from various groups, organizations and self-interests,
24 personal interests. This is a difficult issue for us,
25 because, as I said, when we began this process here
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Wilder, Idaho 83676
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21
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1 today, it i S something new for the Commission and we
2 expected diverse testimony as to what would be the best
3 way to go forward. We won't make any decisions here
4 today. We'll take this information under advisement and
5 we will have separate discussions in the Commission on
6 this, discussions with Staff, discussions among ourselves
7 and decide the next course of action. As I said in the
8 very beginning, we still reserve the discretion as a
9 Commission in deciding whether the $500,000 will go to
10 education processes or whether it will go back to
11 ratepayers.
12 Having said that, I think there i s nothing
13 else to add, so this session will be closed as of this
14 time.
15 (IEEP Exhibit Nos. 1 & 2 were marked and
16 admi tted into evidence.)
17 (The Status Conference adjourned at
18 3:25 p.m.)
19
CSB REPORTING
Wilder, Idaho 83676
69 COLLOQUY
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24.25
1 AUTHENTICATION
2
3
4 This is to certify that the foregoing
5 proceedings held in the matter of the appropriate
6 disposi tion of Idaho Power Company's S02 emission
7 proceeds to fund an energy education proposal, commencing
8 at 1:30 p.m., on Wednesday, July 16, 2008, at the
9 Commission Hearing Room, 472 West Washington, Boise,
10 Idaho, is a true and correct transcript of said
11 proceedings and the original thereof for the file of the
12 Commission.
13
14
15
16
COr'Sfdwß- .:~(((i¿í
CONSTANCE S. BUCY
Certified Shorthand Reporter #l87
17
18
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CSB REPORTING
Wilder, Idaho 83676
70 AUTHENTICATION
c..&ii..ii..ii".~&'ii..ii'....ii.jiii.¡jii~;
-:a: YliIN I(! 1m!I. ENERGY ')... .~. .~..iL_ ........ II t tf¡~Ii..t."f ., ..... = PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT =
t. . TEACHER TRAINING WORKSHOP .
. .8 THINK! ø TALK! _TAKE ENERGY ACTION! ..
.. .... ..h:..un:....,. ...... ,...y' ......:..:.... uV....IKSh.... .io" K ,,. ,.,.. .,.....O..s .... UL I ii~ 11\,"¡Ut: IVVV-UU II Ullllll~ Y'VI I VfJ I I - I L CU U\"U I I _
,! r----- J~2=3:2ÕÕ------------ J~9:10, 2oos-----l !
.. : Idaho State Univerity ¡Idaho Falls Idaho Stae Univerity ¡ Pocatello: ..
.: GtE Building OR Roy F. Oiristenn Building : -=.: Room 211 Room 108 :.
,t L_~770 ;~Fat;~~_______:77p::II~___j Ii :'°ERKSh HOP OUTCOIOtMES: ..' n ance you energy i eracy ..
.. . Participate in hands-on activities .
. Receive free classroom materials
.. . Explore energy career opportunities for students
.. . Enjoy an energy industry field experience
ii · Integrate energy into your lesson plans ... . Earn 1-2 ISU~ continuing education credits (optional) .. How to ..egister: -= :
ri.; Contad Ellen a~~~:~~~~i~rgy Foundation .. \
.' $20 ~i:0Mar:=:d-:u~:ble) t'.~.f ~=\~. WORKSHOP CO~~~:::~Y:.;
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,l.L~,...,",.,.~,~...!':C...~,"._ ... ... .. .........~'_..__.:l\.OP...OP..øø..OP...ø...Oø...Oø...OP.¡;
":,",;::t,j~-ro:';;;:",,'~:C;~::C_'T-;~:i;;Y;'.7)_;¡-(-;'S17iF'~èiP-~:r~c:i;,;q0_t:~?,S':2:;~'7t!';~L,;~,è~~:::':r~:-"~_Ä; - - '''1,,_ ,.,:-,',-:'"".;;O:"::"f:::F?T,:":-:i "::-:':-:.;."o't';~'0'.''::_t;:-','';J;;.c;:''':;.'e~,:'r2-;,'''.''£",,,:,;:7':-' ,X' "'-'~"""':2:::ir::,::-':;' ';;7'c-';-~'''; ~ -----",'-- ...-- "-"--',"';;":C,:C:.;:,::\,'-'O'-'T "--';"-"~';d'~~3:?§':C"i:L'F ;,:d_-_:,;~_d':;!-'" - - ..t'"'d_:i7~-:;:;:, ';D';':,?_"~J-"j;"Dt'::;Xi
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ISU Continuing Education Credits Available
'.2 credits
$50 per credit
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EXHIBIT
N( .~.¡ÇFP
MEALS, SNACKS AND FIELD TRIP TRANSPORTATION PROVIDED
CLASROOM LAB SUPPLIES AND ESTEC
TECHNICAL SUPPORT AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
. THINK! ø TALK! _TAKE ENERGY ACTION!
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, at least 30 percent of the existing
workforce will be eligible for retirement in five yeors. By 2012, the utility sector
will have an esma 10,000 iobs that will remain unfiled...
will your students have an interest in these jobs?
IDAPOR ¿")! .
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This program was funded in part by a grant awarded under the President's Community-Based Job Training Grants, as
implemented by the u.s. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration and by the Advanced Technological
Education program at the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DUE-0703169.
An equal opportunity employer/program. Auxiliary aids, and services are available upon request to individuals with disabilities.