41 



And, Mr. Chairman, that leaves out a few people, starting with 

 one of the gentlemen who testified before you a moment ago from 

 the Power Council and a number of other constituencies. BPA's 

 customers matter a lot but they are not the only group that mat- 

 ters. 



I think the authors of this report are captives of the mind-set 

 that thinks that the only BPA constituency that is critical in these 

 matters is the customer groups. I value them; they are a critical 

 part. They are not the only part. 



The academy report says on page 25 that wholly-owned govern- 

 ment corporations have no shareholders. And, Mr. Chairman, that 

 may be true as a technical matter but for BPA it is profoundly false 

 in substance, as Randy Hardy would be the first to insist. 



As a representative, though, of one of the excluded constituencies 

 in the report, I want to aclmowledge the strengths of the report it- 

 self in terms of the substance because I can attest that, as a result 

 of its current administrative status, BPA suffers under a host of 

 costly bureaucratic burdens that serve no discemable purpose. 



I have lived through some of this with the agency over the past 

 15 years, ranging from the inconsistent financial reporting require- 

 ments to the bizarre GSA restrictions on data processing and tele- 

 phones to the utterly irrational personnel policies and restrictions, 

 and plenty more, and, Mr. Chairman, those costs are real and we 

 all have a stake in reducing them, A paralyzed BPA can't be an ef- 

 fective environmental steward or resource manager. 



The challenge for any reform initiative is to eliminate those bur- 

 dens without in the process deluding BPA's obligations or reducing 

 the agency's accountability to the public. 



So on that matter I just want to join Mr. Bottiger in calling for 

 a regional consensus, which I hope we can move toward. To get 

 that consensus, BPA has got to reassure the public that 

 reinventing BPA, including the corporation status, involves no re- 

 treat from BPA's resource management, energy efficiency, and fish 

 and wildlife responsibilities. 



I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, from the anguished calls I have 

 gotten from utilities' conservation staff, from my environmental 

 constituents, from my many friends around the region who work in 

 the public interest sector, that BPA hasn't made that case yet. And 

 it is going to be critical to building the kind of regional consensus 

 we have to have in order to get it built. 



Let me close with a couple of observations, looking back very 

 quickly at the task force's work that don't bear on those two ques- 

 tions. One is, in our testimony, which we would be glad to take up, 

 if you would like, a suggestion in response to some of the claims 

 made in the competitiveness hearing that there were customers 

 getting ready to leave Bonneville because of the high cost of its so- 

 cial obligations. 



Our suggestion is if there are BPA customers who opt to leave 

 in whole or in part, the power they don't use ought to be released 

 for auction to the highest bidder inside or outside the region. As 

 to that power, regional interests acts to take power and dollars out 

 of the region, not keep them in, and we all have a stake in seeing 

 whether there is an opportunity for mutually beneficial resale if 



