Up to 32,000 jobs could be lost right in my own back yard, thanks to Bush

[CalebHayes]

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEATTLE -- A White House proposal to boost power rates for the Bonneville Power Administration could cost Washington and Oregon tens of thousands of jobs by the end of the decade, according to a new report commissioned by U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash.

The Bush administration's pitch to increase BPA electricity rates from wholesale prices to levels charged on the open market sparked protests from Northwest politicians, businesses and utilities.

Robert McCullough, an energy consultant who prepared the report, warned that the proposed increase would, in some ways, mimic the effects of skyrocketing prices witnessed during the West Coast energy crisis of 2000 and 2001.

McCullough works for a number of private companies and utilities that buy power from the BPA, a federal power marketing agency based in Portland, Ore., that supplies the Pacific Northwest with nearly half its electricity, most of it from a system of federal dams along the Columbia and Snake rivers.

The Bush proposal, spelled out in the president's budget released earlier this month, would raise BPA prices 20 percent a year over three years.

McCullough's report, released Saturday, said Washington stands to lose 21,000 to 32,000 jobs, and Oregon could lose from 19,600 to nearly 30,000.

He noted that the 2000-21 energy crisis cost the Pacific Northwest more than 70,000 jobs in primary industries dependent on electricity.

A Bush administration official cautioned it was too early to make detailed projections about what the proposal would do.

"I believe any firm number at this time is premature," said Joe Davis, a spokesman with the Department of Energy, which controls the BPA.

Davis said any rate increase would not likely have a huge impact because charges would be raised over several years. He also said the increases wouldn't affect prices set in long-term contracts held by major buyers of BPA power.

Several Northwest lawmakers jumped on McCullough's report as another piece of ammunition in their fight to preserve cheaper power. The idea has drawn bipartisan criticism from Northwest politicians.

"The Bush administration wants to pull the rug out from underneath the foundation of the economy of the Pacific Northwest," Inslee said Sunday, as he stood outside the Nucor Steel plant near West Seattle.

The factory is the largest single customer of Seattle City Light, which buys roughly a third of its power from the BPA.

Doug Jellison, vice president and general manager at the Nucor plant, said higher power rates could dampen growth at the plant, which recycles scrap metal into steel bars and employs 285 people.

Electricity prices also will influence where Nucor builds a new mill to produce sheets of steel, Jellison said. The company has said it's considering the Northwest or Southeast.

"This type of an increase would definitely stop our investigation of the Northwest," Jellison said.

[Sanity Claws]

1. We got screwed by the alleged free market before

Remember Enron? The whole idea of claiming there's a free market in electricity after the Enron manipulation shows the Bush administration thinks we're stupid.
I think Sen. Cantwell will fight this one pretty strongly.

[CalebHayes]

3. Your right, she really has stood up for us.

She has gone to bat a quite a few times to stop greed and corruption. Maybe she does it because she was the CEO of Real Networks and knows what that can be like?

[Sanity Claws]

6. Don't know the reason

but I understand that she is going after PERC and its failure to investigate the Enron manipulation. Let's hope that she, Patty Murray, and the others here on the west coast fight this tooth and nail.

[sam sarrha]

2. fixing the market for Premium prices when he reveals the Nuclear power

plant program.. needs a reason to build them.. and high costs is a good one but they wont lower the costs at all.

The whole "Cold War" scenario was fabricated to allow the taxpayers to produce tons of plutonium to sell Back to the taxpayers at premium prices.. a giveaway to the power industry corporations

[ladjf]

4. billions of dollars in aviation contracts, millions in farm subsidies

lost in Georgia, a hotbed of Bush voters. Is there any chance that they will make the connection between their vote and their misery?

[illflem]

5. If I'm not mistaken most larger NW utilities

have long term contracts with BPA that regulates the price. When I lived in Chelan county the contract was for 25 years. Seems that the rate increase will mainly effect power buyers from outside the region.