NONDEPARTMENTAL WITNESSES 



Natural Resources Defense Council 

 statement of ralph cavanagh, director 



Senator Hatfield. I would like to now invite the third panel, Mr. 

 Mark Crisson, the director of utilities at Tacoma Public Utilities; 

 Mr. Richard E. Dyer, senior vice president, Portland General Elec- 

 tric Co.; Mr. Richard Holder, president and CEO of the Reynolds 

 Metals Corp.; Mr. K.C. Golden, Northwest Conservation Act Coali- 

 tion; and Mr. Ralph Cavanagh, Natural Resources Defense Council. 



Let me also say that we have invited a gentleman from the 

 fourth panel, Mr. Warren Seyler, who is the chairman of the Spo- 

 kane Indian Tribe, in Washington, because both Mr. Seyler and 

 Mr. Cavanagh have a 5 o'clock plane. 



So we are going to let you gentlemen go first, so you can make 

 your plane. 



Mr. Cavanagh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Chairman, my name is Ralph Cavanagh, from the Natural 

 Resources Defense Council. I think it is a good moment to inject 

 one note of optimism in these proceedings, and I would like to do 

 it. 



I have worked for the last 16 years with utilities from every 

 State in the region, Mr. Chairman, and I remember when I started 

 we were in the same kind of a crisis, different context. Then it was 

 over electric resource needs for the region. 



We have done, I think, an extraordinary job in resolving those 

 conflicts, in moving ahead together on solutions, and I know, Mr. 

 Chairman, that you share our pride in the fact that last year was 

 the best in the history of the region in energy efficiency achieve- 

 ment. 



Bonneville and the investor-owned utilities, alone, scored over 

 130 average megawatts, just over 2 cents a kilowatt hour better 

 than any of the other numbers on Administrator Hardy's chart. 

 Those were good investments and good solutions. Our challenge is 

 to do the same here. 



In that spirit, I want to offer part of some of the new suggestions 

 for solutions that you and your colleagues have been asking for, 

 and I want to do it in the context of making Bonneville more com- 

 petitive. 



I believe, and it is my job to know something about the western 

 power markets, that Bonneville is potentially the most formidable 

 competitor in the wholesale power markets, bar none. I know it is 

 the most feared south of the Oregon border. 



The principal reason for the problem, and there is a problem, is 

 that Bonneville enters that arena with both hands tied behind its 

 back by a 30-year-old Federal statute that is no longer, in our view, 

 appropriate. 



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