6.2. ERMUSR 03-12-2019 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

EMIMII/ IVIIVIWJ Position Statement Protecting the Interests of WAPA Customers • The Administration's proposals to sell off PMA transmission assets and require PMA power to be sold at market rates should be rejected. • Selling off PMA transmission assets would provide a one-time infusion of$9.5 billion out of a projected $4.5 trillion budget and lead to decades of higher transmission rates for dozens of small municipal utilities in western Minnesota. • Abandoning the long-standing policy of cost - " based rates and moving to market-based rates would result in a $1.9 billion rate increase for PMA customers. `� The Oahe Dam powerplant,just north of Pierre,South Dakota, Background provides electricity for much of western Minnesota and the The four federal power marketing administrations north-central United States.Along with power,the project (PMAs) deliver reliable, cost-based hydroelectric provides flood control,irrigation and navigation benefits estimated by the Corps of Engineers at$150 million per year. power to various regions of the United States. Approximately 1,200 public power systems and rural electric cooperatives throughout the country The Administration's Budget Proposals buy low-cost, zero-emissions hydropower from the Unfortunately, the Administration's FY 2019 PMAs that market this power from the federal budget seeks to disrupt this long-standing multi-purpose dams. relationship with two troubling proposals. The Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) First, the Administration proposes privatizing is the PMA that delivers power to a 15-state WAPA, Southwestern Power Administration and region of the central and western United States the Bonneville Power Administration transmission that also includes the western third of Minnesota. assets, as well as The Tennessee Valley Authority. WAPA's 17,000-mile transmission system carries The budget estimates that: electricity from 55 hydropower plants operated by the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Army Corps • Selling Western Area Power Administration's of Engineers and the International Boundary and transmission assets will raise $580 million; Water Commission. Minnesota is served by WAPA's • Selling Southwestern Power Administration Upper Great Plains Region office which provides transmission assets will raise $15 million; electricity from the seven dams of the Pick-Sloan • Selling Bonneville Power Administration Missouri River Program established by Congress in transmission assets will raise $5.193 billion; and 1944. • Selling Tennessee Valley Authority transmission assets will raise $3.671 billion. WAPA is critical to Minnesota municipal utilities, providing about one third of the wholesale power The $9.5 billion that the federal government needs of 47 public power systems serving over might receive for selling off these publicly-owned 200,000 people in the western part of the state. transmission assets will not move the needle much The relationship between WAPA and most of the in a $4.5 trillion budget, but the negative impact Minnesota municipal utilities it serves has been in on the public and not-for-profit entities that rely on place since the 1950s. those assets will be felt for decades. 2019 Federal Position Statements/10 136