[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19788]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           POWER AND POLITICS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Speaker, I have come to the floor today to share with my 
colleagues some of the information we dug out last week in a series of 
hearings in the Committee on Government Reform focusing on the energy 
challenges we face as a country. I would like to specifically address 
the issue of electricity and how it is generated and distributed 
throughout the country, particularly the Southwest of which California 
is a certain portion.
  In our hearings last week, we had the various investor-owned 
utilities come and testify with us, a couple of environmental groups, 
we had the Department of Energy, we had the administrator for the EPA 
and we had one of the representatives of the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission come and visit with us.
  What became apparent is that the mix of electricity in this country 
is quite complex. There are different generators of different sizes and 
utilities that contribute to us having electricity throughout our 
country. Interestingly enough, two of the largest electric generators 
in the country are the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of 
Engineers. I would like to specifically focus my comments today on 
those two entities.
  In the West, the Bureau of Reclamation is a huge power generator. The 
Army Corps of Engineers more so in the Northwest at Bonneville but the 
Bureau, along the Colorado River and elsewhere, generates huge amounts 
of electricity. If you look at our electric markets and you consider 
different end users, California in fact is a huge end user of this 
electricity.
  Now, the challenge we face is how do we plan for the delivery of 
electricity to the end users in a manner timely enough to make it 
possible for our economy to continue to thrive and for people to be 
cool in their homes in the summer and warm in the winter. If you look 
at the Bureau of Reclamation Web site, you will see on their map, they 
have four different regions in the West.
  The two that I would like to specifically address today are the 
Sierra Nevada region and the Desert Southwest region. In particular, 
the Desert Southwest region focuses along the Colorado River and in 
fact includes southern California as part of its delivery market.
  If you examine the facilities that the Bureau runs in the Desert 
Southwest region, you will see the Hoover Dam; and you will see a 
number of other facilities, one of which is the Glen Canyon Dam. In the 
midst of power shortages this summer in June, July and August, the 
interesting thing that you will see in this information is that the 
Bureau of Reclamation was running most of their facilities flat out, 
all the way to the red line, but the Glen Canyon Dam was running at a 
rate 50 percent of what it was running at last year. In other words, 
the Bureau had reduced generation by 300,000 megawatts in the face of 
severe energy shortages.
  Now, that manifested itself in San Diego and elsewhere, because 
electricity is very fluid. It comes from somewhere, it goes somewhere, 
and when one is down, another might be up in terms of generating 
capacity. The consequence, the reality is that Glen Canyon's generating 
capacity was reduced, for what? For what purpose? If you track back the 
legislation or the historical data, you will see that in 1992, the 
104th Session of this Congress, legislation was passed that allowed the 
Bureau, working with the Fish and Wildlife Service to try and 
experiment with the water flow from Glen Canyon that is used to 
generate electricity in the turbines. The legislation is very clear. It 
says, you will test this low flow regime along the Colorado River to 
see its environmental benefit. But the legislation also includes a 
waiver provision that says in a period of huge or unexpected power 
disruptions, the Bureau is authorized to run the turbines flat out. In 
other words, abandon the low flow regime.
  In June, July, and August, the Bureau chose, they elected, they made 
a conscious decision to keep generation low. What that did was it 
hammered areas like San Diego and Silicon Valley and others who rely on 
this electricity to power industry and provide jobs and to cool houses 
and the like. It is interesting. Last Monday, the Bureau issued a 
waiver and they ran those turbines up to respond to a peak demand for 
electricity in the Desert Southwest region. But that was the first time 
this summer they have done that.
  Mr. Speaker, the very clear message here is that this administration 
chose to run Glen Canyon over the summer at 50 percent of capacity and 
the consequence in San Diego and elsewhere in California were 
brownouts, blackouts and seniors having to choose between maintaining a 
low temperature in their house, for instance, and being able to buy 
food or prescription drugs. That is a reality. It is as much a reality 
as any other comparison we have. The administration is at fault. I have 
yet to hear a rational explanation of why this had to occur.

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