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capacity than we're going to do with the generation and then have 

 the distribution problems? 



Mr. Duncan. Well, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to astonish some 

 people in the audience and disappoint others by saying that I don't 

 think this is necessarily an either/or choice, and I think the Coun- 

 cil's plan makes it clear that it's not an either/or choice. We are 

 going to have some gas-fired generation in this region. 



Having said that, there are any nimiber of studies at this point, 

 including analyses by Bonneville, that indicate that there are any- 

 where fi-om 300 or 400 to as many as 800 or 1,000 megawatts of, 

 you should pardon the phrase, fuel switching, direct application, 

 gas-fired delivery to loads that are now or will be served by elec- 

 tricity. 



Those average megawatts are cost-effective and of benefit to the 

 electric industry, the electric power system in the Pacific North- 

 west. I thin^ we are haltingly figiiring out what part of that the 

 market will drive and what part of it may invite intervention in the 

 same way we intervened to encourage conservation or we inter- 

 vened to acquire a new power plant. 



If it's a cost-effective resource, the region ought to acquire it. 

 Ought to acquire it, Congressman Smith, on a business-like basis. 

 But if it's cost-effective, we ought to figure out how to acquire it. 

 Clearly, there is substantial resource there. It's cost-effective and 

 we need to figure out how to get it. 



Mr. DeFazio. Thank you. Now, to either you or Chairman Grace. 

 Chairman Grace, first, you listed, I think, a very meritorious list 

 of actions and programmatic changes and improvements by BPA. 



What I'm concerned about is the linkage between the rec- 

 ommendations of the Council and actions by the agency. Person- 

 ally, in the case of Congress, we're doing this for oversight pur- 

 poses to try and exert more oversight and see how the Act has ac- 

 tually worked for the last dozen years since there was any signifi- 

 cant oversight. 



But I believe that the ongoing oversight role and the more de- 

 tailed oversight role lies with the Coimcil. Do you agree with that 

 assessment in terms of implementation? 



Mr. Grace. I didn't get just the last part of that. Do I agree with 

 what? 



Mr, DeFazio. My point is that there are a lot of very fine reports 

 and plans proposed by the Council. The question is, how do we see 

 about implementation with BPA? What's your relationship with 

 BPA? 



You produce a very fine report and you send it over and they say, 

 well, thank you very much, but, actually, we were kind of thinking 

 of doing something else. Now, there is a process by which you 

 can 



Mr. Grace. I think the language of the Act makes that fairly 

 clear. We don't have any absolute authority there, but anything 

 that the Council brings up that the Council plans for, any plans 

 that we bring about, the Administrator has to either follow the list 

 or he has to make some recommendation or some good reason for 

 not doing that and, in some cases, has to report to Congress why 

 he hasn't followed the plan. 



