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PANEL CONSISTING OF JANE VAN DYKE, COMMISSIONER, 

 CLARK PUBLIC UTILITIES, VANCOUVER, WA; RANDY 

 BERGGREN, GENERAL MANAGER, EUGENE WATER AND 

 ELECTRIC BOARD; M. STEVEN ELDRIDGE, GENERAL MAN- 

 AGER, UMATILLA ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION; 

 BUD TRACY, GENERAL MANAGER, RAFT RIVER RURAL ELEC- 

 TRIC COOPERATIVE, INC., MALTA, ID; AND, BOB OLSEN, 

 COMMISSIONER, MASON COUNTY PUBLIC UTILITY DISTRICT 

 3, SHELTON, WA 



Mr. DeFazio. All right. Let's begin, then. Ms. Van Dyke, and I 

 apologize for the misappropriation of your title when they commu- 

 nicated with you. Washington has wierd titles and they thought 

 Secretary was higher than Member of Congress. So they thought 

 by referring to you as Secretary, they were putting you way up 

 there, like my administrative assistant is my top person. But most 

 people back here would think of administrative assistant as some- 

 thing else. So we apologize. Go ahead with your testimony. 



STATEMENT OF JANE VAN DYKE 



Ms. Van Dyke. Thank you. There's really no problem because I 

 was on vacation and I didn't see the earlier agenda. I am Jane Van 

 Dyke and I currently am president of the Board of Commissioners 

 at Clark PubUc Utilities in Vancouver, Washington. 



I'm one of three elected Commissioners and I have served on the 

 Board since 1985, about 9 years. Clark Public Utilities serves over 

 114,000 customers in southwest Washington with power purchased 

 from BPA, making us one of Bonneville's largest public customers. 



I appreciate this opportunity to share our thoughts and ideas on 

 Bonneville and its resource acquisition process with you. First, I 

 think we should note that we hve in a dynamic and changing 

 world. What was true and made sense 50 years ago may not make 

 sense today, and even what was true and made sense 10 years ago 

 may not make sense today. 



In examining Bonneville and its strengths and weaknesses in the 

 resource acquisition process, we should first understand it occupies 

 a xinique and strong position in the Northwest. It has control of the 

 power generated by the Federal Base System, a region-wide trans- 

 mission system, and near monopoly control over the interties be- 

 tween the Pacific Northwest and CaHfomia and the southwest. 

 Plus, it has the ability to add value to the power supply by provid- 

 ing services such as storage, load factoring and backup power. 



Bonneville, of course, has weaknesses in the resource acquisition 

 process in other areas, too. We look at this primarily as inability 

 to act; not only to act decisively, but to simply act at all. Bonneville 

 appears to be more committed at times to the process than to the 

 results. We feel the process from them is sometimes a product and 

 not the result. 



Consequently, we believe this leads to Bonneville missing cost-ef- 

 fective resources and conservation opportunities, stifling resource 

 development and conservation programs by its customers and un- 

 necessarily increasing the cost of these resources. 



For example, in the £irea of conservation, BPA insists on running 

 a centrally planned, designed and administered conservation pro- 

 gram which attempts to impose a one-size-fits-all approach to our 



