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Mr. Dyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In fact, Mr. Reiten sends 

 his regards and regrets that he cannot be here today. 



For the record, I am Richard Dyer, a vice president of Portland 

 General Electric Co. If I may submit for the record my written com- 

 ments and just summarize a few points in the interest of time, I 

 will do that. 



Senator Hatfield. We will be very happy to receive the full 

 statement. 



Mr. Dyer. Let me note also for the record that my testimony is 

 supported by the investor-owned utilities of Pacific Northwest. 



PGE is Oregon's largest electric utility, providing service to a 

 population base of over 1.3 million people and many of Oregon's 

 largest employers. 



Two years ago our company made a very tough decision, which 

 was a decision to permanently close our largest generating re- 

 source, the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant. We did that because fu- 

 ture operating costs of that plant were projected to exceed the cost 

 of replacement power. Today we serve 40 percent more customers 

 than we did a decade ago, and with 25 percent fewer employees. 



Our utilities in the Northwest had to make equally difficult deci- 

 sions, cutting back hundreds of employees, merging with competi- 

 tors, selling off subsidiaries, and reducing dividends to sharehold- 

 ers, which I might note in political terms is our equivalent of Bon- 

 neville stiffing the Treasury. 



Mr. Chairman, my first observation is that like the rest of us, 

 BPA will continue to struggle and ultimately may falter if they 

 cannot regain control of their costs. This is not a question of wheth- 

 er salmon recovery should be funded. 



What I am saying is that fish costs are Bonneville's fastest grow- 

 ing expense, and must be addressed in some fashion. 



We have a situation where their costs are growing almost un- 

 checked, and at the same time, have biological opinions that reduce 

 their output. In a competitive environment, that is not a winning 

 equation. 



My second observation is that what has catalyzed this need to 

 control costs is emergence of new, rapidly constructed, low-cost, 

 and highly efficient electric generation. 



This new generation is being coupled with energy marketers who 

 wheel that power long distances to end-use markets. 



So what are we to do with Bonneville's escalating fish costs? 

 Some of the questions are: Who should pay? How does Congress 

 deal with Bonneville's competitiveness, when everyone, including 

 our companies, are under the same competitive pressures? 



First, I would like to offer a recommendation that imposing a fish 

 tax on Bonneville's transmission system is unacceptable. It penal- 

 izes electric customers who must use BPA's transmission lines, 

 even though they are not buying power from Bonneville. 



It also reduces the economic efficiency of the transmission sys- 

 tem, which is being used to benefit fish through power exchanges 

 with California. 



It also ignores our history under the Bonneville Transmission 

 Act, whereby non-Federal parties have been encouraged to allow 

 Bonneville to construct key transmission lines linking generating 

 projects with non-Federal load centers. 



