MARKETING AREA OF BONNEVILLE POWER

ADMINISTRATION

FRIDAY, MAY 31, 1963

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

UBCOMMITTEE ON IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION OF THE

COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 9:45 a.m., in the comittee room, 1324 Longworth House Office Building, the Honorable Valter Rogers (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Mr. ROGERS. The subcommittee will please be in order for further onsideration of pending business. At the time the committee adourned Secretary Udall and Mr. Luce were at the witness stand and ecretary Udall had previously advised the committee that he could ot appear before the committee today because of prior commitments. The committee is operating under a procedure adopted by motion which limits the interrogation of any witness to 15 minutes for any ne member.

Subsequent to the adoption of the motion to limit questioning, Mr. ohnson concluded his questioning of Mr. Luce.

Mr. Chenoweth completed his questioning of Mr. Luce. Mr. Udall ompleted his questioning of Mr. Luce. At the time of adjournment Ir. Martin was questioning Mr. Luce with 2 minutes remaining. Mr. HOSMER. Point of information, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Haley, Mr. Taylor, and Mr. Westland have all eceived their time. Mr. Hosmer also reserves the balance of his ime although he questioned Secretary Udall and Mr. Luce for approxinately 1 hour.

However, it was the ruling of the Chair that Mr. Hosmer is enitled to 15 minutes if he desires to question Mr. Luce.

Does that answer your question?

Mr. HOSMER. That answers my question.

Mr. ROGERS. The Chair recognizes Mr. Haley.

Mr. HALEY. Each member who has not had an opportunity to uestion Mr. Luce is limited to 15 minutes; is that right?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, sir, under the rule adopted.

Mr. HALEY. With the reservation of time by myself and the gentlean from Washington, we only have 15 minutes; is that right? Mr. ROGERS. Yes, sir, that is right. That was adopted by a vote f the committee, a quorum being present. The motion was made to Init the questioning to that length of time and it was adopted by he committee.

Mr. MARTIN. Mr. Chairman, a point of inquiry.

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Am I to understand that I do not have the opportunity to utilize my remaining 2 minutes?

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Martin has the floor. Mr. Martin.

Mr. MARTIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ROGERS. You had an inquiry?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes, sir. My point of inquiry is simply this: I do not have the opportunity, as I understand it, of utilizing my remaining 2 minutes on questioning Mr. Udall; is that correct?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes. Mr. Udall is not here.

Mr. HOSMER. Is he coming back?

Mr. ROGERS. Not that I know of.

Mr. MARTIN. Will Mr. Udall be back on Monday?

Mr. ROGERS. Not that I know of. He has not been requested to come back. As I understand, he has prior commitments. The Chair made every effort in the world to make it possible for everyone to question Mr. Udall all they wanted to. I had no control over the time.

Mr. HOSMER. Point of information, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MARTIN. I want the record to show that I do not agree with the Chairman, respectfully, of course. I don't feel that I have had the time that I need to question Mr. Udall. In any event, I most respectfully disagree that I cannot use my remaining 2 minutes to question him.

Frankly, I am not satisfied with the answers given by the Secretary the other day.

Mr. ROGERS. Let the Chair make this observation, that on three separate occasions he has asked for permission to sit in the afternoon at the time when the Secretary of the Interior could be heard and objections were heard on each occasion.

There are times that members of this committee are not going to be satisfied with answers to questions propounded to witnesses. B we must conduct this in a fair manner and orderly manner, and the Secretary has been here on 2 separate days in an effort to answer these questions.

The time was just not there for all the questions to be answered. Mr. MARTIN. I believe the Chairman has made every effort to see to it that he was here when needed. I want to go on record of disagreeing very much with this 15-minute time limitation.

I do not think this is fair. This is serious legislation. I think this committee should have the opportunity to question the Secretary at length, and I don't care if he has to come back here for 3 weeks running. I think this committee should

Mr. ROGERS. Let the Chair make this observation so that the record will be complete on it. The Chair has tried his best to be fair and he has made arrangements to have a witness that the gentleman from California wants to come here on Tuesday of next week. which is the last day.

