The Bonneville Power Administration, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of Energy. BPA serves the Pacific Northwest through operating an extensive electricity transmission system and marketing wholesale electrical power at cost from federal dams, one non-federal nuclear plant and other nonfederal hydroelectric and wind energy generation facilities. BPA aims to be a national leader in providing high reliability, low rates consistent with sound business principles, responsible environmental stewardship and accountability to the region.
The BPA mission statement:
"The bottom line is to protect the core power and transmission assets of the Federal Columbia River Power System so they can provide benefits to ratepayers and taxpayers well into the future."
In the President's new budget is a provision to raise energy rates to exceed BPA's cost of producing and transmitting power. He proposes to let the market set the rates, and have the federal government make a profit off the sale of the energy. I suppose he thinks it's a good idea to let the free market set the price of power because the energy crisis in California in 2001 was so smart and equitable. The President must be channeling the ever visionary and successful Ken Lay. Raising energy rates will of course have a significant and severe impact on energy costs in six western states, and will be a billion dollar tax increase to those citizens. But the President would never raise taxes, at least not so you'd actually notice.
I don't think that the Pacific Northwest should be paying rates that are significantly less than the rest of the country. I think we should be the exporting our example of how public utilities should be run. Everyone should be paying what it costs to produce energy and nothing more.
Rexroth's Daughter
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