REGULATORY ASSETS AND LIABILITIES

The majority of PGE’s regulatory assets and liabilities are reflected in customer prices and are amortized over the period in which they are reflected in customer prices. Items not currently reflected in prices are pending before the regulatory body as discussed below.

Regulatory assets and liabilities consist of the following (dollars in millions):



	Remaining Amortization Period	As of December 31,
		2018						2017
		Earning a Return ⁽¹⁾		Not Earning a Return		Total		Total
Regulatory assets:
Price risk management	2035	$	—	$	131	$	131	$	204
Pension and other postretirement plans	⁽²⁾	—		222		222		218
Debt issuance costs	2036	—		16		16		19
Trojan decommissioning activities	2039	26		—		26		—
Other	Various	53		14		67		59
Total regulatory assets		$	79	$	383	$	462	$	500
Regulatory liabilities:
Asset retirement removal costs	⁽³⁾	$	979	$	—	$	979	$	933
Deferred income taxes	⁽⁴⁾	267		—		267		277
Trojan decommissioning activities	2019	1		—		1		3
Asset retirement obligations	⁽³⁾	53		—		53		52
Tax Reform Deferral ⁽⁵⁾	2020	45		—		45		—
Other	Various	39		7		46		54
Total regulatory liabilities		$	1,384	$	7	$	1,391	$	1,319


(1)	Earning a return includes either interest on the regulatory asset or liability, or inclusion of the regulatory asset or liability as an increase or decrease to rate base at the allowed rate of return.


(2)	Recovery expected over the average service life of employees.


(3)	Recovery or refund expected over the estimated lives of the net balance and treated as a reduction to rate base.


(4)	Will be returned to customers using the average rate assumption method over the average life of the underlying assets and treated as a reduction to rate base.


(5)	Related to the deferral of the 2018 net tax benefits due to the change in corporate tax rate under TCJA, including interest.

Price risk management represents the difference between the net unrealized losses recognized on derivative instruments related to price risk management activities and their realization and subsequent recovery in customer prices. For further information regarding assets and liabilities from price risk management activities, see Note 6, Risk Management.

Pension and other postretirement plans represents unrecognized components of the benefit plans’ funded status, which are recoverable in customer prices when recognized in net periodic pension and postretirement benefit costs. For further information, see Note 11, Employee Benefits.

Deferred income taxes represents income tax benefits primarily from property-related timing differences that previously flowed to customers and will be included in customer prices when the temporary differences reverse. In 2017, the net regulatory liability was increased by $357 million as the Company deferred the impact of remeasuring accumulated deferred income taxes (ADIT) pursuant to the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the TCJA) on December 22, 2017. Substantially all of the amounts deferred are subject to tax normalization rules that require that the impact to the results of operations of amortizing the excess deferred income tax balance cannot occur more rapidly than would have occurred before the change in tax law. The Company uses the average rate assumption method to account for the refund to customers. For further information, see Note 12, Income Taxes. On December 4, 2018, the OPUC approved PGE’s application for deferral of 2018 net benefits associated with the U.S. Tax Reconciliation Act, docketed in UM 1920, for the 12-month period beginning December 31, 2017, at an amount of $45 million.

Debt issuance costs represents unrecognized debt issuance costs related to debt instruments retired prior to the stipulated maturity date.

Asset retirement removal costs represents the costs that do not qualify as AROs and are a component of depreciation expense allowed in customer prices. Such costs are recorded as a regulatory liability as they are collected in prices, and are reduced by actual removal costs incurred.

Trojan decommissioning activities represents proceeds received for the settlement of a legal matter concerning the reimbursement from the United States Department of Energy (USDOE) of certain monitoring costs incurred related to spent nuclear fuel at Trojan, as well as ongoing costs and collections associated with decommissioning activities.

Asset retirement obligations represents the difference in the timing of recognition of: i) the amounts recognized for depreciation expense of the asset retirement costs and accretion of the ARO; and ii) the amount recovered in customer prices.