Concurring and dissenting views
December 5, 1996
Rick Applegate
West Coast Conservation Director
Trout Unlimited
Member, Steering Committee
The year allotted to the Comprehensive Review Steering Committee has
come to an end. Members of the committee and our large following of
interested participants and observers have invested thousands of hours in
this process. We have struggled with the uncertainties of the changing
utility industry and simultaneously with the competing demands of the
constituencies that depend on and benefit from the largesse of the
Columbia River system. We have understood the importance of our work and
have taken it seriously. We have been advised that the Pacific Northwest
must develop an effective response to the unsettled utility environment,
that national legislation and administrative and industry changes are
inevitable. But, most importantly, we have been warned that failure to
achieve a broad regional consensus on a regional plan will risk loss of
the benefits of the river system. I am dissenting from the Steering
Committee report in part because we have not achieved that required
regional consensus on fish and power issues.
We have made important progress on some very difficult matters in this
review. For example, we have called for market-oriented experiments in
energy conservation, renewable resources and low income energy assistance.
We have said clearly that no recommendations from this review should be
pursued in a manner that alters, impairs or undermines the federal
government?s trust obligations and the treaty and other rights of Native
Americans. We have called conceptually for a mechanism that should help
ensure the stranded costs of the system--the WPPSS debt or others that
might arise--can be paid. If it is needed and if it works, that stranded
cost mechanism will be very important. We have sketched a path that could
allow the region to continue purchasing power at cost and pass those
benefits on to regional consumers--if regional consensus and national
agreement allow the region to pursue that anomalous course in the
increasingly market-driven utility environment. On all these issues, the
Steering Committee has made important advances. Nonetheless, I dissent
from the committee report and offer the following constructive
observations.
First, we must acknowledge there is important and difficult unfinished
business that must be attended to before we will have a comprehensive
package. The work on a comprehensive regional package is simply not
complete at this point. We do not now have anything resembling a consensus
about the inextricably connected fish and wildlife issues that must be
addressed if an energy industry restructuring package is to move forward
smoothly and effectively. I can report that fact with certainty based on
my recent conversations with fishery advocates and Native Americans and
their organizations; and it is clearly reflected in their comments
submitted to our committee.
Without consensus on fish and wildlife matters, we do not have a
regional consensus on utility industry restructuring--not even on the sale
of power in the region at cost. And, as Senator Hatfield told the Steering
Committee, we need to have a consensus if the region intends to continue
purchasing power at cost; and we need to have a solid, agreed-upon
explanation for that practice.
Key fish-related issues that need to be addressed include:
- The question whether the Steering Committee?s proposals improve
the ability of the power system to meet its fish and wildlife
obligations.
- Whether there are changes that could further improve that ability.
- Whether the proposals honor or undermine the fish and wildlife
obligations of the nation and the region.
- Whether the continued purchase of power "at cost" clearly
includes the costs of fish and wildlife restoration.
- Whether the benefits of the river will be shared fairly if the
proposal goes forward.
- Whether we can establish a system of power and river governance that
will effectively change the operation of the power system in order to
restore fish and wildlife populations in the Basin.
- The development of specific commitments to actions that will restore
the biological health and productivity of the Columbia River--for it
is a biological system not simply an economic engine for the region.
I am not going to revisit the initial mistakes of the review process.
Suffice it to say that we would be in much better shape today if the power
and fish issues--including those listed above--could have been addressed
on an equal footing, together and simultaneously. We would be much further
along if the state, tribal and federal governments could have reached a
prior government-to-government understanding of this process and the
issues it needed to address. We should not repeat those mistakes in the
future, as they helped produce the lack of regional consensus we clearly
have today.
To get at our important unfinished business, the federal, state and
tribal governments in this region need to be convened immediately in a
serious, sustained, senior-level effort to consider and resolve the key
issues listed above--to develop the fish and wildlife package without
which there is no comprehensive regional proposal. These issues should
not--and will not--be addressed successfully by the states acting alone,
through a few consultations, through the announced Northwest Power
Planning Council amendment process next year, or by random and ill-advised
efforts at Congressional action on pieces of this package. We will need to
engage all three sovereigns--federal, state and tribal--in a co-equal
decision-making role and with formal dispute resolution, or we will
continue to make little progress on fish and wildlife restoration.
Unilateral action by the states or the Council will only lead to
suspicion, gridlock and failure--and failure to make progress serves no
one?s interest.
We can not turn back--or turn away from the tasks ahead. We will now
have to play catch-up and we will have to be prepared to modify this
regional power proposal to provide greater accommodations for fish and
wildlife needs and obligations. For it is clear to virtually all the
scientists who have dispassionately assessed the situation that the
Columbia River and its salmon runs and other fish and wildlife are in deep
trouble. And they can not be restored without major changes, particularly
in the hydroelectric system, but not solely there. As I have noted
throughout the deliberations of the committee, we are as a region and a
nation obligated to protect and restore those fish and wildlife
populations. And the power system and its beneficiaries must continue to
carry the bulk of that obligation.
I believe that we can find a way to restore fish and wildlife by taking
segments of this river back to a more productive riverine state and that
we can find a way to accomplish that without undue economic disruption. We
must stop treating the restoration opportunity simply as a cost or as an
unwelcome burden. Ultimately, we all have much to gain--economically,
socially, culturally and in the interest of regional harmony--if we can
restore the fish and wildlife of the Columbia River Basin.
