T H E N E W S I N F O C U S

ance filing," he added. Sharp said at this point it is un-

dear whether all the issues raised can be addressed in the context of the rate case filing PacifiCorp has pending with the Commission. "FERC will have to decide how to manage the case from here," he said.

The Utah Municipa! Power Agency, made up of six transmis- sion-dependent munis, has also filed a protest with FERC over the methodology by which the REC was determined--particularly the lack of system-wide wheeling ca- pability offered. According to UMPA's Washington D.C. attor- ney, Donald R. Allen, the merged utility declined to make available for use the major interconnection between the Utah Power & Light system and PacifiCorp in eastern Wyoming because the consoli- dated utility needed it "to capture merger benefits." Allen com- mented that the proof of the pud- ding in the Pacific-Utah merger case "is in the details, not in the broad principles. Until the details are sorted out, we won't know whether we got wheeling or not," he said.

Meanwhile on the nonfirm side of the fence, PacifiCorp is talking with several utilities about wheel- ing arrangements and has entered into a nonfirm wheeling agree- ment with UMPA. Despite the protest of the firm capacity deter- mination, Richard Judd, general manager of UMPA, noted "a change in the company's atti- tude" since the merger, and added the nonfirm wheeling deal

has enabled UMPA to buy out-of- state power, which it could not do previously. The obligation to pro- vide nonfirm transmission service and its pricing under the merger are among the subjects at issue in the petition for review pending in the U.S Court of Appeals brought by the United Mine Workers, En- vironmental Action and Nucor Steel in the wake of FERC's ap- proval of the merger. Other is-

sues before the Appeals Court in- dude the exclusion of QFs from the merger's transmission condi- tions and the way FERC calcu- lated the potential costs and bene- fits of the merger. Briefs in the case are due in February.

--Susan L. Whittington

Annals of Nuclear Waste

MRS Commission Throws DOE Program in Doubt

A blue-ribbon panel has dealt a heavy and perhaps fatal blow to the plans of the Energy Department to build a 15,000-ton integrated Moni-

tored Retrievable Storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. MRS enthusi- asts, induding Sen. J. Bennett John- ston (D-La.), chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, had hoped that the MRS would be part of a waste- handling system that includes a final geologic repositor34 probably located in Nevada. DOE had hoped to put the MRS at the site of the old Clinch River Breeder Reac- tor near Oak Ridge, Tenn. All spent fuel would flow through the MRS for consolidation and packaging be- fore traveling by rail to a final repos- itor~

But the MRS idea has plenty of skeptics, including important House members. During the writ- ing of the 1987 amendments to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Johnston agreed to a three- member panel to examine the logic of the MRS. Johnston and his staff fully expected the panel would turn in an endorsement of MRS.

But the panel--consisting of for- mer American Public Power Asso- ciation executive Alex Radin, Vanderbilt University professor Frank Parker and University of Texas professor Dale Klein-- turned thumbs down on the DOE plan. Rather than a large, inte- grated MRS linked to the sched- ule of the final repository and paid for out of the fee on nuclear generation that supports the DOE program, the MRS commission endorsed two much smaller facili- ties.

They said a 2,000-ton facility paid for out of the fee and used for emergencies made sense.

December 1989 11

T H E N E W S I N F O C U S

They also endorsed a 5,000-ton fa- cility to serve utility needs for stor- age beyond what they can man- age onsite. But this, they said, should be paid by the utilities themselves. Since the utilities re- fused to pay for a 1,900-ton facil- ity authorized in section 135 of the 1982 act, few expect they would opt for this 5,000-ton MRS.

Many nuclear utilities have been supporting the DOE pro- gram, though none has testified to being short of spent fuel storage. The MRS commission report iden- tified why the industry has been pushing for an integrated MRS, paid out of the waste fund:

The fee the utility must pay into the Nuclear Waste Fund is fixed by law, and the amount the util- ity will have to pay into the fund is largely outside the utility's direct control. Within this planning horizon, the pro- portion of the national spent fuel management and disposal system's costs which the Fund finances will not affect the utility's financial performance. However, utility-paid, at-reactor storage costs will affect the utility's financial performance. Therefore, utilities have an eco- nomic incentive to favor spent fuel management alternatives that reduce at-reactor storage costs. Johnston quickly recognized the

serious threat the MRS commis- sion report poses to the DOE pro- gram. At a hearing the day after the report was released, Johnston savaged Radin and the commis- sion. He told them, essentiall~ to

go back and do the report again and get it right. The commission's charter does not ex- pire until December 31.

But it is unlikely the commis- sion will retreat from the conclu- sions that are the culmination of 18 months of study and analysis. And if the commission were to back down to Johnston's threats, it could set off a firestorm in the House, where staff analysts in the House Energy and Commerce

Committee are giving the MRS commission high marks for recog- nizing fundamental problems with the approach that DOE and Johnston have taken.

--Kennedy P. Maize

Buyer Guarantees Rejected

Wall Street, Co-ops React to Defaults and Bankruptcies

While banding together has served them well in the past, the nation's generation and transmission coop-

eratives face a crisis that appears to be dividing them along lines of fi- nancial health. The marketplace for G&T financing is tightening up, and those co-ops that have avoided money troubles are taking a strong stand against their brethren who have played hide-and-seek with creditors or sought protection under federal bankruptcy laws when they could not pay their bills.

The G&T managers association voted unanimously last month to urge the National Rural Electric Cooperatives Association to file an amicus brief with a federal ap- peals court in Indiana in support of the Rural Electrification Administration's attempt to pre- empt state regulators and force Wabash Valley Power Association to raise rates to cover its REA- guaranteed debt. Oglethorpe Power, a 39-member G&T head- quartered in Tucker, Georgia, joined the NRECA brief.

There is little sympathy among the managers group for those G&Ts that have not raised rates to cover their obligations, according to Ralph Shaw, general manager of the Northeast Missouri Electric Power Co-op and new president of the National G&T Managers Association. "Colorado-Ute should never have happened," he said, referring to the Montrose, Colorado G&T that was forced into involuntary bankruptcy by creditors last summer and is still digging its way out. "We're say- ing we ought to pay our bills, and we think those that don't should be held with their feet to the fire," Shaw said. As for preemption,

12 The Electricity Journal