{"id":4613,"date":"2018-03-27T16:57:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T20:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/"},"modified":"2023-07-24T11:08:21","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T15:08:21","slug":"wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/es\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Wyden, Merkley in bipartisan letter rejecting Trump&#8217;s proposed BPA sell-off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"content__segment combx\">The Trump administration has figured out a way to engender bipartisanship: Propose selling off U.S. federal power marketing administration assets, including Bonneville&rsquo;s 15,000-mile high-voltage electric transmission system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__segment combx\">Fourteen Democratic U.S. senators &mdash; including Oregonians Ron Wyden and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/portland\/search\/results?q=Jeff%20Merkley\">jeff merkley<\/a>&nbsp;&mdash; have joined with nine Republicans in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wyden.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/180322%20Letter%20to%20Mulvaney%20-%20PMAs.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">una carta<\/a>&nbsp;to budget director&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/portland\/search\/results?q=Mick%20Mulvaney\">mick mulvaney<\/a>&nbsp;opposing&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/portland\/news\/2018\/02\/12\/trump-budget-goes-after-bonneville-power.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the proposal<\/a>&nbsp;made last month in the president&rsquo;s fiscal year 2019 budget.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__segment combx\">&ldquo;Privatizing these assets will likely not result in incentivizing new transmission infrastructure that many of us support,&rdquo; the senators wrote. &ldquo;Instead, it will simply shift economic value from families and businesses in our states to investors.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__segment combx\">Along with BPA, the power marketing administrations include the very large Western Area Power Administration and the smaller Southwestern Power Administration. Altogether they touch every state west of the Mississippi River, selling wholesale power, mostly to public utilities, at generally cheap rates from federal dams. They own some 33,000 miles of transmission.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__segment combx\">Separately, the administration has also proposed selling off the Tennessee Valley Authority.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__segment combx\">The administration says &ldquo;introducing more market-based incentives, including rates, for power sales from federal dams, would encourage a more efficient allocation of economic resources and mitigate risk to taxpayers.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__segment combx\">Bonneville&#8217;s assets would bring $5.2 billion over 10 years, the Trump budget says. A related proposal for the trio of power marketing administrations to sell federal power at cost-based instead of market-based rates would yield another $1.9 billion, according to the budget proposal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__segment combx\">Similar proposals have been made before regarding the power marketing administrations, most recently by the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/portland\/search\/results?q=George%20W.%20Bush\">George W. Bush<\/a>&nbsp;administration, and the Obama administration at one point asked Congress &#8220;to explore options for ending federal ties to TVA.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__segment combx\">The senators&rsquo; letter notes that Moody&rsquo;s Investor Services panned the idea in a research note that focused on BPA and TVA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__segment combx\">&#8220;We believe that TVA&rsquo;s and BPA&rsquo;s assets have operated well from a reliability and cost standpoint,&rdquo; the bond credit rating firm said. &ldquo;We also believe that any divestiture is likely to raise transmission rates for BPA and TVA customers because the new private owners would have higher capital costs that would need to be recovered in rates.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__segment combx\">BPA is&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/portland\/news\/2018\/03\/01\/under-threat-bpa-maps-out-survival-strategy.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">not without its challenges<\/a>, however, amid shifting market dynamics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__segment combx\">In a five-year strategic plan unveiled in January it not that as of the end of 2017, it had consumed $5 billion of its federal borrowing authority, and that it was on a course to run up against a $7.7 billion limit by 2023. One of the planks of the strategic plan is to meet capital needs on a 10-year rolling basis and preserve $1.5 billion in borrowing authority.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump administration has figured out a way to engender bipartisanship: Propose selling off U.S. federal power marketing administration assets, including Bonneville&rsquo;s 15,000-mile high-voltage electric transmission system. Fourteen Democratic U.S. senators &mdash; including Oregonians Ron Wyden and&nbsp;Jeff Merkley&nbsp;&mdash; have joined with nine Republicans in&nbsp;a letter&nbsp;to budget director&nbsp;Mick Mulvaney&nbsp;opposing&nbsp;the proposal&nbsp;made last month in the president&rsquo;s fiscal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-4613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","tag-protecting-consumers-taxpayers-and-the-economy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Wyden, Merkley in bipartisan letter rejecting Trump&#039;s proposed BPA sell-off - Merkley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/es\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_MX\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wyden, Merkley in bipartisan letter rejecting Trump&#039;s proposed BPA sell-off - Merkley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Trump administration has figured out a way to engender bipartisanship: Propose selling off U.S. federal power marketing administration assets, including Bonneville&rsquo;s 15,000-mile high-voltage electric transmission system. Fourteen Democratic U.S. senators &mdash; including Oregonians Ron Wyden and&nbsp;Jeff Merkley&nbsp;&mdash; have joined with nine Republicans in&nbsp;a letter&nbsp;to budget director&nbsp;Mick Mulvaney&nbsp;opposing&nbsp;the proposal&nbsp;made last month in the president&rsquo;s fiscal [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/es\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Merkley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-27T20:57:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-07-24T15:08:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"\",\"@id\":\"\"},\"headline\":\"Wyden, Merkley in bipartisan letter rejecting Trump&#8217;s proposed BPA sell-off\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-27T20:57:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-07-24T15:08:21+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/\"},\"wordCount\":468,\"keywords\":[\"Protecting Consumers, Taxpayers, and the Economy\"],\"articleSection\":[\"In the News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"es-MX\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/\",\"name\":\"Wyden, Merkley in bipartisan letter rejecting Trump's proposed BPA sell-off - Merkley\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-27T20:57:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-07-24T15:08:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"es-MX\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Wyden, Merkley in bipartisan letter rejecting Trump&#8217;s proposed BPA sell-off\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/\",\"name\":\"Merkley\",\"description\":\"Merkley\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"es-MX\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/es\/author\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Wyden, Merkley in bipartisan letter rejecting Trump's proposed BPA sell-off - Merkley","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/es\/wyden-merkley-in-bipartisan-letter-rejecting-trumps-proposed-bpa-sell-off\/","og_locale":"es_MX","og_type":"article","og_title":"Wyden, Merkley in bipartisan letter rejecting Trump's proposed BPA sell-off - Merkley","og_description":"The Trump administration has figured out a way to engender bipartisanship: Propose selling off U.S. federal power marketing administration assets, including Bonneville&rsquo;s 15,000-mile high-voltage electric transmission system. 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