236 



Mr. DeFazio. Thank you. It's a little after 1:30. We're going to 

 do that 30-minute lunch break and well hear from Mr. Tracy and 

 Mr. Olson immediately after lunch. We're starting 5 minutes late, 

 so well still take the full half-hour. So it will be 5 minutes after 

 2:00 when we reconvene, by my watch, which is fairly consistent. 



[Whereupon, at 1:35 p.m., the Committee was recessed, to recon- 

 vene this same day at 2:05 p.m.] 



AFTERNOON SESSION 



Mr. DeFazio. Well go back in session. Thank you very much for 

 being so prompt. We had, as I recall, two more witnesses £ind then 

 we will go on to questions. Mr. Tracy. 



STATEMENT OF BUD TRACY 



Mr. Tracy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Bud Tracy. 

 I'm the general manager of Raft River Electric Cooperative. It's lo- 

 cated in south central Idaho in Malta. We serve south central 

 Idaho, northeastern Nevada and northwestern Utah. 



I also feel I'm here representing all of the Idaho cooperatives 

 today as president of the Idaho Cooperative Utilities Association, 

 representing 150,000 people and at the request of Congressman 

 LaRocco. 



Mr. DeFazio. Again, you were here at the beginning, so you 

 heard my explanation why he wasn't here. He did want to be here 

 today. Go ahead. 



Mr. Tracy. Thank you. But maybe more importantly, the group 

 of people that I would like to suggest that I'm representing are the 

 ratepayers of the region and the people that we actually serve in 

 Idaho. 



Since the passage of the Regional Act, BPA has clearly pursued 

 an aggressive path of conservation and generation resource devel- 

 opment. Whether or not BPA has succeeded in its efforts is still a 

 debatable issue. 



With that in mind and looking at the questions that were posed, 

 I would suggest that, first, BPA has paid far too much for incen- 

 tives compared to what they actually could have got on the market. 



Second, BPA has funded too many measures that were not cost- 

 efifective. 



Third, BPA and the Council have tended to significantly over- 

 state the amount of kilowatt hours that were actually attained 

 through conservation measures. 



Foiirth, BPA's programs have entailed high administrative costs. 



Finally, BPA's programs have become too centralized and inflexi- 

 ble, despite efforts to delegate more authority and discretion to the 

 areas. 



Trying to get a decision from BPA on a fairly timely scale has 

 been virtually impossible. It has taken even into the years to get 

 that accomplished. 



We think that many of these problems could be overconie in the 

 region if BPA moved towards more decentralized acquisition ap- 

 proaches and relied more on tiered wholesale rates. I would also 

 link decision-making authority and responsibility which is lacking 

 in the current regional structures. Utilities that make cost-effective 



