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it is too late to undo. We cannot undo WPPSS. If we could have 

 stopped it beforehand, we would not even be in this room today be- 

 cause that power would be so cheap from BPA, we would not know 

 what to do. 



Mr. Drummond. But look at Mr. Grolden and remember that he 

 was a part of Seattle City Light's least-cost planning process, a 

 very active participant as I remember. You know, I would like to 

 think that indeed we have learned something from our experience 

 with the supply system and that the days of being able to sign on 

 to a major or even a minor generating resource without significant 

 public input, be it through the Energy Facility Siting Committee, 

 be it through the FERC licensing process, or be it through the indi- 

 vidual utility boards, is simply not going to happen. 



Mr. DeFazio. Mr. Golden. 



Mr. GrOLDEN. I just note that it is no coincidence that Seattle 

 City Light is one of a small handful of public utilities in the region 

 that is on a trajectory on their conservation programs that might 

 meet the Council's plan. 



I think even under the existing system with Bonneville acquiring 

 resources in a centralized fashion, it is clear that we are having a 

 hard time holding the region accountable to the goals of the Power 

 Planning Act, and it is not a matter of the Council micro-managing 

 resource acquisitions. I mean the gap between resource acquisitions 

 on the ground right now and what is in the Council's plan is em- 

 barrassingly large. This is not a little bit of variation on the mar- 

 gin. The Council's plan is not being used as a guide for Bonneville's 

 resource acquisitions, let alone the resource acquisitions of smaller 

 utilities. 



Yes, I think in some circumstances it is regarded as a hoop that 

 people need to jump through, but I think that Tenaska was able 

 to jump through that hoop with remarkable alacrity. And that is 

 under a centralized system, and I think it gets worse under decen- 

 tralized resource acquisition. I firmly believe that there must be a 

 mechanism under this system and even more so under a decentral- 

 ized system, that holds anybody who is going to acquire resources 

 and anybody who is going to enjoy the benefits of the regional sys- 

 tem to the prescriptions of the regional program. Do I think that 

 needs to be micro-managed? No. Do I think the Council is inclined 

 to micro-manage or wants to micro-manage resource decisions? Ab- 

 solutely not. They have demonstrated that abundantly, and they 

 should not. 



But I do not see how any fair reading of what is going on right 

 now in regional resource development can suggest that what we 

 are ending up with is an energy future out of the acquisition proc- 

 esses that are now in place, or that look much like where we told 

 ourselves we were going in the regional plan. We are being 

 swamped by gas. 



Mr. DeFazio. Mr. Drummond wants a quick response. 



Mr. Drummond. My understanding is Bonneville is on the path 

 to acquire the resources, the 660 megawatts of conservation that 

 was included in the Council's plan. Second, there was a consider- 

 able amount of gas included in the Council's plan. Non-firm was a 

 strategy that was well discussed during the development of the 



