Power Industry Shift Leaves New Panel Cautious Governor Seeking Guidelines, Goals From Group As Deregulation Nears

The governor’s new Council on Hydroelectric and River Resources began its work on Friday with an air of caution about the advent of competition in electric service and resignation that it will not be able to address every issue before making recommendations by year’s end.

“The tenor I’ve picked up is more of a wait-and-see attitude,” Rep. Ron Crane, R-Caldwell, said after each of the council members commented on the task ahead.

Crane and Republican Sen. John Hansen of Idaho Falls co-chair the special legislative committee that has been assessing for the last year the impending restructuring of the power industry and how the state should respond.

While neither is a member of the council Gov. Phil Batt created last week under the leadership of former U.S. Sen. Jim McClure, both are monitoring its deliberations and will serve as the link between the legislative and administrative inquiries into the issue.

“Our task is not to make policy,” McClure said. “Our task is to give the governor some policy options … to protect Idaho’s resources and Idaho’s citizens.”

Batt is looking for guidelines and goals for successful deregulation of the electric industry; principles to protect water rights, fish and wildlife habitat and recreation during deregulation; any revision in river operations and hydropower relicensing; and the attitudes of politicians, bureaucrats, special interests groups and the general public.

Four citizen committees led by council members will gather that information in the coming months.

“The balances we have to strike are deep and vital,” McClure said. “I have no illusion we will satisfy everyone.”

He cited a recent public opinion poll that found 29 percent of those surveyed in Idaho favor electricity deregulation, 35 percent opposed it and 35 percent had no opinion.

Water Resources Director Karl Dreher, concerned about deregulation’s impact on river operations and water flows, was out front in suggesting that the council may want to simply pause and determine whether utility deregulation should even occur in the Northwest in light of such factors.

And McClure seemed to wonder the same thing out loud.

“We have to ask ourselves, ‘When you’re the lowest cost region for energy, how can deregulation lower your costs?”’ he said.

Critical to the deliberations will be separating utility costs for generating power from those for transmission and distribution. The complexity of the calculations could mean the figures will not be available until late this year, leaving Batt’s council generally without benefit of that information.