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Should BPA fail to become truly competitive, it will, over 

 time, become increasingly irrelevant. Depending upon the energy 

 choices of the Northwest and world economic conditions, BPA could 

 easily enter a downward spiral from which it could not recover 

 without a massive Federal bailout. 



ACCOUNTABILITY 

 Accountability is my second major theme today. All of us in 

 the region, SUB included, engage in a collective fantasy. We 

 pretend that diluting - regionalizing - our mistakes in the vast 

 FBS resource makes everything OK. 



As a result, our region has a complex system of special deals 

 and fiascos. They go by various names; Low Density Discount, 

 Irrigation Discount, Variable Rate, Trojan and WPPSS, but share a 

 common reality - the people and organizations responsible escape 

 the consequences of their decisions "melding" the costs into the 

 regional rate pool. Many of these same players, now expres! 

 serious concerns over the expenditures for fish and wildlife 

 mitigation. 



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