< back		 Charles Hedemark, Intermountain Gas Company

Hedemark is executive vice president and chief operating officer for Intermountain Gas Company. He is responsible for the utility’s operations. Hedemark has been with the company for 30 years and has served in a number of capacities.

A Boise native, he is a graduate of the College of Idaho and has completed additional graduate work at the University of Utah and the executive program at Stanford.
Hedemark currently is president of the Northwest Gas Association and serves on the board of directors of Home Federal Savings & Loan (headquartered in Nampa), the Boise Chamber of Commerce and Blue Cross of Idaho. He is a past president of the Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce, past chairman for Idaho Business Week, (a program of private enterprise education for high school students), past chairman of the United Way of Ada County and past president of the Boise School Foundation. He also served on the Idaho State Energy Policy Board.
1. What is the best thing about the recommendations? The recommendations represent a responsible effort by the Northwest to address essential questions about the future of our region’s federal system resources. While this process is not yet completed, it represents a reopening of dialogue and decision making to a wide spectrum of participants. If successful, we will not only have preserved the system’s benefits for the citizens of the region, but will have reasserted a tradition of independent, diverse and creative populism.

The federal power marketing design is one of the major strengths of the Review. The emphasis on long-term commitments demonstrates a way to preserve federal system benefits in a manner that may ultimately exempt us from limited term thinking and disabling disagreements.

An important idea and strength is our recommendation that all distribution utilities accommodate open market access for all consumers by 2001. It is almost inevitable that events will accelerate this date. In any case, our work will provide clear guidance to the legislative and regulatory authorities who must initiate and finally institutionalize the work we have begun.
2. What is the most challenging thing about the recommendations? While I’m generally supportive of the Draft Plan, I’m concerned about the level of monies in the plan for such areas as market transformation and renewables. Not only do I believe these areas are more appropriately national priorities, but there is scant rationale or substantive data to support the financial obligations being asked of the region’s citizens.


The natural gas industry’s experience suggests that collegial national efforts are often far more powerful than those that can be undertaken at a regional or local level. As example, cooperative funding has enable the Gas Research Institute (GRI) to produce many new products which have improved efficiency and performance for the entire industry. The funding is mandatory and results in a far larger and more focused research effort than would otherwise be possible.


The region must also be concerned about its financial commitments to conservation going forward. Obviously, any investment in conservation must pass the cost-effective test. Nevertheless, with deregulation and the cost of generation (and consequently payback periods) becoming increasingly uncertain, we need to proceed with studies caution so we don’t make investments in conservation that become stranded cost burdens to Northwest customers.
3. Why should people care about the recommendations? The Governor’s goal statement for the Comprehensive Review summarizes why people should care. Plus, we are all electric customers. We all share a regional economy. We need to understand the way we order our service, the choices we will have in suppliers, and the new types of service available to us. Balancing the advantages of an open and competitive market for electricity with the benefits of the past is what Comprehensive Review is about.