5.3. ERMUSR 03-14-2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

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AwAii.~~ Minnesota Municipal Uti/ities Association Position Statement Protecting the Interests of WAPA Customers The Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) is one of four federal power marketing administrations (PMAs). WAPA markets and delivers reliable, cost-based hydroelectric power within a 15 state region of the central and western United States. WAPA is very important to Minnesota municipal utilities, providing wholesale power allocations to 47 municipal electric utilities serving over 200,000 people in the western third of the state. WAPA's 17,000-mile transmission system carries electricity from 55 hydropower plants operated by the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the International Boundary and Water Commission. In marketing electricity, WAPA must follow many laws, regulations and policies, some of which are unique to that agency. Included in these laws is the Reclamation Project Act of 1939, which requires WAPA to give preference in selling federal power to certain types ofnon-profit organizations including cities, rural electric cooperatives, state and federal agencies, irrigation districts, public utility districts and Native American tribes. WAPA customers in Minnesota are served by the Upper Great Plains Region office located in Billings, Montana, which, in turn, provides electric service from the seven dams of the Pick-Sloan Missouri River Program, developed as a result of Congressional ~, N W O 0 0 N N O 3 Z T N X V W U1 Ul 1-+ 0 .~ 3 3 c a 0 authorization in 1944. The Office of Management and Budget is currently recycling an earlier proposal to reallocate $365 million in costs for authorized but undeveloped irrigation projects for payment by Pick-Sloan customers. We strongly object to this approach by OMB, since those projects could be authorized by the federal government at any time. Even if the irrigation projects are not developed, power customers should not be singled out to bear the entire burden for those costs. Other key issues include: • The current short-term authorization for the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation to use PMA customer receipts to fund the operation and maintenance of hydro projects should be made permanent. • Use of PMA customer receipts to fund hydro project operation and maintenance should occur only after review and approval by PMA customers. • PMA security costs should be paid by the general budget of the Bureau, and not borne by the PMAs and their customers. • The appropriations process must provide adequate funding for purchased power and wheeling programs.