226 



would like nothing more than to see that turn around. I think 

 Randy is to be commended, Randy Hardy, for the function-by-func- 

 tion review process. Competitiveness Project. I believe all of those 

 things are in the right direction to make Bonneville both more 

 price competitive, but also it may lean toward doing away with the 

 hassle factor. They are streamlining their processes, they are creat- 

 ing clearer and shorter lines of authority. They are empowering 

 employees to make decisions and I hope eliminating some of the 

 burdensome bureaucracy. And if they do that, they will end up 

 being an institution that people desire to do business with, not sim- 

 ply have to do business with. 



And finEilly the issue of their caretaker role in competitiveness. 

 Bonneville does have the responsibility to protect the natural and 

 built assets of the Northwest. At the heart of this role must be the 

 reversal of the deteriorating condition of one of the Nation's most 

 valuable assets, and that is the Columbia River Basin. I do not be- 

 lieve it is appropriate that any of the costs associated with those 

 resource choices should be laid at the feet of the Nation's tax- 

 payers. We have to shoulder those; we have to figure out how to 

 do that. 



Emerald PUD has tiered rates. Our customers understand them. 

 They treat their choices, their energy choices, on a daily basis, rec- 

 ognizing that, and I would submit to you, they appreciate that. 



I will not go into a lot of the details on the rate structure, we 

 have submitted several pages in our written testimony, and I wel- 

 come an opportunity to respond to any questions you might have 

 from that. 



Unbundling of services, I think most of that has been covered 

 pretty adequately. The one thing I would caution is in a private 

 market — and we have seen it with the phone companies and other 

 services — private sector providers are able to do some short-term 

 marketing things to subsidize the cost and allow them to enter into 

 market share. I am not sure that Bonneville is going to have that 

 opportunity. That is something we need to keep our eyes open to, 

 and I think that has been adequately covered in the discussion 

 today. 



With that, I think I will close on one more point, and that is the 

 low-density discount, the irrigation discount the value of reserves — 

 any of the issues that are truly subsidies. I think we need to get 

 away from subsidies altogether. That is going to come at some ex- 

 pense to our ratepayers as well, but in the long term, I think it will 

 make Bonneville much more competitive. 



Thanks. 



Mr. DeFazio. Thank you. Mr. Piper. 



[Prepared statement of Mr. Shields follows:] 



