135 



lawyers."' You have taken a broader view, and a much larger 

 constituency than my membership is very grateful. 



The Task Force will hear today from a host of witnesses with 

 little in common except an abiding dissatisfaction with the 

 performance of the Bonneville Power Administration. If you find 

 their complaints persuasive, you have two plausible courses of 

 action: force BPA out of the resource acquisition business, or 

 help it to do a better job. I vote emphatically for the latter 

 course. We need a cost-minimizing regional resource acquisition 

 mechanism in the Pacific Northwest, and we can't afford to give up 

 on BPA. 



Some witnesses will tell you that regional salvation lies in 

 relegating BPA to its original hydropower marketing functions, 

 leaving the region's electrical energy future in the hands of 120- 

 odd publicly- and investor-owned utilities. That would mean a 

 return to the status quo prevailing before Congress passed the 

 Regional Act in 1980. This was a period that few now recall with 

 anything approaching nostalgia. Whether acting as atomized units 

 or collective groups, BPA's utility customers did not set a 

 resource acquisition record that inspires confidence. However 

 difficult the 1980s may have been, the past decade created nothing 

 that compares with the 10,000 MW of abandoned generating capacity 

 — and more than $7 billion in wasted regional investment — that 

 still burdens every citizen of this region.^ 



'Clearing Up, July 5, 1993, p. 5. 



^Sunk costs for Pebble Springs Units 1 and 2 and Skagit/Hanford 

 Units 1 and 2 were $293 million and $400-500 million, respectively. 

 Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, 

 Nuclear Plant Cancellations: Causes. Costs and Consequences , at 

 pp. xviii, 36 (April 1983) . WPPSS Units 1 and 3 absorbed a total 

 of about $4 billion before the mothballs were applied. Battelle 

 Pacific Northwest Laboratories, XIV Assessment of Electric Power 

 Conservation and Supply Resources in the Pacific Northwest: 

 Nuclear, at pp. 4.9 & 4.17 (April 1983). Net construction and 

 termination costs for WPPSS Units 4 & 5 were $2.34 billion. Id. at 

 p. 4.20. 