We went out of our way to try to accommodate the gentleman, and we are going to try to accommodate every member of this subcommittee every time we can.

The record ought to be complete on this subject matter and as far as the Chair is concerned he wants it to be complete.

The gentleman from California is recognized for the questioning of the witness for the remaining time which he has.

Mr. WESTLAND. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes.

Mr. WESTLAND. I would like to direct this to the Chair. I want to question Mr. Luce for perhaps 5 to 10 minutes at the most. I would be happy to give the balance of my time to the gentleman from California to question this witness if he so desires.

Mr. MARTIN. I do not desire to question Mr. Luce. I want to question Mr. Udall. I thank the gentleman from Washington. I yield back the balance of my time to Mr. Hosmer.

Mr. HOSMER. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I have a point of information that I would like to pose to the Chair.

Mr. ROGERS. The gentleman will state it.

Mr. HOSMER. That is this: What is the rush in these hearings? And No. 2, why cannot the Secretary of the Interior, if he is so interested in this legislation, as he purports to be, come up here and fully explain and answer the questions of the members of this committee? Mr. ROGERS. There is not any rush or special rush about this or any other legislation. We have tried to have these matters before the committee, as I stated before, and in all fairness. I think the gentleman from California has had ample time. As a matter of fact, he has had much more time than any other member of the subcommittee to question the Secretary of the Interior up to this point.

The subcommittee chairman is not going to try to have the Secretary or any other member of the executive branch for an unreasonable length of time.

If the gentleman has further questions of the Secretary I am sure if he will address them to him he can get full and complete answers. Mr. HOSMER. I have another point of information, Mr. Chairman. Mr. ROGERS. The gentleman will state it.

Mr. HOSMER. Inasmuch as it has been indicated by the previous testimony that there is here involved one facet of a total Federal power policy as visualized by the Department of the Interior, and inasmuch as the chairman has ruled that it cannot be made the subject of inquiry here at these hearings, inasmuch as further, as it is the will of the committee, as expressed by the Johnson resolution to prevent members from inquiring in the length and depth that many of them feel is necessary here, will the chairman of this committee schedule. hearings at which the committee can execute its responsibility to determine what is the intention of the Department of the Interior with respect to U.S. power policies and its actions and participation therein.

Mr. ROGERS. The subcommittee chairman will do his very best in conjunction with the chairman of the full committee to accede to the reasonable requests of all members of the subcommittee when those matters are presented to them and decisions will be made at that time. Mr. HOSMER. I had hoped to use whatever the remaining part of the 2 minutes to question the man who should be occupying the empty chair.

He is not here. My question to him would have been in relation to the March 29 press release issued by the Department of the Interior which stated that this legislation was in effect an integral part of its plan for Federal interties between the Pacific Northwest and other areas, and my question would be does this mean that the matter of who builds, who controls, who pays for, who benefits from the

intertie has already been prejudged and decided in the Department of Interior and all of the other statements to the contrary, intimated or made by the witnesses for the Government thus far, is a smokescree Mr. ROGERS. The time of the gentleman has expired. The Chair might say that the gentleman had 4 minutes.

The Chair recognizes in regular order, Mr. White, the gentleman from Idaho.

Mr. WHITE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Luce, there has been a great deal said here about preference and the idea has been propounded that in leaving the Pacific Northwest area that we are operating in opposition to the present preference laws and regulations.

I would like to know your feeling on this particular supposition. STATEMENT OF CHARLES F. LUCE, ADMINISTRATOR, BONNEVILLI POWER ADMINISTRATION

Mr. LUCE. Congressman White, the Congress of the United States in the case of the largest Federal power system, namely, the Tennessee Valley Authority, has adopted a policy which has restricted its service area to defined limits.

Tennessee Valley Authority legislation contains a preference clause for States and counties and public bodies in the purchase of power generated by public agencies.

