OCR Text |
Show electric cooperatives, and privately owned systems can cooperate to assure ample supplies of elec- tricity at low rates. Nothing has more clearly demonstrated the widespread demand for elec- tricity than the growth of rural electrification in recent years. Millions of farmers have joined together in cooperatives to build their own lines. Federal responsibility in this vital utility field must be broad enough to permit action along several different lines, while assuring the widest possible use of electricity at the lowest possible rates. First, in certain regions, the Federal Govern- ment is, or will presently become, the main source of future power supply and will provide a completely integrated wholesale regional power system for transmitting low-cost power to the major distribution centers of the region. This should not preclude municipalities, other public bodies, or private distributors from maintaining or expanding their local generating capacity. But responsibility for the comprehensive develop- ment of the major basin water power resources and for complete interconnection and coordina- tion of regional power supply will rest with the Federal Government. This emphasis on Federal responsibility for power development may arise because the future power supply of the region is inextricably asso- ciated with comprehensive development of a major river basin, as in the Pacific Northwest. It may also occur because a majority of the citi- zens of a region have decided on municipal or cooperative distribution of power, using Federal power as the nucleus of wholesale power supply, as in the Tennessee Valley area. It may prove desirable in northern New York and New Eng- land, where the Niagara-St. Lawrence and New England river basin developments would afford a splendid interconnected source of power supply in what is now one of the highest electric rate areas in the country. Where the Federal Government undertakes the major responsibility for supplying the expand- ing power requirements of a river basin or region, it should clearly recognize the utility obligation to assure ample supplies of power well in ad- vance of growing regional needs. This should include the obligation to assure the lowest-cost supply through construction of hydroelectric or steam electric stations, whichever is best designed to assure the best balanced system supply. Second, in certain regions the Federal Govern- ment will assume responsibility only for that por- tion of future power supply which can best be obtained from the full development of the water power resources of a river basin as part of com- prehensive multiple-purpose plans for such basin. In such cases it will also have to maintain an in- dependent nucleus of regional transmission, capa- ble of delivering power to local public or coop- erative distribution systems, and will plan the expansion of its capacity well in advance of the expanding market. However, the Federal Government would at the same time seek favorable interconnection contracts with private and local public power sys- tems to permit the best utilization of the water- power resource and the lowest cost power supply for the entire region. It would seek to exchange peak-load hydroelectric power for base-load steam power, or vice versa, under conditions of complete regional integration, preserving the preferences established by Congress for public and cooperative power distributors. Only if private systems were unwilling or unable to enter into such arrangements would the Federal Gov- ernment need to construct steam plant capacity. Third, in certain regions the Federal Govern- ment should similarly assume responsibility only for the supply which can best be obtained from comprehensive river basin programs. But for transmission it would largely depend upon "wheeling" contracts with private or local public power systems. These contracts would provide for rates at least as low as those which would be possible from an all-Federal system. Such con- tracts would preserve the preferential right of public and cooperative electric systems to fed- erally generated power or its equivalent, but would seek to participate through such contracts in the most economical integration of power fa- cilities in the region. This expression of Federal power marketing policy could be greatly facilitated if the private systems in the region would agree to revise their 244 |