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WYDEN, NW SENATORS WIN BUDGET PROVISION
TO STRIKE DOWN BPA RATE HIKE PROPOSAL
Budget resolution rejects costly shift
to market rates, privatization of Bonneville
March 10, 2005
Washington, DC – U.S.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today announced that the Senate’s
FY2006 budget resolution now contains language that rejects the
Bush Administration’s proposal to force the Bonneville Power
Administration (BPA) to increase rates to consumers. The budget
language, coauthored by Wyden and U.S. Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)
and agreed to by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg,
(R-N.H.), explicitly states that there should be no additional
income in the Federal budget from market rates at BPA and other
Federal power marketing authorities (PMAs). Wyden and his fellow
Northwest Senators on the Budget and Energy Committees have worked
together to vigorously oppose the proposal, which would have inflicted
billions of dollars in new power costs onto Northwest ratepayers.
“Oregon power consumers
have won a victory today over this harmful provision,” said
Wyden. “I am pleased that the Senate Budget Committee has
acted to save Oregonians hundreds of millions of dollars. I will
continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle
to ensure that the Administration’s misguided proposal to
privatize BPA will not go forward.”
BPA is the largest power wholesaler
in the Pacific Northwest, supplying an estimated 45 percent of
the region’s power. BPA currently sells electricity to northwest
consumers at a cost-based rate; the President’s budget proposes
to change that to a market-based rate by increasing rates 20 percent
each year until it reaches the market rate. This defeated proposal
would have cost BPA consumers in the Northwest—including
industry, irrigated agriculture and residential users—approximately
$2.5 billion more than they would have otherwise paid for electricity
over the next three years. The proposal would also have robbed
the Northwest of the lower-cost power that is a major economic
driver for the region.
The resolution approved by the
Budget Committee today, which sets up the framework for annual
Federal spending, now will be sent to the full Senate for its
consideration.
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