Keep Salmon Cost Cap, Senators Urge Nw Delegation Seeks Ratepayer Protection On Recovery Efforts

All eight senators with a stake in the recovery of Northwest salmon stocks urged the Clinton administration Thursday to extend guarantees that electricity consumers won’t have to pay to save the fish on their own.

They also asked the governors of their states to help find a way to open up the electricity transmission system dominated by the Bonneville Power Administration.

The senators from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana asked Vice President Al Gore to enter into talks to extend the so-called “fish cap” adopted two years ago. It sets a limit on the amount of money Northwest electricity ratepayers contribute to the salmon-recovery effort.

Under the agreement, the administration agreed to cover any recovery costs beyond $435 million annually through the year 2001.

“Since BPA is still the economic engine of the Northwest, the time has come to extend the salmon funding agreement beyond 2001,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who organized the letter to Gore.

The move will help “in preserving economic stability for Northwest electric ratepayers and maintaining a strong commitment to protect and rebuild fish and wildlife populations,” the letter said.

BPA markets electricity generated by a series of Columbia and Snake river dams that are blamed in large part for the demise of the salmon, which have trouble migrating past the huge structures. Several Northwest salmon species have been declared endangered and several others are under consideration for additional protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The agency agreed to come up with as much as the $435 million a year - without forcing significant rate increases on power customers - to help protect the fish.

BPA maintains, however, that its power contracts are expiring and customers are reluctant to enter new contracts unless there is some guarantee salmon-protection costs won’t skyrocket in the future.

The senators said the fish cap and administration’s $325 million contingency fund to cover additional costs “helped the Bonneville Power Administration negotiate power sales contracts, providing revenue stability through 2001.”

That in turn allowed BPA to meet its debt requirements to the U.S. Treasury, and uphold its obligations to bondholders, fish and wildlife and other public purposes, they said.

“These goals are no less important today than they were two years ago, in fact, they have become more critical,” the senators wrote, asking for a new deal to be sealed at least by April 30, 1998.

As a condition of signing the letter to Gore, Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., insisted that the other senators sign the letter to the governors, asking for their help in separating BPA’s electric transmission and generation responsibilities as Congress pursues deregulation of the electric industry.

“Because BPA owns over one-half of the region’s transmission system, we must address the conflict of interest between BPA’s role as a transmission system operator and its role as a marketer of power from federal projects,” that letter said.

“The challenge for the Northwest delegation will be to develop legislation that will create an open transmission system to benefit the region’s consumers while ensuring that BPA continues to meet its obligations to bondholders, the U.S. Treasury and its fish and wildlife programs,” Gorton said.