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Show REA in transition By Helene C. Monberg 'ashington Perhaps more than any agency in government, the Rural .ctrifi cation Administration in the Department of Agriculture is in Bition, according to outgoing Ad-' Ad-' jstrator Robert W. Feragen. nd for reasons beyond and above budget, which is a concern thruout federal establishment as the belt-.ltening belt-.ltening Reagan Administration pares to take over the government i month. eragen worries about the rural 'perative movement from the jnd up. He wants to see the rural trie cooperatives become more .;ient, but not at the expense of their heritage. i;rhere is a struggle going on at many Operatives between the older r-nbers who want to retain the jerative heritage and the younger . lessional managers who see their ;i; as managing a business en-)rise," en-)rise," Feragen told Western ources Wrap-up (WRW) in an in-iew in-iew here on Dec. 22. "One of the ; directives that I sent out as Ad-tfistrator Ad-tfistrator (of REA) was to recom-id recom-id that a majority of the boards of ctors of G&T's (generating and emission cooperatives) be mem-i mem-i of the boards of directors of their Ll distribution cooperatives," he . As the co-op's lender, REA has iiderable impact on policy. Die managers of rural electric eratives have contributed greatly the success of the cooperative .ement. But the directors of a rural i trie distribution cooperative have illy provided community leader-," leader-," Feragen went on. The directors tie small distribution cooperatives the importance of the cooperative ement in the broader perspective social movement democracy in jn rather than as a nuts-and-bolts ..'ation, as managers often do, he "ned out. expert communicator himself iV first met Feragen when he was ctor of information and assistant to general manager of Basin Electric er Cooperative in Bismarck, N.D., ecade ago Feragen continually , sses the importance of com-icating com-icating to co-ops. iragen makes it plain that he's not ing about public . relations or Jge." He's talkingabotit" eom-ications eom-ications in all of its many facets, jding one person relating to j her and to a group. He continually ises in his speeches .that com-ications com-ications within the co-op "family" ill-important. "Commitment has to nade to group success," he un-cores. un-cores. As rural electrification is a pie program," Feragen urges ater cooperation and dialogue een power suppliers (usually rural trie C&T's) and distribution if eratives." d it's also important he insists in .jjK' relations with the public in 1 ral, with employees, the news ia, the community, and in relations public bodies and agencies at all s, with industry and professional nizations. Indeed, the state of a co-IPJ co-IPJ relations with consumers, state ic servic commissions and other !6S rnment agencies "has something ) with financial viability and how a prospectus or application is ived by lending institutions," gen told a leadership meeting of National Rural Electric erative Associaiton (NRECA) in i(j Orleans last year. PROBLEM AREAS ere are a number of problem areas concern Feragen on which he ves open communications are itial. Perhaps the touchiest are fj, increases. Like other power .Hers, rural electric G&T's have having increased costs, and these e' been passed on to the consumer-8' consumer-8' srs of co-ops recently. rthermore, the factors causing the ased costs will continue to push up i "for the foreseeable future," rding to Feragen. It won't wash for distribution co-ops "to lay the ie on your G&T's" for rate in-ses, in-ses, Feragen has stated at NRECA ings. All co-ops have "a special ation to their consumer members fl 'he economic story straight and Ipt out to their members. ..The im-,ait'of im-,ait'of (higher) electric rates upon the ly budget has become serious, and annot avoid the reaction." Feragen '".the NRECA annual meeting at 3'"'.ton last year. allied area where problems exist ecent low growth. Because of srvation practices being pushed by i! co-ops and REA. because of 2r costs and a mild winter last , kilowatt -hour sales to -the co-op amers "in this past year of ...only grew 2.98 percent. That is a surprising and significant figure," gen told the House Appropriations 1 mittee this year. light of the 6.5 percent growth e for 1978 and census figures which :ate a definite movement of f 'ation to rural areas, Feragen said " not sure whether the low growth in is an aberration or a trend. "That e, I would suggest, is one that we ldnotleaptoaconclusionabout.lt will be very interesting to see what 1980 produces in terms of growth," he testified. It's particularly surprising, Feragen told the panel,Tecause many irrigators are switching from petroelum to electric power to operate their irrigation systems. Because REA has pushed so hard for conservation of energy, Feragen does not want co-ops to abandon such efforts because of lowered revenues. So he has told the rural co-ops and he told the House Appropriations committee, "I have the authority, and I stand ready to use it, to extend the time