Gop Newcomers Challenged To Sell Region’s Sacred Bpa

Sacred cows, it has been said, make the tastiest hamburger. But Rep. Scott Klug of Wisconsin may have given his fellow Republicans in Congress more than they can chew with his crusade to eliminate subsidies that have gone untouched for nearly half a century.

From helium reserves in Texas to dairy price supports in his own state, Klug has taken literally his assignment by Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia to come up with a list of things that government should not be doing.

Nowhere has he stirred up more trouble than in the Northwest, where nine new Republicans were swept into Congress last fall on a unified promise to downsize government. But they abruptly lost their enthusiasm for the task when Klug proposed to get rid of the ultimate sacred cow in the region: low-cost electric power furnished by federal dams.

In proposing to sell off the Bonneville Power Administration, which provides some of the nation’s cheapest electricity to more than half of the 10 million residents of the Pacific Northwest, Klug argues that the federal government should not be in the utility business.

Selling Bonneville, and the four agencies in other regions that market and transmit electricity, could bring in about $5 billion, he says.

Klug also has introduced a separate bill to sell the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest utility.

Both proposals, some Democrats say, have exposed a vein of hypocrisy among Republicans who are zealous for every form of federal downsizing except as it relates to their own districts.

“This is a fundamentally Republican argument,” said Klug, who was a television investigative reporter in Seattle before returning to his native Wisconsin more than 10 years ago.

“And anyone who is intellectually honest about this has to question programs in their own backyard, like subsidies to the dairy industry in my own state.”

The test for Klug on this issue will be when the farm programs, which make up about $12 billion in subsidies, come up for renewal in Congress this year.

Last fall, Idaho, Oregon and Washington sent nine new Republicans to Congress, all saying it was time to eliminate some of the major functions of the government.

Rep. Linda Smith, for example, who defeated a liberal Democrat to take the seat in southwest Washington state, has called for the elimination of four Cabinet-level departments and for deep cuts in welfare and support for the arts.

But last month, she and the other freshmen Republicans from the Northwest put up a solid wall of opposition to Klug’s suggestion that the power agency be sold. Aluminum factories in Smith’s district, which rely on the federal dams for low-cost electricity, and residents would be severely hurt by higher rates that would likely follow a sale, she said.

“I’ve always supported privatization, but not if it’s going to destroy the economy of our region,” said Smith.

She said two-thirds of the basic industries and 80 percent of the residents of her Congressional district would be affected by the sale.

Electricity in the Northwest, most of it generated by a series of federal dams along the Columbia River, costs residents about $1 a day - less than half the national rate, according to federal figures.

“From a national perspective, many more people will win if we privatize these agencies,” said Klug.

“What you’ve done is given certain corners of the country a permanent advantage. Maybe selling Bonneville would raise rates in the Northwest, but it might reduce rates in California.”