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nopoly of power, but rather public or private regulated power, free- 

 ly chosen by the citizens of each area, with the Federal Grovem- 

 ment drawn in as a cooperating partner where this seems nec- 

 essary or desirable. And I would like to see that at Bonneville. Not 

 necessary but certainly desirable, something that we actually pre- 

 fer to do business with, rather than somebody that we have to do 

 business with. 



It is important to maintain Bonneville's financial integrity. It is 

 important that they continue to provide an opportunity for us to be 

 a yardstick for the investor-owned utilities. We saw what happened 

 prior to the formation of Bonneville, and it was not a pretty scene. 

 People could not get power; it was not a matter of price; it was a 

 matter that it was not available to you. And I suppose it was a 

 matter of price — with enough money, I suppose you could have got- 

 ten it for yourself or your community. I am afraid if Bonneville 

 simply becomes a competing enterprise with public power and pri- 

 vate power, we may lose that yardstick. We need to make sure that 

 whatever comes out of any future legislation or leadership, that we 

 always recognize if we are going to have public power, if we are 

 going to have private power, that the two have to have a yardstick. 



Bonneville has to get a handle on some of its hidden costs and 

 what drives those hidden costs. There are opportunities to acquire 

 resources over the years, they have become the nuclear host to the 

 Pacific Northwest and a lot of in the utility end, the buyers of the 

 products of Bonneville, do not have an opportunity to truly analyze 

 what those hidden costs are. The nuclear portfolio, I have some se- 

 rious concerns about; the gas risks; the CO2 risks that are not 

 being dealt with, those future ratepayers are going to have to pay 

 those costs and they are going to ask why was I not, why were you 

 not, why was the region not dealing with these issues when we had 

 the ability to do that. 



There are changes in the electric utility industry in terms of 

 technology and what is available to people. And those changes are 

 working to the benefit of the citizens. Decentralization, People are 

 going to have the ability over the next 10, 20, 30 years to acquire 

 resources more suited to small industries and maybe even as far 

 down as residential customers, giving them some choices in the re- 

 sources. 



We need to make sure in that process that we recognize that and 

 that we do not bring on 240 megawatt gas-fired resources with 20- 

 year financing obligations that we cannot get out from under. Peo- 

 ple trust that our regulatory bodies — the people assigned with over- 

 sight of these decisions — are looking out for those kind of concerns, 

 and I am concerned that that is not taking place. We have the 

 Tenaska resource which the Council nodded their heads to — with 

 a secret agreement. That may have been a wonderful resource, and 

 trust me, I hope more than anybody that it was a wonderful re- 

 source. But I certainly cannot report that to my ratepayers today. 



We have the issue of what has unfortunately become referred to 

 as the hassle factor in the Northwest, in regard to doing business 

 with Bonneville. And it goes beyond price competitiveness. I am 

 concerned that as resources get close to being competitive to the 

 price of Bonneville, people may jump ship anyhow because quite 

 frankly, it is a hassle frequently to do business with Bonneville. I 



