Rate payers foot bill for energy disagreement
Credit: East Oregonian, www.eastoregonian.com 26 February 2012 ~~
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Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are all government agencies. An article entitled “Wind power compromise would spread cost around” (East Oregonian, Feb. 8, 2012), piqued my interest so I called a local electric company to find out what they knew about it. What I was told is interesting.
First of all, the Columbia River system is the cleanest, most economical, most efficient, most renewable resource for generating power in the Northwest, yet the powers that be refuse to designate it as “renewable.” Therefore, we now have wind farms, which, as I understand it, are considered renewable and are subsidized by the federal government.
Last year the runoff in the Columbia was so great they couldn’t sell all the power, and still buy power from the wind farms, so they caused some of the wind farms to shut down. BPA was not allowed to release water from the dams because EPA stated it would harm the fish. FERC stepped in and said BPA would have to do something to keep from discriminating against the wind farms, so BPA has agreed to compromise and pay for power they didn’t need or didn’t use.
So, we have three federal agencies at odds, and guess who will pay the bill – that’s right, you and me as consumers will foot the bill because BPA will pass on the cost to their utility customers who in turn will pass it on to the rate payers.
If you care, contact your congressman and ask them why they aren’t supporting us, their clients?
Why aren’t they in control of these federal agencies?
Sharon Livingston
Long Creek, Oregon,
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