165 



Council or on your staff would confidently assert that BPA is determined to 

 implement the Plan. 



Yet everyone assumes, and Council members have publicly said, that you will 

 find the project consistent. The word on the street is, "the fix is in." To 

 prejudge the case, or for others to perceive that you have done so, is to render 

 much of the Council's authority moot It is to reduce the Council's one source of 

 binding legal leverage over the region's resource acquisitions to a rubber 

 stamp. An institution with as little power to compel as the Council has can 

 hardly afford to squander its few authorities, especially when its Plan is under 

 fire from every quarter. 



We have also been disturbed by the suggestion that our standing in this 

 proceeding is somehow diminished by the fact that we did not intervene in 

 BPA's 6(c) process. Frankly, we are so busy implementing the Plan in other 

 forums that we simply didn't have the wherewithal. We are defending the Plan 

 in the rate case; implementing your decoupling provisions in three states; 

 getting the environmental community squared up to yoin" renewables agenda; 

 working to pass your commercial code in Washington; helping utilities ramp up 

 to your proposed conservation levels; and urging the public to heed the Plan's 

 call for decisive action. When we had to make tough choices, we figured that 

 the one forum in which the Council had formal legal authority might be a forum 

 we could afford to miss. 



Truth is, we didn't see a huge percentage in being party to a process in which 

 BPA would predictably justify what it had already chosen to do. The far more 

 interesting venue is the one in which the Council assumes its rightful role as 

 arbiter of what is consistent with the Plan. We assumed that the outcome of 

 BPA's process was predetermined. We assume that the outcome of this 

 process is not. We hope that our assumption does not prove to be naive. 



The Council's standing as an effective agent of its own Plan and a force to be 

 reckoned with depends on your willingness to use what little formal authority 

 you have, including 6(c). The Coalition will continue to use every means at our 

 disposal to ensure accountability to the regional energy agenda that you have 

 articulated. We urge you to do likewise. 



Sincerely, 



l<^<i^tV; 



K.C. Golden, 

 Executive Director 



cc: Governors 



Congressman Peter DeFazio 

 Council members 



