147 



Mr. DeFazio. Thank you. Mr. Golden. 



STATEMENT OF K.C. GOLDEN 



Mr. Golden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is K.C. Gold- 

 en. I'm the Director of the Northwest Conservation Act Coalition, 

 a region-wide alliance of over 60 public interest groups and pro- 

 gressive utilities. 



You have, in the ordering of this panel, forced me to violate my 

 cardinal rule of public speaking, which is going after Ralph 

 Cavanagh, but here goes anyway. 



On behalf of all those organizations and their milhons of mem- 

 bers and consumers, I want to thank you for convening this task 

 force £ind for inviting us to participate. The coalition's agenda is 

 simply this — the effective implementation of the Northwest Con- 

 servation Act of 1980. 



Our goals are laid out quite compellingly in the Act's purposes: 

 to promote energy efficiency and renewable resources, to ensure 

 adequate economical energy services, full partnership in regional 

 energy decisions, fair distribution of the system's costs and bene- 

 fits, £ind a fighting chance for fish and wildlife. 



The Act sets forth a comprehensive regional energy and natural 

 resource planning fi-amework. The Power Coimcil invented least- 

 cost planning and they still lead the world in its practice, and BPA 

 was one of the Nation's foremost conservation pioneers. 



We justly deserve to pat ourselves on the back for these accom- 

 pUshments. But the time has come to stop congratulating ourselves 

 and to rise to a new challenge. Our policy and planning achieve- 

 ments are now being subjected to really the only test that ulti- 

 mately matters; not can we implement it, because I'm absolutely 

 confident that we can, but will we implement those policies and 

 plans. 



We've had enough successes and even some of them as late as 

 this week to indicate that we can, in fact, succeed. But Bonneville, 

 the Council and the region's utilities have not conclusively dem- 

 onstrated that they are, in fact, determined to succeed. 



What's the holdup? I think you'U hear a lot of answers to that 

 question before this day is done, but we would submit that none 

 of them is more important than this. The people who follow the de- 

 tailed processes that ultimately make or break the implementation 

 of the Act, the people who sit in Bonneville all day designing pro- 

 grams, by and large, don't represent the public interest. 



They're primarily interested in securing the largest possible 

 share of the benefits of the regional system and the smallest pos- 

 sible share of its costs on behalf of the utilities and the industries 

 they represent. 



I think the punch bowl image is an apt one. As long as regional 

 energy forums are a contest to see who can suck the hardest on the 

 punch bowl, we will, indeed, drain the bowl very quickly. The peo- 

 ple at the Lloyd Center think that the5^re doing their job, but we, 

 the people and the pubUc officials of the region have not made it 

 clear to them that implementing the Act in the broad public inter- 

 est is, in fact, their job. 



They have no reason to think that when they walk out of BPA 

 at the end of the day that there will be a price to pay for failing 



