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the absolutely smart thing to do, I doubt if anybody would argue 

 with that. What I am troubled about is we continually get into dis- 

 cussions from time to time about how much control and regulation 

 is placed on a local public utility, whether it is a municipal or 

 whether it is a PUD or whether it is a co-op. We stave off the PUC 

 whenever an lOU or a customer of lOU runs to the legislature and 

 tries to get us brought under the PUC. I worry that this is an in- 

 road to make us all alike, and there is a value in our diversity and 

 there is a value in the fact that we are locally controlled. It is not 

 an argument against least-cost planning and it is not an argument 

 against a requirement for least-cost planning, but I worry about 

 this business of superimposing by some central agency, that it gets 

 us one step closer to losing our ability to locally control. 



Mr. DeFazio. I will respond. I think you are making a valid 

 point. My concern is the lack of this is leading to making us all 

 alike in terms of new acquisitions. Look down the list, gas, gas, 

 gas, gas, gas, gas, gas, gas. I am concerned that the lack of some 

 sort of direction is leading us to becoming all alike because of per- 

 ceived current market conditions, and I am just not quite as san- 

 guine about the future of that as maybe some others are. Whenever 

 something becomes a conventional wisdom and everyone is doing it, 

 then it is time I think to begin thinking about it. 



Yes, Mr. Piper. 



Mr. Piper. I do not think it is all gas, gas, gas, gas. 



Mr. DeFazio. Well, I see everybody is out with bids and the bids 

 come back. Most of the bids are gas and then they say, well, now, 

 in the second stage 95 percent of what we are looking at will be 

 gas and we will look at one wind power and we will look at one 

 demand-side and we will look at one this, you know. 



Mr. Piper. But the only resources that have been committed to 

 have been by Bonneville at this point. 



Mr. DeFazio. No, I know, but I just keep reading about where 

 people are at in terms of 



Mr. Piper. I understand. 



Mr. DeFazio. Right. 



Mr. Piper. But I would not take that as being fact. The other 

 thing I would suggest to you is we are all going to do least-cost 

 planning. I do not think there is any question about it, and there 

 is nothing new with least-cost planning except the definition and 

 the formality of it. It has been the way things have been done his- 

 torically. Now maybe all of the factors have not been considered in 

 original earlier least-cost planning, but nonetheless we are all 

 going to be doing it. My only hope is that as and if to the extent 

 these things are centralized, that we do not get whipsawed, whip- 

 sawed by in our case federal administrative requirements by REA 

 or in siting requirements by any of the state siting agencies. 



Mr. DeFazio. Right, the desirable end is not to build in more bu- 

 reaucracy, but to continue to meet the coordinated regional goal. 

 Ideally what we would do is magically get to our coordinated re- 

 gional goals without any imposition of a central big fist, but I am 

 not idealistic enough to think that is going to happen. But there 

 may be better ways to do it than even through the Council, I do 

 not know. 



Mr. Shields. 