of payment of interest or principal of REA loans up to five years. ..for any borrowers whose revenues have been severely reduced as a result of conservation." It's to the benefit of REA, the power supplier and the rural electric co-op consumer to conserve energy as much as possible to "avert the need to build substantial amounts of new energy at current high construction costs" for ' installing new power plants, Feragen testified. REA is checking load-growth data carefully. Still another problem that REA has had, together with the state of Minnesota, Min-nesota, is a breakdown in law and order in maintaining a transmission line intact in the state of Minnesota. This has been brought on by two other trends, Feragen told WRW in the Dec. 22 interview. "I believe in public service, ser-vice, but among the general public it doesn't have any value any more. We are not respected. Bureaucrats are equated with used-car salesmen." And the second trend is the seeming inability of power suppliers to communicate with the opponents of a controversial transmission line connecting a North Dakota power plant with a sub-station near Minneapolis some 175 miles of line in west-central Minnesota, Feragen stated. Two years afer the state and the rural co-ops installing the line were unsuccessful un-successful in protecting the Minnesota segment of the line, it was taken over by REA, so that it would be within the jurisdiction of the FBI, Feragen said. During the past two years protestors mainly farmers along the route of the line caused $7 million damage to the line, including toppling 14 steel towers and shooting out 8,000 insulators. When REA took over the line in September, Feragen - said he. hoped vandalism would entj when protestors realized,,,, they would be dealing in the future with the violation of federal laws in federal courts. Prior to the REA takeover, no one had been fined or jailed for the vandalism because of local opposition to the line. the country is holding its breath about likely cutbacks in the rural electric and rural telephone programs as a result of the Reagan victory. The conservative-oriented conservative-oriented Heritage Foundation has developed a report which recommends a cutback of $1,425,000,000 in rural housing, electrification and development, develop-ment, and also a reduction in interest subsidies on several credit programs. The report prepared by Don Paarlbert, formerly chief USDA economist in the Nixon and Ford Administrations, sees REA's work as completed. The report states: "REA was set up to electrify rural America ; this has now been done, but the agency makes loans, at interest rates as low as 2 percent and 5 percent to "heavy-up" the system, built generating plants, expand a rural telephone system and venture into television." As one who has spent the past two decades of his life working in the rural cooperative movement and as a manager of a municipal utility, Feragen is gravely concerned about this new development and how the ' rural cooperatives can protect them- v selves from major cutbacks in the REA programs. "The old coalition which created REA' in the 1930's isn't there any -longer," Feragen told WRW on Dec. 22. That coalition was made up of liberals, farmers and unions. "By coming to a common agreement on solving a problem, coalitions make democracy work. They defuse the radical answers" an-swers" put forward by extremists, he said. Feragen is particularly concerned that the loan guarantee program given to REA in 1973 will be cut back or cut out. by the Reagan Administration, or that a conservative Congress will limit it by putting a lid on it. Such an effort was made this year, but did not prevail. "The loan guarantee program is crucial to rural development," Feragen said, as well as to rural co-ops. OTHER NEWS Public Lands Corridors : The Interior Department and the Agriculture Department have announced that the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service have entered into agreement with Western states and some industry groups to plan for "energy corridors" thru and over public land. The agreement is expected to be applicable, in particular, to future construction of transmission lines and t T-oaSs"," 'pipelines and "power cables!) 7 Parties to the agreement include the 11 - traditional Western states plus Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska, North and South Dakota. Libraries, museums, ocean freighters, jet airliners, computer com-puter areas filled with delicate deli-cate machinery, telephone exchanges and government and military facilities are all protected by CFCs. The gas is clean, dry and noncorrosive. It leaves no residue, causes no damage and requires no cleanup after af-ter it has done its work. It's also nontoxic, so it can be used where people are present. According to the experts at the Alliance for Responsible Responsi-ble CFC Policy, a national coalition of CFC users and producers, about 10,000 such fire-extinguishing systems have been installed in the U.S. to date, and about $15 billion worth of property is being protected. So are some priceless lives. |