Dole Tax Cut Plan May Require Selling Off Bpa Hanford Cleanup, Salmon Program Also Could End, State Officials Fear

Bob Dole’s proposed $548 billion tax cut includes spending reductions at the Energy Department that likely would raise Northwest electric rates and undermine efforts to save salmon, critics said Friday.

Northwest Democrats, along with officials at the Energy Department and Bonneville Power Administration, said the only way to make the kind of DOE cuts Dole envisions appears to be selling off the power marketing administrations, including BPA.

“That would mean electric rate increases for millions of consumers, which is nothing more than a tax hike by another name,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.

Dole’s plan unveiled Monday calls for $32 billion in cuts in nondefense programs at the Energy Department over the next six years.

Dole’s campaign has not specified where the cuts would occur and campaign officials failed to respond to repeated requests for details on Thursday and Friday.

“If Sen. Dole isn’t proposing a PMA sale, I’d like to know how he thinks he can cut $32 billion out of the nation’s energy programs,” said DeFazio, former chairman of a congressional task force on Bonneville.

“If he doesn’t have any specific cuts in mind, it just shows that his so-called economic plan is an election-year hoax on the American people,” the Democrat said.

Only about $5.9 billion of DOE’s approximate $15 billion annual budget falls into the non-defense category.

Reaching the $32 billion reduction over six years apparently would require eliminating all non-defense programs and selling off assets like the PMAs and the strategic petroleum reserve, said a DOE official speaking on condition of anonymity.

“There doesn’t appear to be a way you could get $32 billion other than to sell off Bonneville and the other PMAs to the highest bidder. It’s just pure mathematics,” the official said.

BPA Vice President Steve Wright agreed.

“We’ve seen the DOE numbers and things don’t seem to add up, so yes, we do have some concern,” Wright said Friday.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., also is worried that Dole wants to sell off Bonneville, an aide said.

The only other way to make significant cuts at DOE would be dramatic reductions in nuclear waste cleanup at DOE sites like the Hanford Nuclear Reservation at Richland, the aide said.

The cleanup technically is included under the defense side of the department’s budget as environmental restoration and waste management, but the aide said Dole could make the case it was not specifically weapons oriented.

Proposals have been put forth under each of the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations to privatize the power marketing administrations, which serve about 57 million consumers nationwide.

While most regional PMAs provide only a small fraction of their customers’ energy, the Bonneville Power Administration provides most of the wholesale electricity sold in the Pacific Northwest.

Selling off BPA would force significant increases in electric rates, critics say. And they doubt a purchaser could be found for Bonneville given its tremendous multibillion-dollar debt and increasing legal responsibilities to help keep Northwest salmon from going extinct.

The DOE official said selling the power agencies likely wouldn’t raise enough money to meet Dole’s $32 billion goal, unless they were sold in a way “to maximize revenue.”

“You would probably have to dismantle the entire effort to save endangered salmon,” the official said.