On this one, Dan Ogden got it right.

I don't agree with Dan Ogden often (Though I certainly agreed with him on keeping our old primary system (we both supported keeping it in place) but he hits this one out of the park.

President Bush is wrong on this and hopefully, the bipartisan NW delegation ought to lock up and let him know it.




Opinion - Local View: Bush plan for BPA contradicts logic

Friday, April 8, 2005
By Daniel M. Ogden Jr.

In its 2006 budget plan, the Bush administration has proposed raising electric power rates for people throughout the West and South. The administration and others claim that five federal power marketing administrations, including the Bonneville Power Administration, are being subsidized by taxpayers because they sell hydropower from federal multiple purpose dams at the cost of production.

There is no subsidy, and the policy of selling power at cost has been repeatedly specified by law from the very beginning of federal multiple-purpose water resource development.

The Bush administration has embraced the long-time propaganda line of the investor-owned utilities that electricity is a commodity that should be sold at whatever price the market would bear. But electricity is not a commodity. It cannot be stored. It must be produced simultaneously with its consumption and therefore is an essential public service properly provided by the public for the public at cost.

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