Jim Morton

Jim Morton

from CON.WEB, June 30, 2004

Jim Morton: An Energy Advocate
for Low-Income Montanans

From the Pacific Northwest's cold and poor periphery in western Montana, Jim Morton has been a persistent voice in regional energy policy forums for helping low-income residents with energy conservation, affordable utility rates and bill payment assistance.

Since 1979, Morton has served as executive director of Missoula-based District XI Human Resource Council, which provides low-income services in Missoula, Mineral and Ravalli counties. The Human Resource Council has regularly participated in rate cases and other utility regulatory proceedings before the Montana Public Service Commission. He is also a founding member of the NW Energy Coalition.

Morton has been in the thick of numerous issues affecting low-income residents, from yesterday's contentious debates over the Colstrip coal-fired power plants to today's uncertainties over electric utility restructuring.

He sees progress gained over the years in energy conservation. But he also finds some continuing institutional resistance to the demand side, and a too-narrow economic framing of ongoing conservation debates.

Energy Issues

Growing up on the Crow Indian Reservation of southeastern Montana, Morton knew firsthand what it was like to live "with no heat, no running water, no electricity," though he also has fond recollections of the community. "I was blessed in growing up with these folks," he said.

Morton, now 55, was trained as a licensed clinical counselor, and holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Montana.

He has worked with the Human Resource Council since 1970, and was first exposed to regional energy issues in the early 1970s, "when we dealt with people who couldn't pay their utility bills. There was a lot of activism, a lot of social debate, a lot of energy around the issue of why people were poor."

One of the Human Resource Council's first battles was a 1977 intervention with the Montana PSC seeking "lifeline" rates--a basic allotment of electricity to low-income customers at an affordable rate.

"We felt that if large industrial customers received these declining block rates and that was for the good of society, then why not have a similar allowance for the poor, the disabled and the elderly," Morton said.

In the 1970s, the council also implemented residential weatherization programs with funds from the Federal Energy Administration, forerunner of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Morton and the council were in the fray over Montana Power's plan to build four coal-fired generating units at Colstrip. The Colstrip project was caught in a turbulent political environment--anxiety about rising energy prices and future energy supplies, concern that local residents were breathing pollution from power plants built to serve out-of-state customers, and suspicion that consumers were getting hit with the costs of utility overbuilding.

Missoula is 300 miles away from Colstrip, but western Montanans protested the transmission lines delivering Colstrip power westward through their community on its way to metropolitan Puget Sound. "We argued that it didn't make sense to be shipping energy from Colstrip to Seattle given the line losses," Morton recalled.

The Human Resource Council joined a broad coalition of environmentalists, ranchers, tribal and low-income groups fighting Colstrip, which was eventually constructed and now has 2,272 megawatts of capacity in its four units, according to Northwest Power and Conservation Council figures.

One outcome of the Colstrip battle was that the Human Resource Council negotiated with Montana Power to create a Least-Cost Advisory Committee and pay for an expert of the council's choosing to sit on the panel.

Through the committee, the Human Resource Council persuaded the utility and the PSC to adopt a 10-percent rate discount for low-income households participating in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and make them automatically eligible for the utility's weatherization program.

In a 2000 interview with the National Center for Appropriate Technology, Morton recalled: "We were able to gain support for the discount from the (Montana Power) management. This was crucial because there were commission staff who held the opinion that a low-income discount was illegal because it favored one customer group over another. We submitted testimony that a low-income discount would decrease terminations and collections and the associated costs; therefore, the discount would be a benefit to all customers."

More recently, Morton's group fought successfully for adoption of a Universal System Benefits Charge--to fund conservation, renewables and low-income initiatives--as part of Montana's 1997 restructuring legislation. In 1999, the PSC ordered that 22 percent of USB funds be spent on low-income programs--1 percent more than the council recommended in its testimony.

Affordable Energy for Low-Income Montanans

Paying for energy has never been easy for many families in Montana, which the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis ranks 44th in the nation in per-capita income. Today, however, Morton has noticed that citizens are less engaged in the political process that leads to decisions affecting their lives.

