Senate to consider BPA ‘timeout’ amendment

WASHINGTON – A Bush administration plan that would raise energy prices in the Northwest is one step closer to being killed, after three of the region’s senators slipped a restriction into a special spending bill Tuesday.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, proposed the amendment that he described as a “timeout.” The measure would freeze the way the Bonneville Power Administration repays its debts through next April.

The Bush administration has proposed funneling some BPA revenues for surplus power to the federal treasury, a move that lawmakers say would raise energy rates to the region’s public power customers.

Craig, along with Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Conrad Burns, R-Mont., proposed the amendment in a closed Appropriations Committee session on the supplemental spending bill to cover war and hurricane recovery costs. Sid Smith, a spokesman for Craig, said it is common for such amendments to be attached to supplemental spending bills.

“We’re on a short timeline, and we needed a way to get language enacted quickly,” Smith said.

The House already passed its version of the supplemental spending bill, and it has no mention of BPA. The amendment’s fate depends on whether House and Senate negotiators keep it in the bill’s final version.

Smith said Craig’s office has been working with Northwest House members and was “pretty confident” the language would stand.

Jill Strait, spokeswoman for Rep. Cathy McMorris, said the Eastern Washington Republican is hopeful the provision would remain in the bill.

“This is a short-term victory, but we still need a long-term solution,” Strait said.

In its February budget proposal, the administration instructed BPA to use certain excess revenues to pay down its debt to the federal treasury. Those revenues currently are used to keep power rates low for consumers.

Northwest lawmakers from both parties recoiled at the proposal, saying it could raise BPA rates by as much as 10 percent, and vowed to kill it any way they could. A February analysis from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council estimated the proposal would force BPA to raise its rates by about 7 percent in 2008 and would cost the region 1,120 jobs.

Ed Mosey, spokesman for BPA, said the agency would proceed with its plan toward enacting the Bush proposal in July unless Craig’s amendment becomes law.

If the amendment passes, the current rate structure will stay in place until next April, giving lawmakers a chance to reach a compromise with the administration.

“I would say we’re disappointed we weren’t able to resolve these questions earlier,” Mosey said. “We’ll be in there working with the Northwest delegation to see if we can come up with something acceptable.”