{
  "id": "R45548",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "R45548",
  "active": true,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 592621,
      "date": "2019-03-01",
      "retrieved": "2019-12-20T19:50:51.684309",
      "title": "The Power Marketing Administrations: Background and Current Issues",
      "summary": "The federal government, through the Department of Energy, operates four regional power marketing administrations (PMAs), created by statute: the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), the Southeastern Power Administration (SEPA), the Southwestern Power Administration (SWPA), and the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA). Each PMA operates in a distinct geographic area. Congressional interest in the PMAs has included diverse issues such as rate setting, cost and compliance associated with the Endangered Species Act (ESA; P.L. 93-205; 16 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a71531 et seq.), and questions of privatization of these federal agencies.\nIn general, the PMAs came into being because of the government\u2019s need to dispose of electric power produced by dams constructed largely for irrigation, flood control, or other purposes, and to achieve small community and farm electrification\u2014that is, providing service to customers whom it would not have been profitable for a private utility to serve. With minor exceptions, these agencies market the electric power produced by federal dams constructed, owned, and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) and the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR). By statute, PMAs must give preference to public utility districts and cooperatives (e.g., \u201cpreference customers\u201d), and sell their power at cost-based rates set at the lowest possible rate consistent with sound business principles. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regulates PMA rates to ensure that they are set high enough to repay the U.S. Treasury for the portion of federal facility costs allocated to hydropower beneficiaries. \nWith energy and capacity markets changing in the western United States (especially with the growing need to integrate increasing amounts of variable renewable sources), and the development of the Energy Imbalance Market in the West, BPA and WAPA may have to adapt their plans with regard to generation needs and how transmission systems are developed.\nIn 2018, the Trump Administration proposed to sell the transmission assets (lines, towers, substations, and/or rights of way) owned and operated by the federal Power Marketing Administrations. The proposal suggested that \u201celiminating or reducing\u201d the federal government\u2019s role in owning and operating transmission assets, and increasing the private sector\u2019s role, would \u201cencourage a more efficient allocation of economic resources and mitigate unnecessary risk to taxpayers.\u201d The resulting PMA entities would then contract with other utilities to provide transmission services for the delivery of federal power, similar to what SEPA does currently. Reportedly, the proposed sale of PMA assets was dropped after opposition to the plan emerged from stakeholders. Under Section 208 of the Urgent Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1986 (P.L. 99-349), the executive branch is prohibited from spending funds to study or draft proposals to transfer from federal control any portion of the assets of the PMAs unless specifically authorized by Congress.\nEnvironmental, fishing, and tribal advocates have sued the federal government over concerns that operating rules for hydropower dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers (i.e., the National Marine Fisheries Service Biological Opinion) are inadequate to ensure survival of species threatened or endangered under the ESA. In 2016, a federal judge overturned a previous management plan for the dams, finding that it would not be sufficient to protect salmon runs, and ordered a new management plan that could include removing the dams. However, in 2018, President Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum accelerating the process for a new management plan, requiring the biological opinion to be ready by 2020. \nSince FY2011, power revenues associated with the PMAs have been classified as discretionary offsetting receipts (i.e., receipts that are available for spending by the PMAs), thus the agencies are sometimes noted as having a \u201cnet-zero\u201d spending authority. Only the capital expenses of WAPA and SWPA require appropriations from Congress.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
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      "topics": [
        {
          "source": "IBCList",
          "id": 4840,
          "name": "Electricity"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Appropriations",
    "Energy Policy"
  ]
}