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power because of the allegedly hiah cost of the agency's social 

 responsibilities. Utility and industrial customers should face 

 the following choice squarely: if you reduce your purchases by 

 building your own generation or buying from another supplier, the 

 f reed-up BPA power should be eligible for immediate and 

 potentially long-term resale under contract, free of regional 

 preference restrictions. If you want to go elsewhere for power 

 purchases, don't expect the rest of us to pay part of the bill 

 for your decision — and don't deprive the rest of us of an 

 opportunity for a mutually beneficial resale. If legislation is 

 needed to ensure that result, it should be enacted promptly. 



As the Task Force weighs BPA customer complaints about the 

 alleged costs of the agency's "social agenda", it should recall 

 that the complalners are themselves both creatures and 

 beneficiaries of social agendas. A robust, no-holds-barred free 

 market system would not accommodate preference power, tax-exempt 

 financing, irrigation subsidies, low-density discounts, below- 

 market industrial rates, and regional preferences. 

 6. On fish and wildlife issues, we join colleagues in the 

 Northwest environmental community who are calling for renewed 

 efforts by the key regional stakeholders to negotiate and propose 

 a reasonable settlement of disputes now in litigation over how 

 best to meet BPA's fish and wildlife obligations. 



II. RESPONSES TO THE TASK FORCE'S QUESTIONS 



The Task Force has posed eight specific questions regarding 

 the restructuring of BPA's debt and proposals to make BPA into a 

 government corporation. Our responses follow. 



1. Discuss the principles that should govern any restructuring of 

 Bonneville's debt; propose a solution to the perennial efforts to 

 accelerate BPA's debt repayment schedule. 



RESPONSE: The principal policy justification for raising BPA's 

 rates is that deceptive price signals yield wasteful use. The 

 most powerful response is to demonstrate that the region is 

 aggressively pursuing all cost-effective conservation; we are 



