[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 145 (Monday, September 18, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13708-S13710]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             SALE OF PMA'S

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, on Wednesday, the Senate Energy Committee 
will be meeting their reconciliation targets by debating a proposal 
offered by the Chair which includes, among other things, something most 
people have not heard much about. It is called the sale of the PMA's. 
Almost nobody knows what that means--the sale of SWAPA or WAPA or the 
PMA's.
  Well, there are a lot of ideas ricocheting around the Chambers of the 
House and the Senate these days. Many are labeled ``reform,'' 
``change,'' ``new,'' ``bright.'' The fact is some of these ideas are 
old ideas dressed in new clothes that have been bad for years. This is 
one of them. The notion that we should sell the power marketing 
agencies in order to raise some short-term dollars in the short run and 
lose dollars every year thereafter makes no sense at all. 

[[Page S 13709]]

  Let me describe for people who do not have any idea what this means 
what the consequences are and what PMA's are. In my State of North 
Dakota, some 40 years ago, they decided to try to harness the Missouri 
River because it was causing a lot of problems. Spring flooding would 
come and the old Missouri would snake out in a dozen different 
directions and cause enormous flooding all the way down to Kansas City 
and elsewhere, and so they decided we needed to harness the Missouri 
River. So we built a series of dams under the Pick Sloan plan. One of 
the dams was built in North Dakota called the Garrison Dam. It dammed 
up a half million acres of water behind it. Communities that used to 
exist are now under water and have been for years. It created a dam in 
order to prevent flooding, and one of the benefits of creating that dam 
is that they put in turbines and the water runs through those turbines 
and generates electricity. The promise was that if you in North Dakota 
will be willing to play host to a flood that comes and stays forever, 
so that downstream they can play softball in the evening, light the 
city park and not worry about flooding--if you will play host to a 
flood that comes and stays forever on a half a million acres in order 
to help folks downstream, we will give you some benefits. One of these 
benefits is that you will be able to generate low-cost regional 
electricity and send it around in a way that will benefit folks in the 
region who are using electricity.
  So our people said, ``Well, that sounds like something we would be 
willing to do,'' and we did. The Pick Sloan program went forward and 
the dam was built and the flood was created and we generate 
electricity. That promise of low-cost electricity for our region is a 
promise that has been kept over the years.
  Now, the Garrison Dam that generates that electricity with all the 
turbines and the water running through that is owned by the public. It 
is owned by the Government. And so are the transmission lines and the 
dam through which that electricity flows in order to provide benefits 
to people who are using their electricity on farms, in cities, in 
businesses. Those facilities, the dam and the transmission lines, are 
owned by the Government. It is a public facility owned by the Federal 
Government.
  In our region of the county, it is called WAPA, Western Area Power 
Administration. It is the way we take public power generated from the 
dam and distribute it regionally for the benefit of the people in our 
region because we promised them if they would accept a flood that came 
and stayed, we would give them some low-cost electricity as part of the 
benefit, part of the payment.
  Well, some years ago, there was a plan that was developed to cut 
Government waste--some of you remember it--called the Grace Commission. 
Peter Grace headed the Grace Commission. It had a lot of good ideas. In 
fact, about two-thirds of the ideas in the Grace report were eventually 
adopted--a lot of good ideas, but like anything else that has a menu of 
ideas, some were genius and some were dumb.
  One of the dumb ideas, in my judgment--using a pejorative term--in 
the Grace report was to sell our dams that generate hydroelectric 
power.
  All the way back to the Grace report, we had this goofy notion that 
if we would sell the dams so that those who would buy these dams and 
the hydroelectric facilities could reprice the electricity to market 
rate, that would surely be a good thing for the Government. But, of 
course, that did not get much traction throughout the 1980's.
  Some of the Grace report did because some of it made sense and some 
of it just did not make any sense at all. This was part that did not 
make any sense, so it never got done. However, in recent years, there 
were calls to sell the power marketing agencies--Southwest, SWAPA, 
WAPA, three of them, four of them actually, one of which is being 
