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Enron Mail |
reporting from the WGA summer conference in Couer D'Alene......... It was evident from the minute we got here that the governors continue to b= e "ticked off" at FERC for not supporting their efforts on price caps and t= hat they are feeling neglected by the Administration. Although we had been= told by staff that the resolution that would be voted on today would be su= bstantially "watered down" and not terribly controversial (in fact, we had = seen a copy of the proposed resolution about a week ago and I would agree w= ith that descripition), the tide turned in a meeting with the Governors the= mselves on Sat and then again on Sunday. By yesterday a new section and ot= her additional language had been added to the resolution. The most troubli= ng to us is a section that talks about creating regional mechanisms to deci= de regional power issues and that....."FERC should be required to defer to = such decisions". There is also language stating that FERC intervention on e= minent domain is "unwarrented and inappropriate".Even though we expressed o= ur concerns to several of our staff contacts, they insisted that the langua= ge was greatly watered down from what it could have been and that the Gover= nors felt that they needed to assert their "states rights". They also insi= sted that the wording was meant to encourage cooperation and to ensure that= whatever work was being completed by western stakeholders was given due co= nsideration by FERC. I argued that defer was not the word that conveyed th= at message correctly! I lost. The resolution will be voted on today at noo= n. Yesterday FERC COmmissioner Brownell, DOE undersecretary Bob Card, JIm Conn= aughton from the Council of Enviromental Quality (I think that's what it is= called) and Steve Griels, Deputy Secretary of Interior all participated in= the energy panel. Governor Kempthorne announced the signing of an MOU wit= h DOE and the WGA to cooperate on some studies and workplans, primarily on = energy efficiences and conservation in the west (this, by the way, was nego= tiated and drafted on Sunday late night...it appeared that Reuben Barrales = from the White House was the broker and it was accepted on Monday morning b= y the govs) The bottom line on this MOU is that DOE will give some modest = funding to WGA to do a study or two. It is painfully clear from the discussions yesterday that this administrati= on is going to be mired in process--the discussion on the energy panel was = full of discussion about task forces and studies and interagency cooperatio= n....blah blah blah ps as we expected Davis and Locke were not here
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