Energy Affordability & Resilience

Right now too many of our homes and places we gather put us at risk from the harms of climate change, like extreme heat that killed more than 100 Oregonians over the last few summers alone. The way we heat and cook with fossil fuels is making things worse, especially for lower-income and frontline communities. Homes and buildings are Oregon’s second largest source of climate pollution.

We’re advocating for statewide action so new construction is built smart from the start to be healthy and resilient, while cutting energy waste and lowering bills. We’re also working to make it easier and more affordable to update current homes and buildings to protect us from climate harms and transition to clean, efficient electricity for heating and cooling, hot water, and cooking. We must prioritize helping those most harmed by climate extremes and fossil fuels.

Oregon’s legislature must take action in 2025 to give more Oregonians access to more resilient and safer homes and buildings.

Building Resilience Priorities for 2025

One Stop Shop 2.0

There’s never been more financial help for Oregonians to upgrade their homes and buildings for better health, lower costs, less pollution, and higher resilience. Yet finding and applying for all the incentives for efficient heat pumps, improved insulation, sturdier doors and windows, and clean electric cooking can be a challenge. 

One Stop Shop 2.0 will build on the success of Oregon’s new tool to find and combine incentives for homeowners, landlords, contractors and more. Growing from a passive resource online to an active navigator in our communities ready to help people with the applications, connect to trusted contractors, and answer questions throughout the process until the upgrades are done!

Get the Junk Out of Rates

Monopoly utilities are raising our gas and electric rates rapidly. High energy costs make us less resilient to climate disasters like extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and arctic storms. When fear of a high energy bill forces someone to switch off cooling in the summer or heating in the winter, that’s not resilience. 


For-profit utilities need to tighten their belts like the rest of us. Things like expensive lawyers and lobbyists, advertising, and industry association fees should come out of company profits, not our pockets. We’ll get millions of dollars of “junk” out of our utility rates.

Funding Climate Resilience

More Oregonians today enjoy energy efficient heating and cooling, and resilience against the elements thanks to the most equity-minded incentive programs for home upgrades in our state’s history. The legislature passed these programs with one-time funding that is now spent. The need is still enormous as climate disasters worsen and utility bills climb.

Our state must reinvest in these programs to lower our bills through energy efficiency in homes and buildings and increase resilience to prepare us for climate change.

  1. Rental Home Heat Pump Program

  2. Community Heat Pump Deployment Program

  3. Community Resilience Hubs

Following Through on Victories

Pushing to pass legislation is hard work and succeeding feels great. It’s only half the battle. Since we fought for and won the passage of the Resilient, Efficient Buildings Package in 2023, we’ve engaged our coalition in rule makings, public hearings, and other efforts to shape the programs created by the new laws.

Healthy Heating & Cooling for All 

Sets a target to install 500,000 new heat pumps that will both heat and cool homes efficiently and affordably. Provides financial assistance and other help to purchase and install heat pumps and prioritizes low-income households and those at highest risk from extreme weather.

Build Smart from the Start 

Ensures that our state building codes for energy efficiency and materials in new construction align with our state climate goals, which is healthier for people, for climate and for family budgets. Requires the state Building Codes Division to look at ways to update codes to also improve indoor air quality and ventilation. 

Building Performance Standards

Set standards for energy efficiency and pollution reduction for large, commercial  buildings, with enough transition time and financial incentives for owners to make the needed upgrades. This will significantly lower climate pollution from the buildings sector while creating good, family wage jobs that can’t be outsourced.