Lawmakers Hear Deregulation Fears Idaho May Lose Low Power Rates, Reliable Service, Speakers Say

State lawmakers were again warned on Wednesday that deregulating Idaho’s power industry threatens the reliability of electric service, local government revenues and some of the nation’s lowest utility rates.

“There’s so many issues involved in these particular things we’re talking about, I feel we’ve got to go very slow,” Gem County Commissioner Gary Butler told the special House-Senate Committee on Electric Utilities Restructuring.

“Some of the other states have done it and made some serious mistakes,” Butler said. ”In talking to people there is fear, and there’s concern. … People are very happy with what they have.”

The panel is assessing how, or even whether, the state should open up the electric industry to free competition. Washington, Oregon and Utah have yet to move in that direction while Montana has already deregulated.

A coalition of union, consumer and environmental groups is pressing policy makers to maintain the status quo since Congress has yet to mandate deregulation. And even Gov. Phil Batt has questioned what deregulation could offer consumers who already pay among the lowest power bills in America.

A spokesman for Enron Corp., one of the country’s biggest power brokers, tried to reassure the committee that savings are possible under deregulation not only for large power consumers but homeowners as well.

But under questioning, Janelle Guerro conceded that there was no guarantee that rates would go down.

Guerro also said Enron was just as concerned about the issues Butler and the coalition raised as they were and “we’re trying to sit at the table and participate.”

Reliability was at the heart of Micron Technology’s concerns. Spokesman Steve Stout pointed out that the July 1996 regional power blackout cost his company $7 million in lost business opportunities and that “happened in an era of power being regulated.”

Sen. John Hansen, R-Idaho Falls, agreed that the specter of deregulation raised even greater questions about reliability. Stout said any state deregulating legislation should assure that Idaho regulators, representing consumers, should be able to recover damages in cases where negligence has caused power outages.