"In the 1970s, it was easier to get people involved. It was easier to get 300 people to come to a meeting. People seemed to have a heightened sense of civic duty, when Colstrip was stomping power lines through the community," he said.

Morton believes everyday pressures are an obstacle to greater civic involvement. "People are numbed. There is information overload. Montana is a poor state, a very poor state, near the bottom in per-capita income. People are working two jobs. People are so busy trying to survive, they see a news article or a headline, but the importance doesn't sink in," he said.

Despite cynicism about government and large companies, Morton said people are still surprised to find out when their interests in affordable energy have not been met.

"Most Americans trust their public officials, despite the way we denigrate them," he said. "They still feel people are doing the right thing to take care of our energy needs. What you see is anger when people find out that the agencies weren't looking out for them," he said.

The local need for low-income services is high. Each year, he said, the Human Resource Council distributes LIHEAP funds to help 3,500 to 4,000 households pay energy bills. About 15 percent of Montana's low-income population lives in the three-county area served by the District XI Human Resource Council.

Montana receives $10 million to $12 million per year for LIHEAP, for which households with income up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible.

In fiscal year 2001, the average LIHEAP benefit in Montana was $475 per household, which offset about 38 percent of total household energy bills, according to the Campaign for Home Energy Assistance annual data book. Less than one-fourth of eligible Montana households received assistance, it said.

In addition to bill payment assistance, the Human Resource Council provides weatherization services to 220 to 250 households per year.

And, last year, about 100 households received first-time homebuyers down payment assistance, a zero-interest, $25,000 loan repayable upon sale of the house, Morton said buying a house in Missoula is not easy for people of limited means. "The average house price in Missoula is $165,000. A bare 10,000-square-foot lot will cost you $70,000."

Energy Conservation Progress, Roadblocks

In his 30-plus years of advocating for energy conservation, Morton said progress has been made in both public and institutional attitudes towards energy efficiency and renewable resources.

"When you talk about conservation in housing, that is now routine. Weatherization is an expectation. There is more interest in alternative energy sources. People have an expectation that wind should be harnessed. I got a call recently from a rancher in eastern Montana who wanted to put windmills on his property. He was incredibly well-informed about it," Morton said.

Back in the 1980s, Morton recalled, "We were called socialists" when he and other human services officials asked Bonneville Power Administration to institute programs to help low-income citizens. Today, Morton added, LIHEAP and low-income energy conservation programs enjoy bipartisan support--but he still finds institutional resistance to energy efficiency.

"Even with rising gasoline prices, with natural gas skyrocketing, leaders still signal that they don't think conservation is real," he said. "There aren't as many questions about conservation anymore, but there is still resistance, so they make it into a program, bureaucratic and cumbersome"--for example, with unnecessarily stringent verification standards.

Morton believes the Northwest is approaching conservation from an overly narrow perspective. "We formulate our debates about the question solely with economics. We spend endless amounts of time arguing over measurement, the payback," he said. "I say, throw all that out. We should be good stewards and conserve. It produces jobs, puts people to work supplying the materials. We should just do it, like we did with the Hood River Project. We need to start having that conservation ethic."

Years after the Colstrip and lifeline rate battles, energy remains a tough issue for citizen advocates to master, Morton said. "It's still highly technical and complex, and still an insider's game. Energy has its own jargon, its own twists and turns. You have to be really interested in the economics, physics and engineering, or you'll get blown out of the water," Morton said.

What prevents him from getting burned out is the variety of services offered by the Human Resource Council offers and the one-on-one interactions that make the benefits of energy conservation real for people.

"Our housing programs keep me invested in energy. When you make houses efficient, you help people understand the costs of energy and the impact on their family budgets," he said.

Continuing Service

After a generation of being an advocate and delivering services to people, Morton does not expect to leave the public service arena anytime soon.

He joked that in his later years, he wants to be one of the Northwest Energy Coalition's elderly curmudgeons enjoying the privilege of sitting in the front row at meetings and "interrupting everybody."

"I assume I'll be engaged in something," he said. "That's who I am."

– Jim DiPeso

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