However, the TVA also serves a number of industrial loads within its service area as defined by Congress. If a city or other public agency outside of the marketing area of the TVA, as defined by Congress, requests service from TVA, the Congress has determined that the TVA cannot provide such service.

And so I would say that so far as there being any precedents fr reasonable geographical qualifications to the preference clause, there is a very close precedent in the case of the Tennessee Valley ame: ments of 1959.

Mr. WHITE. One other area I would like to explore with you, and I believe it is germane. There is a possibility with a favorable Government in Canada, which we now have, that we may be able to ratify an international water treaty with Canada. If this is done, there is a possibility of additional dams being constructed on the Canadian side as well as the United States side of the border. This will be at the will of the Congress, of course. There are two possibilities. I understand, one is that, if this construction becomes a reality, that we wil! have a firming up of downstream power on the Columbia River in the amount of 2 million kilovolt-amperes, is that right? Would that be a reasonable

Mr. LUCE. I am sorry, I can't hear the question.

Mr. WHITE. I am sure that you couldn't. My question was directed to the possibility of dams that may be constructed on the Canadian side of the border and on the American side of the border in the even of a ratification of an international water treaty with Canada and British Columbia. I understand that if this plan becomes a reality that we will have two possibilities. One that there will be 2 million kilovolt-amperes of Canadian power that would be in excess of their demands that could be exported. Also that we would firm up our BPA system on the downstream river in the same amount.

Th's

would indicate to me that the intertie would be of great value to transmit this power to a market area. Am I reasonable in this supposition? Mr. LUCE. I think you are reasonable in the supposition that Canada may want to sell substantial quantities of power in the United States as a condition of ratifying the treaty to which you refer. As I understand it, no decision has yet been made in Canada as to whether they wish to offer power in the United States. But there is very serious discussion, principally on the part of the Government of British Columbia which would be the entity developing the Columbia River, to the effect that they have enough power out of the Peace River development to take care of their load growth in British Columbia. Therefore, if the Columbia River development is to go forward it can only be with the sale of power in the United States. Their total downstream benefits which accrue as a result of the Columbia River development are about 1,300,000 kilowatts initially. How much of that block of power they would want to sell in the United States we won't know until they tell us. But I think it is a safe guess that it will be a sizable proportion of the 1,300,000 kilowatts. Mr. WHITE. If they did sell this power in the United States it would not be preference power?

Mr. LUCE. It would not. It would be sold according to whatever terms and in whatever markets the Government of British Columbia felt it could get the best price which might very well be in California or partly in California.

Mr. WHITE. There is one other point that I don't feel has been brought out too well in these hearings. It is that we talked about firm power and the power that we have in excess in the Pacific Northwest at the present time. I think the point should be made, and I would like to know your feeling on this, if the excess power that we have, would it be available to California at a time when they have a lack of power, and could it be used to firm up the power that they develop by their thermal electric plants?

Mr. LUCE. Yes; as to those customers in California which have a summertime peak in their loads. Such customers generally are those in the hot, dry areas where they have heavy irrigation loads and heavy air-conditioning loads. Our load studies and predictions indicate that there will be a larger and larger seasonal diversity between the high summer loads in California and the high winter loads in the Pacific Northwest.

Mr. WHITE. That would be the next part of my question. Would it not be true that there would be an excess capacity in California that might be transmitted in the opposite direction to the Pacific Northwest when we had a lack of power or needed power to firm up certain of our hydroplants in that area?

Mr. LUCE. That is right. The legislation now before the committee has been carefully drawn to permit those diversity exchanges between the two regions to take full advantage of all the economies of modern technology.

Mr. WHITE. Getting back to the preference laws and regulations, it has been suggested here that there is no reason to have a preference area. I would like to know your feeling in this matter. First, I will state to you this. I happen to come from a State where almost 70 percent of our land is publicly owned. Our State has a great deal of difficulty in enticing industry into the State. It also has a great deal