Northwest Energy Review Transition Board	John Etchart, Montana
851 S.W. Sixth Avenue, Suite 1100 Portland, Oregon 97204-1348	Roy Hemmingway, Oregon
Phone 503-222-5161 or 1-800-452-5161 FAX 503-795-3370	Mike Kreidler, Washington
	Todd Maddock, Idaho

Transition Board Transmission Work Group
Meeting 9
August 5, 1997

Al Wright chaired the work group’s ninth meeting at the Northwest Power Planning Council’s offices in Portland. About 25 people attended.

Al reminded the group that we’re hoping to reach closure at our meeting on August 19 on the appropriate form of FERC regulation for Bonneville. People are asked to put their thoughts in draft form and get them to Ken Corum by noon on August 15 so people can read them and come prepared for discussion on August 19th.

So that people won’t have to travel on Labor Day, the subscription group and the transmission group will both meet on September 3, with the subscription group scheduled in the morning and the transmission group in the afternoon.

Al presented a diagram showing the scheduling relationship of our group’s work to other decision processes that are underway in the region. The other processes include cost control for Bonneville, discussions of extension of the memorandum of agreement on fish costs, treatment of Bonneville transition costs, subscription for Bonneville power, and discussions of changes in the configuration of the hydro system. The diagram is incorporated in the agenda for the Transition Board’s August 14, 1997 meeting.

The biggest part of the meeting was devoted to discussion of Bonneville’s "Options for Application of Federal Power Act Standards to Transmission Rates, Terms and Conditions of the Bonneville Power Administration". Randy Roach covered a number of issues relating to FERC oversight procedure, rates, terms and conditions. In addition, Randy identified Bonneville’s preferred alternative for each issue. Randy characterized many of the issues as involving trade-offs between regional decision-making and third party decision-making. The group categorized a number of issues as bearing on "Who decides?"; "What is decided?"; and "What criteria are used to make and review decisions?"

At the end of the meeting the group tried to separate issues raised by Bonneville’s paper into those issues that are new, and those that are implicitly or explicitly included in the Paul Murphy paper (produced by the "FERC-equivalency" subgroup, dated 7/18/97 and distributed for the July 22 meeting of the work group). Ken Corum was asked to write up the new questions in the format of the 7/18/97 paper to help focus discussion at the next meeting.

Al offered to show those who were interested the material on cost and market uncertainties for Bonneville’s revenue requirements after the formal end of the meeting. About 10 people stayed for his presentation. He will repeat it for the whole group at the August 19 meeting.

The next meeting of the work group is scheduled for August 19, 1997 at 9:00 a.m. at the Northwest Power Planning Council office at 851 S.W. 6th Avenue, Portland.