230 



when all those people say I'm tired of cutting wood and they turn 

 their electric furnaces back on. 



I think that Congress, if thej^re going to encourage the use of en- 

 ergy, it should always be in the name of efficiency. 



In the conservation area, we've accomplished a lot in conserva- 

 tion. Our irrigators use 30 percent less energy and 25 percent less 

 water than they did 15 years ago, and it goes along with what 

 Ralph Cavanagh was saying, that you don't need a club to get peo- 

 ple to conserve. I think our irrigators are testimony to that. 



In fact, the Act allows now to charge them 10 percent more if 

 they don't conserve. We haven't done that because I don't think 

 that it's politically possible to do it. This large amount of conserva- 

 tion in the irrigation sector was due to changing equipment, lower- 

 ing pressures, changing pump and motor size. 



In the residential, where we've had some successes, it's been in 

 changing the equipment, in taking out that electric furnace and 

 putting in an air-to-air heat pump or a ground source heat pump. 

 That's when you pay for delivered savings, not hoped for savings 

 from a tiny sample. 



Now, our experience points out one of the basic problems, which 

 has been mentioned several times. Residents pajdng for measures 

 based on tiny samples, BPA should pay on the basis of actually 

 saved energy. Conservation is a resource. It has to compete on the 

 same level as every other resource. 



BPA pays too much, almost twice per kilowatt hour as other 

 large utilities for conservation. I've got some solutions here, if you 

 want to hear them. I think Bonneville is held to a different stand- 

 ard than anybody else, which drives up their conservation costs. 



They're expected to staff for the region, financially support State 

 and local conservation programs, fund building code enforcement, 

 fund the conservation con^rences and be required to manipulate 

 cost-effectiveness . 



Then, very quickly, on the Council. The Council was created to 

 bring about consensus in the region on resource acquisition, on fish 

 and wildlife, and we need strong effective leadership to do that. 



If you look at the recent past, there's a lot of debate about how 

 strong and effective that leadership has been and how much con- 

 sensus we have. There will never be consensus that the Council 

 will bring about until decisions are based on traditional cost-effec- 

 tive methods and that they're an integral part of those decisions. 



The Council receives a lot of press coverage, making it virtually 

 impossible for the general public to sort out personal opinions or 

 Council positions. As a consequence. Council members should take 

 care not to use their position on the Council as a bully pulpit, es- 

 pousing their personal views and beliefs. 



The basic problem we have in the Northwest is a lack of commit- 

 ment to work out solutions to reach consensus. We all run to you 

 if we don't like what we hear. When you're responsible, you say, 

 hey, get all together and work it out. Sometimes when our elected 

 officials get involved in the details and demand a specific progrsun, 

 that hurts us. That doesn't help us build consensus. 



If that doesn't work, we run to court. My request is that this 

 Committee help de-politicize BPA and the Council. We must con- 

 tinue to have an open process in which any who wish to participate 



