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TESTIMONY BEFORE THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 



COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 



by Columbia River People's Utility District 



September 25, 1993 



Eugene , Oregon 



Page 6 of 7 



the conservation staff of most of BPA's customers. Some will 

 tell you that this is a large number of people because 

 conservation is labor intensive. Depending on how you implement 

 conservation, it can be labor intensive at the retail utility 

 level but BPA is a wholesale power supplier. It does not 

 implement conservation programs directly with retail customers. 

 Instead BPA must work through its public utility customers to 

 deliver conservation resources. 



We submit that the primary reason that BPA's resource acquisition 

 activities are so people intensive is because of the way that the 

 agency approaches resources. BPA has established a paradigm that 

 requires elaborate tracking, expensive procedures and continual 

 tweaking. BPA's current system has produced a conservation 

 acquisition system that carries a 40% overhead loading. This 

 means that 40 cents of every dollar that BPA spends on 

 conservation actually goes to support the organization. This is 

 much too high! 



During the transition period from the current to a new BPA: 



a. We believe that BPA should begin immediately trying to 

 become the type of organization that they want to be in 

 the future. (Customer-focused, market-driven, cost 

 conscious, and results-oriented.) 



b. Unless BPA begins to transition now there will be 

 tremendous upheaval and dislocation when the time 

 finally arrives. 



c. We believe that the "transition" period should be a 

 time for experimentation and testing of different 

 approaches to conservation in particular. 



d. We believe that this experimentation should challenge 

 our preconceived notions about the current approach to 

 conservation resource delivery. In this transition 

 period BPA could look to a more flexible approach to 

 conservation by its customers. During this two year 

 period we believe a moratorium should be placed on 

 conservation program redesign and conservation program 

 evaluation. In fact, we believe that the very well 

 educated and knowledgeable Bonneville employees who 

 work in these functions could make productive 

 contributions elsewhere in BPA. 



e. This approach could take several forms, a) issuing a 

 RFP for conservation resources from utility customers; 

 b) piloting different implementation strategies; or c) 

 allocating the conservation budgets directly to 

 utilities and challenging their creativity in 

 conservation resource delivery by encouraging innovation 

 and process improvements. 



NAT_RVSeA3EN.MGH 