I have argued repeatedly during this review that the region should not
try to take any major or controversial action under this report until a
working regional consensus has been attained on fish and power issues. I
am not naive enough to expect unanimity, but we are far short of the
requisite unity that would permit Bonneville, the Council, the Governors,
our Congressional delegation or the Clinton Administration to move ahead.
I urge again that interest groups should be very careful about how they
take the next steps. I do not raise this as a matter of holding hostage
some portions of the committee?s work. My point is that we do not need
to start an intraregional war that will substantially weaken our ability
to resolve these difficult fish and power issues and will impair the
chances that a complete regional package can succeed. Success is not
assured and we should not forget that fact.
I am particularly concerned about any moves in Congress or elsewhere to
insulate the transmission system from the fish and wildlife or other
Bonneville obligations. The private utilities have candidly and openly
said they intend to pursue this legislation in Congress. I suspect the
drafting has already been done. But even Senator McClure, who supports the
full separation of generation and transmission, has warned that this
particular piece of legislation should only be pursued if there is
regional consensus. There is not a regional consensus on this issue and I
hope the private utilities will heed that advice. The key point in dispute
is that the utilities believe that fish costs are not an appropriate
transmission cost. The fish advocates and tribes believe that transmission
contributed to the decline of the salmon and that it must continue, as
obligated under current law, to assist in the restoration effort.
The same is true for any further legislative attempts to impose fish
and wildlife spending caps and to declare those capped levels of funding
sufficient for meeting the power system?s legal obligations to fish and
wildlife. We all know the sky is not the limit on fish and wildlife
restoration funding, but flexible multiyear budgets developed by the
federal, state and tribal governments can handle that problem. The scars
from the last battle on the funding cap issue have not healed. They should
not be reopened as that would only make it more, not less difficult, to
resolve fish and power issues.
Nor should we pursue any quick institutional fixes that would, for
example, try to put the states in charge of salmon restoration,
particularly since the salmon issue raises so many national and
international treaty and related issues. We should not put the states in
the dominant role, but should instead pull the federal agencies, state
governments and tribes together to address the restoration needs without
undermining existing fish and wildlife obligations.
And last, we should stop including lost power system revenues in fish
and wildlife restoration costs. Doing so simply charges fish for water we
took from the Columbia?s seasonal flows and have used for power
generation--as if power generation was the highest and best use of the
river. It is not; and this practice is an exercise in political
statistics. It overstates the size of the fish and wildlife investment and
we should stop doing that.
We face tough issues in all this, but we should remember that this is
not new terrain for the region. We had to make the same kind of
accommodations for fish and wildlife--with difficulty and too grudgingly
in my view--when the Northwest Power Act was being drafted in the late
1970s. We even needed outside help from Congressman Dingell and others to
get it done--and we may have to have it again. I am convinced we can reach
a resolution and, while we should not be surprised if our struggle to get
there is not easy, we must get this important part of the job done.
I have high regard for the integrity, commitment and work ethic of the
chairman and members of the committee who have dedicated a large portion
of the past year--as I have--to this committee?s work. We accomplished a
lot. But much remains to be done and one thing is clear: We will not, and
should not, try to write the Northwest chapter of national energy
legislation over the determined opposition of fishery advocates, fishery
managers and the Northwest?s tribes. We should not try to slide through
administrative changes and contracts that would disadvantage fish and
wildlife restoration either. All this work should be done in the open and
in cooperation with the fishery advocates, tribes and the federal
government. It is to that task--so difficult for the Steering Committee to
contemplate given its charge and makeup--that we must turn.
As I have said before, we will not be remembered for whether we repay
the WPPSS debt; for we will surely repay it. Not for whether we have the
cheapest power bills in the nation; for I believe we will have affordable
power--at least for the well-off among us. Not for whether we are wasting
energy; for we will all do more of that than we should, and we know it.
We will be remembered for whether we advance the public purposes of
this river system; whether we stop the decline of the salmon runs; whether
we reaffirm and act decisively on our past and still unfulfilled
commitments to fish and wildlife restoration; whether we start to keep the
promises of the treaties with the tribes and Canada, and fulfill the
intent of the Endangered Species Act and the Northwest Power Act. In each
of these treaties and statutes, and more, we said we would restore the
Columbia River fish and wildlife populations so we could enjoy the
sustainable benefits that would bring. We need to get on with that job.
I understand the importance of the essential next steps and believe the
effort to achieve regional consensus is a very important priority for the
region. I will commit even more time and effort to that work. We will all
emerge in a stronger position if we successfully link the fish and
wildlife obligations with the power system needs and other river uses in
the region. We will surely fail if we do not. And the risks of that
failure are great for all of us--for the power industry, for other
economic users of the river, for the fisheries interests and tribes who
depend on the fish and wildlife resources and for all those who are
concerned about the basic ecological health of the Columbia River.
I hope we are all prepared to take those next steps and that until
these issues are resolved we will not take actions that make progress more
difficult. I look forward to working with all of you as that work
proceeds.
Because strong fish and wildlife commitments have yet to be made;
because the major issues between power, other river uses and fish and
wildlife restoration have not been squarely addressed; and, most
importantly, because the region is far from consensus on the proper fit
between power and fish needs in this report and far short of making the
necessary commitments to an effective restoration effort--for all these
reasons, I reflect the lack of regional consensus by respectfully
dissenting from the recommendations of the steering committee.
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