47 



STATEMENT OF TOM TRULOVE 



Mr. Trulove. Thank you, Chairman DeFazio and Congressman 

 LaRocco. 



My name is Tom Trulove, and I am one of Washington's rep- 

 resentatives to the Northwest Power Planning Council and Chair 

 of the Council's Power Committee. With me today is Angus Dun- 

 can, an Oregon member of the Council, also a member of the Power 

 Committee and its former Chair. 



We are pleased to be here to present the Council's views on the 

 issues that Bonneville will have to address as it faces the radical 

 changes that may be taking place in the electric utility industry 

 both here in the Northwest and across the country. We sent your 

 office our written testimony which addresses your specific ques- 

 tions in much more detail. We thought it might be useful today if 

 Angus presented some highlights of our testimony to you. So I will 

 turn it over to Angus for that purpose. 



Mr. DeFazio. Thank you. 



Mr. Duncan. In the interest of time, Mr. Chairman, we would 

 like to concentrate on the larger competitive utility picture we see 

 unfolding. Our vantage point is the Northwest Power Act which 

 you have already cited, and our mission is to develop a long-term 

 plan for the Northwest that furthers the goals of that Act. Those 

 goals include, most importantly, ensuring an adequate, efficient, ec- 

 onomical and reliable power supplier for the Pacific Northwest. Ec- 

 onomical construed in the broadest possible way to contemplate all 

 of the costs that such a system involves. Conservation, the efficient 

 use of energy, the development of renewable resources, protection, 

 mitigation and enhancement of fish and wildlife in the Columbia 

 Basin. A public accountable state role in planning the future of the 

 Northwest power supply. Those goals remain valid for the region. 



Bonneville's drive to become more competitive is just part of 

 what is a significant restructuring in the electric utility industry, 

 which Randy has already quite capably described. Issues like 

 unbundling of Bonneville's products and services, tiered wholesale 

 rates, even the value of reserves provided by the direct service in- 

 dustriad customers will have to be reconsidered in light of these 

 possible changes. This restructuring could result in a regional elec- 

 trical system considerably different than the one contemplated 

 when the Northwest Power Act was passed in 1980 and the goals 

 I just mentioned were articulated. 



New technologies, deregulation and environmental concerns are 

 changing the electric utility industry as many of those same forces 

 changed telecommunications and the airline industry and others in 

 the 1980s. Many observers believe this will result in more power 

 being produced by independent developers, more pressure for ac- 

 cess to transmission services, more marketing of individual elec- 

 trical services that are currently bundled, less vertical integration 

 within the utility industry and in general, more competition. 



The challenge facing Bonneville, the utilities, their customers, 

 regulators, the Council and Congress is not to try to stop or arrest 

 or slow those changes taking place in the industry. That would be 

 foolish and futile. Instead, the challenge is to achieve the goals of 

 the Power Act, as well as the benefits of restructuring. The Coun- 



