reside in areas served by nuclear sites. Thus, an existing-site policy would accommodate all but 8 percent of the population." This “don’t take ‘no’ for an answer" siting policy is the kind of thing we should expect from the new federal Department of Energy. This new and massive bureaucracy was spawned from the Department of Defense. More than 50 percent of the federal DOE budget is expended on producing nuclear weapons. The DOE itself is housed with the Department of Defense — in the Forrestal Building on Independence Avenue in Washington. D.C. — and its top administrators all come from Defense: first Secretary Schlesinger — formerly of Defense. CIA and the Atomic Energy Commission — and his former deputy at Defense, Charles Duncan. Weinberg addressed the problems of “operator-error" and defending the plants from terrorists in speeches last summer. He called for an “elite cadre" of reactor and nuclear plant personnel with standardized training that would "be the equivalent of a Bachelor of Science degree." and higher pay as well. These ideas have been elaborated upon by Admiral Rickover of the nuclear navy and Dr. Edward Teller, “ father of the H bomb." Weinberg explains that the federal government “must look at the system as a whole. The larger the nation's nuclear system, the larger the probability of failure of any kind — reactor malfunction, transport accident, sabotage. Since nuclear matters have acquired such sensitivity, a failure anywhere in the system is likely to affect confidence in the entire system." This federal “concern” manifested itself in recent legislation allowing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to authorize paramilitary guards with shotguns and automatic weapons at commercial nuclear electric plants. Weinberg says that some of these concentrated sites "might eventually develop into very large centers (20 Trojan size reactors)...plus reprocessing." I he model of such a large nuclear energy center that Weinberg uses is the Hanford Nuclear Reservation on the Columbia River in Washington state. This Dept, of Defense site is already where most of the high level waste from nuclear weapons production is stored. The concentrated siting policy has a dramatic effect on ownership of the plants. Weinberg says “coalescence of the generating system into relatively few large sites would accelerate the present trend toward generation by consortia of distributing utilities.” Utilities banding together to build nukes has also resulted from the fact that nuclear construction costs have increased 600 percent since the program began in earnest in 1969. I he federal answer to how to finance these enormous construction costs is massive federal intervention through federal marketing agencies which have been set up to sell surplus power generated at federal dams and to build transmission facilities to move the power to population centers. Beginning in 1937 with the Bonneville Power Adm inistration '■IJI | | |mi 'I HI The election showed that the people voting were not voting against a nuclear power plant in their area, but against nuclear power itself. (BPA) five such agencies were created: Alaska Power Administration, Western Area Power Administration — serving the 15 reclamation states of the continental U.S. — Southwestern Power Administration — serving Missouri. Arkansas. Louisiana, Kansas. Oklahoma, and Texas — and the Southeastern Power Administration — serving the southeastern states outside the Tennessee Valley Authority which is a huge federal utility district wherein the federal government actually owns all the power plants and distributes the power to its customers. All five were assigned a common power marketing role. They sell hydroelectric power left over after meeting the needs of federal multiplepurpose water projects that include hydroelectric generation. Through the years these agencies have developed some characteristics in common and some unique ones. Four — all but the S.E. Power Administration — construct and operate transmission lines to deliver all or a major part of their federal power. Bonneville, indeed, has become the major transmission supplier for the Northwest. Although BPA markets only about 50 percent of the region’s power, it provides some 80 percent of the region’s high voltage transmission and serves both publicly- owned and private (investor-owned) utilities like Portland General Electric Co. and Pacific Power & Light. All five of these federal marketing agencies can purchase power to firm up the federal supplies in order to meet commitments in federal power sales contracts, or to replace power during emergencies or shortage periods. None, however, is supposed to buy electric power to increase the supply it has for resale; and only one — the Alaska Power Administration — generates electricity itself. Alaska owns and operates the Eklutna and the Sneetisham hydro projects. Only one. BPA, has self-financing. In 1974, Congress enacted the Federal Columbia River Transmission System Act establishing a separate Bonneville revolving fund into which the BPA Adm inistrator deposits all receipts from sales of federal power and from which he makes disbursements to operate, maintain and repay the cost of federal dams and transmission lines in the region. The act also gave Bonneville the authority to borrow money from the U.S. Treasury to construct transmission system additions and replacements. Just as the nationwide system of federal power marketing agencies began with the creation of BPA in 1937, the new expanded role the federal government sees for these agencies in building the next generation of one-million kilowatt nuclear power plants also began with BPA. In 1969 the federal government kicked off its push for commercial nuclear power under the framework of then-President Nixon’s “New Federalism." Nixon divided the country into 10 federal administrative districts or “regions." Since then, all federal business has been handled by regions through the “ regional headquarters.” The Pacific Northwest is “ Region 10” with headquarters in Seattle, Washington. The nuclear plan called for 20 Trojan-size nukes on the main stem of the Columbia River with similar programs started for the other “regions” of the country. The lead agencies pushing this program in the NW . were the BPA, with headquarters in Portland, and the Atomic Energy Commission, headquartered on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Washington. BPA began conglomerating public and private utilities into “consortia" for building these extremely costly nuke plants. The private utilities quickly found that the nuclear construction costs escalated so rapidly that it became imperative to pull the publicly-owned utilities in because their tax-exempt construction bonds added construction funds at a much lower interest rate than the private utilities (like PGE) were able to obtain. BPA did this by mixing the nuclear construction debt in with the cost of the federal power and charging it against the accounts of their public utility customers. The limitation on this process was reached by the second half of the 1970’s and another vehicle was sought. The accounts of the public utilities could not be loaded up for more than these frequently small systems were worth and the nuclear construction costs ballooned by 600 percent between 1969 and 1979. The new federal plan to solve the vexing problem of how to finance the next generation of nukes in the 1980’s calls for greatly expanding the authority and role of these federal power marketing agencies. The model legislation for this dramatic change is the NW Regional Power Bill that has created so much controversy since it was first introduced in 1977. This bill would allow BPA to buy non-federal power on an unlimited basis and in some versions contract to pay for the plants whether they actually operated and generate power or not. In other words, this legislation would allow the coercive power of the federal government to be brought to bear on electric utility ratepayers of the Northwest to make them pay for nuke plants whether they work or not. Other bills in this federal legislative package would give the other power marketing agencies self-financing like BPA and would allow them all to also own and operate their own generation. This package of legislation would, therefore, create out of the power marketing agencies what it was " We who sleep on fu to n sleep best." Northwest Futon Co. ■■ . < ■ . ■ .. . ■ ■ ■ • ' . ' ■ ■ ■ . ■ O f c ; , I r Traditional Japanese Cotton Ma ttresses r 315^ S .E .Be lmon t 2 3 8 '0 9 3 6 226 N.WDavis, Portland 223'4447 174 E.BroadwayEagene 3423366 13
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