Ruling sticking it to Pacific Northwest power users curious at best

Mail-Tribune Editorial, Medford , June 1, 2007

   The water that flows to the sea in the Columbia River belongs to all of us. The dams that were built on the Columbia were paid for and maintained by federal tax dollars, which we are all expected to pay. So it’s more than a bit confusing that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals says the benefits from low-cost hydro power can go only to a select few in the region. 

   In a complicated ruling on an even more complicated subject, the federal appeals court ruled on May 3 that the Bonneville Power Administration could no longer provide credits to Northwest residential and irrigation customers of private utility companies. It’s a ruling that affects people across Oregon , Washington and Idaho ; locally it means the average residential electricity bill will go up by about $10 a month. 

   The logic behind the ruling is at best curious. The credit to utility company customers came out of the 1980 Northwest Power Act, which stipulated in part that Northwest residents and farmers should share in the benefits of the low-cost federal power. Since private utility company customers were receiving only 15 percent of the total savings (as compared with market priced power), it’s arguable that those customers were actually not getting what was promised. Instead, the court ruled they were getting too much. 
   The beneficiaries of this appear to be public utilities, which filed the lawsuit over the credit. The amount of money in question is considerable — about $300 million annually — but it’s unknown how much of that total would go to public power users if the ruling is upheld. 

   Costs for private utilities and public utilities vary considerably from location to location, but they are generally comparable. Yes, it made sense for the government to assist in the formation of public utilities to ensure electrical service in rural areas, but how does it make sense that the 75 percent of Oregonians who are served by investor-owned companies are denied any benefit of the low-cost power? 

   The issue for the private power companies such as Pacific Power is not about profits. They receive a payment from the BPA and then credit it directly to customers’ bills. When the payments go away — and the BPA last week notified the utilities that it is suspending the payments — so will the credit. But the companies are sticking up for their customers and for basic fairness.   

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