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stocks — all factors, we are told, "beyond the agency's control." Hogwash. 

 While BPA can not control the weather, it certainly can plan for dry spells. 

 Drou^t. low aluminum prices, and the salmon listings were all as 

 predictable as the sun rising in the east this morning. With the Northwest 

 Power Planning Act, the Congress directed BPA to plan for just these 

 contingencies, which the agency has clearly failed to do. 



In 1987. Bonneville announced in its own public documents that BPA 

 had deliberately departed from the least-cost path set out in the regional 

 power plan, had incurred a clear risk of just what has occurred this year, 

 and had done so in order to meet its customers* demands for no — zero — 

 near-term rate increases. Between WPPSS debt and this departure from the 

 regional power plan, BPA £uid its customers successfully dug themselves a 

 deep hole, and this year fell in it. The Congress must now stop BPA and its 

 customers from dig^g a bigger and deeper hole that the whole region falls 

 into someday soon. It sends the wrong signal for the Congress to reward 

 Bonneville for this 15.7 percent rate hike by giving the agency even greater 

 latitude to decide whether and when BPA will implement the regional 

 power plan or the Columbia Basin fish and wildlife program. 



Third, BPA and its customers have argued before this Task Force and 

 other forums that the agency must become more "competitive," or its 

 customers will switch to other sources of power supply ^»iilch, in turn, will 

 slice into Bonneville's revenues, w^ch, in turn, will strange the agency's 

 ability to fund fish and wildlife recovery. This argument is disingenuous, at 

 best. The single most efifective strategy for BPA to keep rates down is to 

 shed load, and thereby eliminate the need to buy or install expensive new 

 power supply. When its customers, particularly the Direct Service 

 Industries \n^ich do not pay their fair share, threaten to switch to new 

 power suppliers, Bonneville should respond, "Gto ahead, make my day." 



What have we seen so far from the competitiveness project and the 

 designation of BPA as a "laboratory for reinventing government?" More of 

 the same. A survey of the agency's "clients" produced new demands to cut 

 or eliminate funding for fish and wildlife programs, to cut or eliminate 

 public participation, to cut or eliminate oversight by policy-makers such as 

 the Northwest Power Planning Council or even the White House. Apparently 

 BPA had already bought into its customers' agenda on public participation; 

 neither the Sierra Club nor any other public interest "client" received the 

 survey — only the customers did. Congress clearly needs to remind 

 Bonneville that its mission is competitive service to the public — not just its 

 utility and industrial customers, and specifically, that its power sales 

 contracts currently under negotiation should benefit the public and the 

 region — not just Its utility and industrial customers. 



None of the recommendations to date from the competitiveness 

 project call for the agency to simply implement the Council's fish and 



Sieira Club — Page 4 



