City of Seattle v. Department of Revenue

357 P.3d 979, 357 Or. 718
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 11, 2015
DocketTC-RD 4946, 4957; TC-RD 4959; TC-RD 4958; SC S061813
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 357 P.3d 979 (City of Seattle v. Department of Revenue) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Seattle v. Department of Revenue, 357 P.3d 979, 357 Or. 718 (Or. 2015).

Opinions

[721]*721BALDWIN, J.

In this appeal from the Oregon Tax Court, appellants are three municipal corporations located in Washington State: the City of Seattle, the City of Tacoma, and Public Utility District No. 1 of Snohomish County (taxpayers). Respondent is the Oregon Department of Revenue (department). Each taxpayer owns an interest in electrical transmission capacity that was purchased from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and is used for transmitting electricity over the Northwest’s federally-administered power transmission grid. Together, they appeal from a summary judgment ruling in which the Tax Court, citing Power Resources Cooperative v. Dept. of Rev., 330 Or 24, 996 P2d 969 (2000), concluded that taxpayers’ interest in electrical transmission capacity could — because much of that grid is located in Oregon — be taxed by the department as a property interest “held” by taxpayers, under ORS 307.060.

On appeal, taxpayers argue that: (1) Power Resources was wrongly decided; (2) this court’s decision in Pacificorp Power Marketing v. Dept. of Rev., 340 Or 204, 131 P3d 725 (2006) — holding that contracts between a taxpayer and a municipally-owned electric power plant demonstrated the taxpayer’s “use” of the facility for taxation under ORS 308.505 to 308.565 — does not apply in this case; and (3) the Oregon legislature’s repeal of the 2005 property tax exemption benefitting out-of-state power-generating municipalities was enacted in violation of Article IV, section 18, of the Oregon Constitution, a provision that requires that bills for raising revenue originate in the House of Representatives. For reasons we explain below, we reject taxpayers’ arguments and affirm the Tax Court’s judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

Before turning to the pertinent facts in this matter, we provide some necessary background about the relationship between taxpayers, the Pacific Northwest AC Intertie, and our earlier decisions in Power Resources and Pacificorp Power Marketing. As part of their municipal functions, taxpayers in this case generate and sell electricity to local consumers. They also buy and sell electricity on a wholesale basis, trading with other public and private entities [722]*722throughout the western United States. Taxpayers, however, do not own transmission networks of sufficient scope and capacity to transmit that electricity between their various trading partners. Consequently, to commercially transport electric power throughout the region, taxpayers rely on the Pacific Northwest/Pacific Southwest Intertie, a system of power lines and substations that stretches from the state of Washington to southern California.

The Pacific Northwest portion of the Intertie is located primarily in Oregon and is owned by three entities. BPA owns 100 percent of the Pacific Northwest DC Intertie, the part of the system that transmits power only in DC, or direct current. Another part of the system, the Pacific Northwest AC Intertie, transmits only AC, or alternating current. That part of the Intertie is jointly owned by BPA, Portland General Electric Company (PGE), and PacifiCorp. Each of the three owners maintains its own facilities and equipment that collectively make up the regional power grid for commercially transmitting AC electrical power around the Northwest and south to the Oregon/California border.

By the early 1990s, capital improvements to the Pacific Northwest AC Intertie had substantially increased the system’s transmission capacity. In response, the federal government gave select nonfederal regional entities that traded electricity on a wholesale basis an opportunity to secure rights to a permanent portion of that system’s excess transmission capacity. Eight such utilities — called Capacity Owners — entered into contracts with BPA known as Capacity Ownership Agreements (COAs).

Prior to 1996, those agreements required Capacity Owners to tender an upfront lump sum payment to BPA reflecting that user’s estimated pro-rated share of BPA’s capital and related costs. A Capacity Owner was also required to pay 21 percent of the system’s annual operating and maintenance costs. In return, a Capacity Owner received a life-of-the-facility right to use a specific portion of the system’s excess transmission capacity. According to BPA’s Record of Decision addressing the actual ownership agreements,1 the [723]*723agency’s policy goal in entering into COAs with the utilities was

“to ensure that potential New Owners had an equitable opportunity to acquire a share of transmission capacity in the Intertie that is as close to full ‘ownership’ as possible.”

In addition to a life-of-the-facility right of use, the Record of Decision regarding each COA also generally provided that Capacity Owners:

• Retained exclusive use of their respective megawatt shares of Intertie capacity;
• Possessed the option to purchase additional capacity when Intertie facilities were upgraded;
• Possessed a one-time opportunity to choose between (1) the right to use Intertie capacity for themselves and to transmit power for third parties, or (2) the right to retain transmission capacity solely for their own use. (Under the actual draft contracts, electing to abstain from third party transmissions expressly authorized BPA to transmit electricity on a capacity owner’s unused capacity in exchange for compensation. In practice however, at least two of the parties in this case — the City of Tacoma and Snohomish PUD No. 1 — amended their original COAs to allow each of them to transmit for third parties and allow BPA to use spare capacity.)
• Could, with BPA consent, sell their capacity rights; and
• Could, without BPA consent, assign their capacity rights as security for financing purposes, or otherwise engage in certain transfers to other new owners and select Pacific Northwest utilities.

In 2000, this court decided Power Resources, holding that any taxpayer possessing permanent rights to the Intertie in Oregon “held” a possessory interest in that system that should be included in the assessed value of the taxpayer’s property. Six years later, this court decided Pacificorp Power Marketing — a utility-related tax matter that did not involve the Intertie — and held that a taxpayer’s “use” of a [724]*724power facility also could serve as a basis for taxation under Oregon’s tax statutes. Combined, those two cases established alternative bases for taxing facilities in Oregon that are used to generate and/or transmit electricity. That kind of property interest ordinarily is subject to Oregon property taxes and is centrally assessed by the department. Central assessments2 can be based either on a taxpayer’s posses-sory interest in such facilities under Power Resources or on the taxpayer’s use of such facilities under Pacificorp Power Marketing. However, as explained in greater detail below, taxpayers contend that neither of those decisions applies to the circumstances here.

We now turn to the facts of this case. Like the taxpayer in Power Resources,

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Related

State v. Baker
506 P.3d 451 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2022)
State v. Riley
443 P.3d 610 (Oregon Supreme Court, 2019)
Boquist v. Dept. of Rev.
23 Or. Tax 263 (Oregon Tax Court, 2019)
City of Seattle v. Department of Revenue
357 P.3d 979 (Oregon Supreme Court, 2015)
City of Seattle v. Dept. of Rev.
Oregon Supreme Court, 2015

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Bluebook (online)
357 P.3d 979, 357 Or. 718, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-seattle-v-department-of-revenue-or-2015.