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Bonneville's Fish and Wildlif? Program 



I want to briefly review that portion of Bonneville's annual fish and wildlife investment 

 which is used primarily to implement the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program. As you are 

 aware, Mr. Chairman, as part of the strategy to cope with our financial stress, we reduced 

 or limited the growth of the budgets for all of Bonneville's programs from the levels 

 adopted in Ortober 1992 at the end of Programs in Perspectives. The total reductions for 

 the FY 1994 - 1995 rate period amounted to $268 million. The fish and wildlife program 

 budget reductions were in the mid-range of all our programs on a percentage basis, 

 amounting to $28 million for the two year period. Even with these reductions, in July, 

 Bonneville announced a 15.7 percent rate increase for FYs 1994 and 1995. Fish and 

 wildlife investments account for 4 percentage points of that increase, drought accounted 

 for 6 percent, administrative costs accounted for 2 percent and obtaining new resources 

 accounted for 3 percent. 



In spite of the recent budget reductions, Bonneville's revised fish and wildlife direct 

 expenditures for FYs 1994 and 1995 will remain about the same as in FY 1993, as is 

 illustrated in Chart 2, Fish and Wildlife Program (attached). This chart forecasts increases 

 for the budget in FYs 1996 and 1997. In total, about $420 million is planned or forecasted in 

 the four-year period from FY 1994 through 1997. We believe this is a substantial and 

 notable commitment to implement the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program. 



Bonneville received criticism from a number of entities in the region when the growth of 

 'the FY 1994 budget was restrained by about $15 million over the level adopted at the end 

 of Programs in Perspective. The reduction was part of a Bonneville-wide budget review 

 in which all programs were cut—we did not gut any of our programs. 



