Political Quotes

“thank-you letters are certainly appreciated, but Bonneville Power still is in a position where they need to be repaid. As of now, Bonneville Power is owed more than $120 million by California, and various other public entities such as the Western Area Power Administration and various municipal utilities up and down the west coast are also owed funds. The fact is that they do not have shareholders as do the big, private California utilities. The people we are speaking for in this amendment do not have any stockholders to absorb the costs if they are not paid what they are owed. The public entities that would get a fair shake under this amendment would have to pass the costs on directly to the consumers if they were not in fact repaid. Our amendment makes nondischargeable in bankruptcy any debts under the Department of Energy emergency orders or otherwise owed for electric power sent by Federal, State, or local governmental agencies. This means these debts would have to be paid in full unless there was a determination by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that the rates charged in California for electric power were unjust and unreasonable. I want to make it very clear, because we have seen a lot of letters passed around, exactly what Senator Smith and I are saying in this bipartisan amendment.…”