210 



Mr. Golden. At this point in the competitiveness process, from 

 what we can glean from the outside, it appears as though many of 

 the fundamental decisions are being made in the course of develop- 

 ing a marketing plan. While it is true that there is some participa- 

 tion in the function-by-function review, there is no participation in 

 the marketing plan. And actually frankly, I do not think we are 

 alone; I think the customers are outside that door too. And there 

 is always a question about having gone through that exercise inter- 

 nally and come out with something that they say well this is just 

 a draft, how dry is the ink on that draft, and in our experience, 

 it gets dry pretty quick before anybody gets a handle on it. But I 

 guess I am not suggesting that there are fundamental decisions 

 being made illegally behind closed doors. 



Mr. LaRocco. Right. 



Mr. Golden. What I am suggesting is that all the rhetoric that 

 is emerging from BPA right now suggests that what they want to 

 focus on more is their customers, and the ultimate question in my 

 mind is who is in charge? Are the customers? Are we going back 

 to the days or the proposals that instead of having a Power Plan- 

 ning Council that is chosen by the states, that is empowered to 

 make fundamental policy and planning decisions, that the cus- 

 tomers do that. That is my objection. And you know, frankly, BPA 

 can and has been very successful at creating a lot of public process 

 that results in very little public access to real decision-making. 

 More process is not the answer. 



Mr. LaRocco. Okay, well I appreciate that. That is why I think 

 it is a propitious time to hold these hearings and for the establish- 

 ment of the task force. Things are changing. This is totally dif- 

 ferent than reading in the Wall Street Journal that IBM is laying 

 off 100,000 and they make these determinations within their execu- 

 tive committee. I mean this is a federal agency and it involves our 

 whole region and shapes our lives and our resources. So it is a dif- 

 ferent entity, but it is incredibly important. They have got to re- 

 spond to the marketplace too and the demands by the public to 

 reinvent themselves, as we are doing in Congress, or trying to. 



I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman, thank you. 



Mr. DeFazio. Thank you. 



Mr. Pilon, you raised the issue of the DSIs and that you felt the 

 variable rate should be eliminated. I assume moving them to some 

 cost-of-service-based rate or — I do not know exactly what rate you 

 would set for them, but you are saying you would move away from 

 the variable rate? 



Mr. PiLON. There is a tariff rate in Bonneville's rates right now; 

 it is the industrial priority rate, the IP rate. And I am just suggest- 

 ing that that is the rate they move back to, like the other non-alu- 

 minum DSIs. 



Mr. DeFazio. Mr. Myers, if I could ask, you made a strong state- 

 ment and I do know if it extended to DSIs, but about both the 

 unbundled services and other rates by BPA being set at cost-of- 

 service or market-based. Do you think that should apply in this 

 case? 



Mr. Myers. Well in my complete remarks, I also touch on this. 

 Yes, we believe that it ought to be cost-of-service-based. I think 

 where we perhaps have not done enough is to really examine what 



