385 



and Germans undoubtedly know a great deal about international trade, but 

 their knowledge — obviously — is not free from the taint of a certain bias. 



Nonetheless, Bonneville has shown no timidity about making biological 

 decisions which undermine salmon recovery proceedings established by 

 Congress under law, and thwart the recovery effort itself. 



• Last year BPA unilaterally decided to write its own fish and wildlife 

 program. Bonneville calls it a 10-year implementation plan; I call it a direct 

 slap at the Northwest Power Planning Council. 



• At a public meeting here in Boise. £m agency ofRcial stated that "if we 

 think it's wrong or won't work." BPA might choose to completely ignore the 

 forthcoming salmon recovery plan from the National Marine Fisheries 

 Service (NMFS). 



• This year the Administrator himself told a group of public interest leaders 

 that Bonneville would pick and choose among measures in the Council's 

 strategy for salmon and the NMFS recovery plan. 



• Recently BPA decided to delay or outright cut $15-30 million from the 

 next fiscal year budget for implementing the Council's fish and wildlife 

 program. Press releases from the agency had declared Bonneville's 

 commitment to fully fimd the program. 



AU this is part and parcel of BPA's long-standing strategy of pushing its own 

 fish and wildlife agenda, ignoring or challenging the duly established 

 resource agencies and policy- makers, and, above all, implementing only 

 whatever recovery and mitigation measures whenever the agency in its 

 wisdom chooses to. 



Competitiveness Will Produce More of the Same 



As you know, BPA's latest justification for this arrogation of decision- 

 making unto itself is in response to its wholesale electricity rate increase of 

 15.7 percent. I respectfully urge the Congress to reject this rationale for 

 several reasons. First and foremost, the Congress designated the Northwest 

 Power Plarming Council — not BPA — to decide what the region can and can 

 not afford to spend on fish and wildlife recovery. 



Second, the "crisis" over this rate hike is of BPA's own making. For six 

 years, the agency buckled under to its customers' demands, and did not 

 raise its rates in small, prudent, digestible Ivmips. In real dollars, BPA rates 

 have declined in recent years. 



Bonneville claims that the rate hike became necessary due to drought, 

 low alimiinum prices, and listings of threatened and endangered salmon 



SierraClub — Page3 