sold--sell the power marketing agencies.
  Well, it comes from people who, I suppose, have two motives now. One 
is they do not think the public ought to own anything--get it in 
private hands so it can be priced at whatever the highest price is. 
That is the philosophy of some. And the second philosophy by some is 
let us solve the budget problem today by selling assets.
  In order to accomplish that philosophical purpose, they had to change 
the rules this year--the first year ever in which they changed the 
rules--to allow you to sell an asset and show a reduced deficit.
  Would it not be interesting to have a family budget like that? You 
say, well, we will meet our yearly expenses by selling the car, then 
the house, then the yard.
  Well, we had a rule against that in Congress, for good reason, 
because people who thought much about it understood what everybody 
knows: you do not solve your fiscal problems by selling your assets. At 
least you do not solve your operating budget deficit problems by 
selling your assets.
  But this year, it is different. This year, the majority party says 
our budget is going to change. We are going to change that little old 
rule so you can sell assets and therefore show a lower operating budget 
deficit.
  Well, there is one inevitable truth about selling the power marketing 
agencies. And that is this: Every single year they bring money into the 
Federal Government from the sale of this electricity. Every single year 
we get streams of hundreds of millions of dollars from the sale of this 
electricity from the hydroelectric facilities.
  Now, if you sell them, what would be the budget impact? The budget 
impact in the first couple years would be--you would get the money for 
the sale, would you not? So you show some more money coming in because 
you sold them. Then what happens every year after that? Every single 
year after that you have a loss. The Federal Government would not be 
getting the money it used to get and not getting the money that it 
expected to get.
  This is so symbolic of the way fiscal policy exists around here. Sell 
an asset, use it to say you are going to deal with an operating budget 
deficit. Sell an asset and get some money now despite the fact that in 
the long term by selling the power marketing agencies you lose money. 
You lose money every single year in the long term because the income 
stream that used to come in will no longer come in.
  Now, we are going to meet on Wednesday in the Energy Committee to 
deal with this reconciliation requirement. And you know, I am just not 
moderate on the question of whether we should sell the power marketing 
agencies. The answer is no; under no condition should we sell the power 
marketing agencies.
  Some say, let us let the customers buy them on a preferential basis. 
The power marketing agencies are part of a long-term promise that 
philosophically ought not be abridged or violated. We ought not, for 
short-term purposes, construct a mechanism here in budgetary policy 
that is just pound-foolish in every respect--that will bring some money 
in in the short term by doing something that is fundamentally unsound 
and philosophically wrong and that in the long term will increase the 
Federal deficit.
  This is to me both philosophically important, because I believe there 
are certain public principles involved in the public ownership of these 
assets, and it is also important from a fiscal policy standpoint. And 
when we meet on Wednesday, I intend to be one of those on the Energy 
Committee that says, I do not support and will not support the sale of 
the power marketing agencies.
  There are a lot of good ideas running around this Chamber. I embrace 
many, support many, and stand to speak for many. But when I see an old 
idea masquerading as a new idea, that is in fact a bad idea for this 
country, it is time to blow the whistle and say, ``Enough; no more.'' I 
do not know where the votes are on Wednesday, but I hope we can defeat 
this.
  I say to those who wonder what the consequences might be, well, in my 
State, North Dakota--a very small State, 640,000 people--if they sell 
the power marketing agencies and have people bid on them so we get some 
short-term money in, what will happen is we will have short-term money 
in the front end and it will cost us higher budget deficits in the long 
term, and about 200,000 North Dakotans will pay higher electric rates.
  It makes no sense at all. It violates the promise that exists as a 
result of the construction of these facilities. 

[[Page S 13710]]
And in my judgment, this Congress would do well to decide to stand on 
principle and not entertain any longer the idea of selling the power 
marketing agencies.
  Mr. President, I know there will be a substantial amount of debate 
and discussion about this in the Energy Committee on Wednesday, and I 
hope that when the dust settles, we will find a way to defeat this 
proposal.

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