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Show Rocky Mountain Electric Utlities Submit Proposal to Honor Group : Twenty Rocky Mountain electric elec-tric utilities including Southern Utah Power Co., Tuesday presented present-ed a Hoover Commission Task Force with a proposal which they said would: 1. Assist in formulating a water and power policy fair to all; 2. Give full support to the present administration's partner-' ship principle of resource development; de-velopment; 3. Affect further government economy and help bring relief to the overburdened taxpayer. Presentation was made in Denver Den-ver at a public hearing of the commission's task force on water resources and power, The hearing is one of a series the task force is holding throughout the country coun-try to study ways and means of promoting greater Federal Government Gov-ernment economy in the water and power fields. ' Utility Spokesman E. M. Naughton, Salt Lake City spokesman for the utility group, emphasized that in every multi purpose water resource program, water for municipal and irrigation irriga-tion purposes must be considered as a higher beneficial use than for the generation of electric power. "But whenever electric power may be developed as an adjunct to water resource projects," he 'said, "the Rocky Mountain companies com-panies offer full cooperation in planning, producing and marketing mar-keting such power." Mr. Naughton, who Is vice president and general manager of Utah Power & Light Co., said that in the construction of justifiable justi-fiable federal multi-purpose projects, pro-jects, local producers and distributors dis-tributors should be allowed to: 1. Build the power house and generating facilities, pay taxes on those facilities, and pay for the use of the dam and falling water, or 2. Lease the generating facili ties at projects where the construction con-struction of such facilities by local lo-cal distributors is not feasible, or 3. purchase the electricity at the powerhouse under long-term contracts without discrimination. More Power to More Customers "Such a policy," he said, "will assure the widest possible distribution of the power to all domestic and rural customers and Will encourage the most widespread use of that power." The utility spokesman further stated that wherever feasible, the transmission facilities neces-l".sary neces-l".sary to carry the power to load -'centers should be built by local distributors .without burden on the taxpayer. "Any savings realized by ahe utilities- under this program would be passed on to the ultimate ulti-mate customers served and at rates prescribed by regulatory authorities. "Rates for federal power," he continued, "should cover all costs, including repayment of investment in-vestment with interest, any federal fed-eral sales and excise taxes, and full payments in lieu of taxes to local and state governments." Mr. Naughton declared the Rocky Mountain group proposal would provide the greatest possible pos-sible ievenue for the federal government, gov-ernment, avoid the waste of enormous enor-mous sums of taxpayers' money and would increase local, state and federal tax returns." Mr. Naughton called the Hoover Hoo-ver Commission group's attention to recent examples of partnership partner-ship in projects undertaken by the companies. He cited the proposal pro-posal made last winter by nine electric companies in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah to build transmission lines and market power to be produced by units of the Upper Colorado River Riv-er Storage project. Raps "Preference Clause" Mr. Naughton also rapped the so-called "Preference Clause" which is exercised under present pres-ent reclamation laws to give municipalities and public agencies agen-cies first call on power generated at federal projects. "Federal projects are constructed construct-ed with the taxpayers' money; yet the great majority of taxpayers tax-payers that is, the customers of investor-owned electric companies com-panies are denied government power until after the requirements require-ments cf so-called preference customers cus-tomers have been satisfied. The preference clause," he added, discriminates against the vast majority of electric users and relegates them to the position of second-class citizens." |
