Washington, D.C. – Despite opposition from leading taxpayer and environmental groups, Congress, last night, approved a $700 million increase in borrowing authority for Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). The federal line of credit, authorized as part of the FY2003 Omnibus appropriations bill, ends a two-year struggle to prevent new access to federal money.

“It's astounding that despite BPA's current lack of fiscal accountability, Congress would reward them with new borrowing authority,” said Taxpayers for Common Sense Senior Policy Analyst Autumn Hanna. “If BPA were a public company, they would be going bankrupt and their stockholders would revolt.”

In a recent announcement to the region, BPA acknowledged that they are facing more than a billion dollar deficit. They also stated that there is a 74 percent probability that they will miss the agency's annual payment to the U.S. Treasury.

To help fix this financial crisis, BPA is cutting more than $40 million from it's salmon restoration program in FY2003 despite objections from tribal nations and taxpayer and environmental groups to keep the programs. These cuts put taxpayers at risk by undercutting the billions of federal dollars invested in salmon recovery efforts in the last two decades. With more drastic cuts likely in the next two years, BPA is unwilling to use the agreed upon amount of its current federal loan for fish and wildlife capital expenses to restore endangered salmon habitat.

“BPA's fiscal mismanagement is killing salmon,” said Friends of the Earth Economic Policy Analyst Erich Pica. “Increased borrowing authority will not change BPA's willingness to sacrifice salmon to solve financial shortfalls.”

During the past two years, Taxpayers for Common Sense and Friends of the Earth were successful in reducing the original borrowing authority request from $2 billion to $700 million. BPA is currently authorized to borrow up to $3.75 billion from the U.S. Treasury to finance its capital programs, $1.25 billion of which is reserved for conservation resource grants and loans. BPA still has approximately $1 billion available in borrowing authority.