88 



Mr. Hardy. I am cutting staff, over the next 2 or 3 years by 15 

 percent, and I am also seeking to raise revenue through the 

 unbundling of products that I hope will have an immediate effect 

 on the 1995 rate increase. 



Mr. LaRocco. Okay. Just one final thing that is sort of fuzzy in 

 mind is the public involvement in your business plan or the Com- 

 petitiveness Project, whether it is like an EIS, where there are 

 scoping and comments and so forth. 



Mr. Hardy. There will be various stages of public involvement. 

 As both Tom and Angus alluded to, they are both involved in dif- 

 ferent aspects of our function-by-function review as is Ralph 

 Cavannah of the National Resource Defense Council and Ted 

 Strong of the Columbia Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. In addition 

 to customers, which are the predominant group, we also have rep- 

 resentatives of other interests that are involved in the efficiency 

 paH of the exercise. When we go out with the marketing plan, we 

 will clearly involve mainly our customers, but additional groups 

 will be involved in the business plan. We have not decided what 

 the best form of that is. As we actually start to implement some 

 of these measures, the implementation vehicles will be the power 

 sales contract renegotiation, the 1995 rate case, and the related 

 EIS processes, all of which will have substantial public involvement 

 components for the general public, public interest groups, and other 

 interests as well. 



Mr. LaRocco. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. DeFazio. Thank you. That was a good round of questions. 



Ms. Merchant, have you thought any more about the concerns of 

 unbundling? 



Ms. Merchant. You have raised some questions — in fact, both of 

 you have — that are additional to the questions we have raised. 

 Right now, there are probably more questions than answers in any 

 of our minds. The function-by-function review and reinventing gov- 

 ernment in terms of bureaucratic structure is something not only 

 Bonneville is doing, but certainly state government is doing as 

 well. It is very difficult and we applaud the effort and will work 

 with Bonneville very closely in terms of our association and pro- 

 grams that we share. 



You can hear in my testimony how we have created various con- 

 structs that can lead to possible results. The volatility of the energy 

 industry right now in terms of signals — ^for example, gas is cheap 

 now. It may not be cheap tomorrow. And so, as we lay out these 

 constructs, it may make sense in one market perspective, but it 

 may change very rapidly. I can see some value if Bonneville wants 

 to maintain its competitive strength. We believe it is competitive 

 now. And, of course, that is probably an area of disagreement 

 among many people in this room as to how strong its competitive 

 nature is. Aiid changes, the different view you have as you lay out 

 the scenario. Whether unbundling and tiered rates will actually de- 

 centrsdize, or will it just give the message and maybe the promise 

 that will not come true that it will be decentralized, I think, is a 

 pretty fundamental question. Because it can lead to all sorts of de- 

 cisions, particularly related to gas-generated power and invest- 

 ments, and it can create such instability that you cannot help but 

 continually ask the question. Are we creating more problems or are 



