41 



Last year, that cost was pretty low; it was down around $10 mil- 

 lion. This year, it is about $60-$70 million purely because of the 

 change in the power market. It is also going to cost us more next 

 year because none of the reservoirs are going to refill this year, and 

 hence to refill the reservoirs next year, we will incur more pur- 

 chase power costs than we originally anticipated when we adopted 

 the Power Council's fish program a year and a half ago. 



Mr. LaRocco. So there have been no new requirements, no new 

 programs. 



Mr. Hardy. There have been no new programs. This is strictly 

 the cost of providing the same basic program that we provided in 

 1992, but it is much more expensive because of the higher power 

 purchase cost. 



I don't know whether other new requirements may be levied or 

 not. We are still in consultations with the National Marine Fish- 

 eries Service on this year's operations. The outcome of that process 

 could be additional requirements, but right now that isn't certain. 

 But those figures are simply higher costs to service already existing 

 requirements that we adopted in late 1991 with the passage of the 

 Power Council's program. 



Mr. LaRocco. Is there an argument to be made that it should 

 go under the drought category here, or is it easier for the public 

 to understand that it is in fish and wildhfe? I mean there is no in- 

 crease in any program and no new requirements. Shouldn't it be 

 under drought instead of under fish and wildlife? 



Mr. Hardy. We tried to do an intellectually honest job of dividing 

 the cost. The 3 million acre-feet that we provide in the Columbia 

 for fish is just that, it is a fish-related cost, it doesn't have any- 

 thing to do with keeping the lights on. So we tried our best to at- 

 tribute the costs associated with purchasing power to store that 3 

 million acre-feet to fish, and all the other power purchase costs 

 were attributed to drought — namely, purchase power to keep the 

 hghts on. As you see, the majority of those expenses are still 

 drought expenses, they are not fish expenses, but we thought that 

 was the appropriate cost categorization of those costs. 



Mr. LaRocco. With regard to across-the-board cuts, do you an- 

 ticipate any new requirements with regard to potential listings of 

 any more endangered species? If there are anticipated listings, will 

 that raise your budgets? Are you going to have to seek money to 

 address those anyway? In other words, is fish and wildlife an area 

 that maybe you shouldn't cut, or is it just easier to go across the 

 board? 



Mr. Hardy. We need to be sensitive to that. We don't want to 

 make penny wise/pound foolish cuts in the fish program or any 

 other program. As I believe I described in my opening statement, 

 my general guidance to staff has been to cut but not gut the pro- 

 grams. 



That is particularly applicable to the Fish and Wildlife Program. 

 We are not seeking absolute decreases, we are seeking to lower the 

 rate of increase. You will still see some increases in program costs 

 in 1994 and 1995 over 1992 levels. We are going to try and gain 

 efficiencies in those programs, but not do things that would either 

 put us in jeopardy relative to already listed stocks or cause addi- 



