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tain groups of individuals who can see the data, and that made us 

 feel extremely comfortable and does look like a good option. 



Mr. DeFazio. So will you undertake to negotiate such a prospec- 

 tive agreement with the Council so that any future acquisitions can 

 be reviewed in that manner? 



Mr. Hardy. Yes. I think we can do that, and as Sue remarked, 

 this is a learning process. We got confronted with this issue rel- 

 atively late in the process of the acquisition and we'll work with 

 the Council to try to reach some mutually satisfactory arrangement 

 of sharing the data that still protects the confidentiality to the ex- 

 tent where we don't put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage. 



I would just observe, Mr. Chairman, relative to the comments 

 about the investor-owned utilities, that's precisely what we're wor- 

 ried about. If the PUC allows the lOUs to protect this information 

 and they get all the most competitive bidders, where we have to 

 disclose it all and we get less competitive bidders, that gives me 

 a big problem. 



Mr, DeFazio, I'm saying just mirror their process. There's a cer- 

 tain amount of information that will be public and a certain 

 amount of information that we're going to have to trust is being 

 properly evaluated by the duly appointed members of the Council. 

 That's why we have a Council to do some of these things. 



I see the light is on. I'm going to defer to my colleague again for 

 another round. 



Mr. Smith of Oregon. I just have two more questions. Thank you, 

 Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hardy, has irrigation power use grown over the 

 past 10-15 years, irrigation power from the Columbia River source? 



Mr. Hardy. I honestly don't know, Mr. Congressman. I'll have to 

 answer that one for the record. 



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