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Thank you Mr. Chainnan, members of the Task Force. My name is K.C. 

 Golden; I am the Executive Director of the Northwest Conservation Act Coalition. 

 The Coalition is an alliance of over sixty public interest organizations, utilities, 

 agencies, and businesses from all four Northwest States and British Columbia. The 

 constituency we represent is extraordinarily large and diverse. It includes the League 

 of Women Voters; organizations like the Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs that 

 advocate for low-income citizens; local, state, and national environmental groups; 

 research organizations; consumer advocates; and public utilities including the Salem 

 Electric Cooperative, the Eugene Water and Electric Board, Emerald People's Utility 

 District, and the City of Ashland. 



On behalf of all those organizations and their millions of members and 

 consumers, I want to thank you for convening this Task Force and inviting us to testify 

 on these crucial issues. You could not have chosen a more pivotal moment in the 

 region's energy history to undertake this inquiry. And your questions could not be 

 more relevant or more incisive. 



Before I answer them, I want to say a bit more about the folks on whose behalf 

 I am answering. You might well be wondering what cause could possibly bind 

 together such a diverse set of interests. On what set of issues could Greenpeace and 

 EWEB and OSPIRG and the League and the Yakima Opportunities Industrialization 

 Center speak out with clear and unified determination? Oiir agenda is simply this: the 

 faithful and expeditious implementation of Federal Law, as embodied in the Northwest 

 Conservation Act of 1980. Our goals are laid out clearly and compellingly in the Act's 

 purposes (and I paraphrase here): 



(1)(A) To encourage conservation and efficiency in the use of electric power, 



(1)(B) To encourage the development of renewable resources within the 

 Pacific Northwest; 



(2) To assure adequate, efficient, economical, and reliable energy services; 



(3) To make the public and its state and local and tribal governments full 

 partners in building a regional energy future that emphasizes conservation, 

 renewable resources, and environmental protection; 



(4) To distribute the costs and benefits of the regional power system fairly; and 



(6) To protect, mitigate, and enhance the fish and wildlife resources of the 

 Columbia River Basin. 



Now, you might well wonder, since our goals are federal law, why don't we just 

 declare victory and go home? We considered doing just that in 1983, when the Model 

 Plan that we had written was adopted in significant part as the Power Planning 

 Council's first Regional Plan. 



Testimony of K.C. Golden. NCAC BPA Task Force 



July 12. 1993 Page 1 



