“Reforming the Bonneville Power Administration” (with David Haarmeyer), Cato Journal, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1992.
Original Post
REFORMING THE BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION
Kenneth W. Costello and David Haarmeyer
Fall 1992
VOL. 12 NO. 2
(https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/fall-1992)
Introduction
The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is the power marketing agency for the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS), which also consists of the Pacific Northwest generating facilities operated by the Army Corps of Engineers and nonpower-related projects of the Bureau of Reclamation. Taken together, the accounting value of the FCRPS’s total assets as of the end of September 1991 was over $15 billion. In 1991, the BPA marketed over $2.2 billion worth of electricity from 30 federally built powerplants.’
Through its extensive transmission network (Intertie), the BPA markets power to a region encompassing the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, western Montana, plus portions of neighboring states; The Intertie makes up nearly80 percent of this region’s high-voltage transmission, with over 14,700 circuit miles of lines and almost 400 substations. The replacement value of the system is estimated by the BPA to be about $10 billion.2 In addition to marketing power, the BPA also promotes nonelectricity-related objectives, which include conservation, irrigation, and fish and wildlife protection.
Cato journal Vol. 12, No. 2. (Fall 1992). Copyright © Cato Institute. All rights reserved.
Kenneth W. Costello is an Economist at Ohio State University where he conducts research on public utility regulation, and David Haarmeyer is a Policy Analyst at the Reason Foundation.
The authors wish to thank Jim Clarkson, Richard L. Gordon, Douglas Houston, James Johnston, Philip O’Connor, Lynn Scarlett, David Shapiro, Richard Stroup, and John Wenders for helpful comments. Responsibility for any remaining errors, of course, lies with the authors.
‘U.S. Department of Energy (1992).
U.S. Department of Energy (1991a, p. 10).
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