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STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS


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STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
(Senate - November 07, 1997)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S11964-S12022] STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS By Mr. HELMS (for himself, Mr. Glenn, Mr. DeWine, and Mr. Faircloth): S. 1397. A bill to establish a commission to assist in commemoration of the centennial of powered flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers; to the Committee on Governmental Affairs. the centennial of flight commemorative act Mr. HELMS. Madam President, I have a bill, S. 1397, at the desk. Now, Senators DeWine, Faircloth, Glenn, and I are introducing this legislation, and we are naming it the Centennial of Flight Commemorative Act. As I indicated, the bill number is S. 1397. This significant legislation will establish a commission to assist the numerous events that will lead up to and include the celebration of the 100th anniversary of powered flight, a feat in all the history books, accomplished in my State of North Carolina by the geniuses, two brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Ohio brothers who were born and raised in Dayton where they operated a bicycle shop. I don't know whether you have been to Kitty Hawk, particularly in the middle of December, but it is not a comfortable place to be. Wilbur and Orville came to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to conduct their experiments. The first powered flight occurred at Kitty Hawk, NC, on December 17, 1903. In fact, the Wright brothers engaged in four flights that day, and with their effort they changed the concept of travel forever. About noon on that cold and windy December day, at Kitty Hawk, NC, the aviation age, the air age, began. So, Madam President, the Wright brothers were indisputably the first pioneers of powered flight, and they became national heroes, justifiably etched in history. As for our bill, S. 1397, the able Senator from Ohio, Mr. DeWine, and the able Senator from Ohio, Mr. Glenn, did excellent work in drafting this legislation. Senator Glenn, I am obliged to mention, and I am glad to do so, is a man of history himself in terms of powered flight. He was the first American, as all of us know, to orbit the Earth. When he walks up and down the corridors, I see mamas and daddies pointing to him saying, ``That's Senator Glenn.'' Senator Glenn and six other pioneers, the Mercury astronauts, got America's space program off the ground. Madam President, S. 1397--let me say the title again so it will register--the Centennial of Flight Commemorative Act--proposes the establishment of a commission of 21 individuals to plan for and assist in events leading up to and including the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' flights at Kitty Hawk. The commission will be composed of the Secretary of the Interior, the Director of the National Air and Space Museum, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Transportation, the NASA Administrator, and each of these officials can name a designee. Then there will be two representatives each from the States of North Carolina and Ohio and 12 other private citizens. Of these 12 private citizens, the President of the United States will appoint two from a list recommended by the Senate majority leader in consultation with the Senate minority leader, and two from a list recommended by the Speaker of the House in consultation with the House minority leader. The remaining eight will be chosen based on qualifications and/or experience in the fields of history, aerospace, science, industry, or other professions that will enhance the work of the commission. The commission will represent the United States and take a leadership role with other nations in recognizing the achievement of the Wright brothers and the importance of aviation history. The commission's activities will be closely coordinated with the First Flight Centennial Commission and the First Flight Centennial Foundation of North Carolina and the 2003 Committee of the State of Ohio. The commission is allowed to retain an executive director and staff that may be required in order to carry out its functions. S. 1397 authorizes appropriations of $250,000 for each of the fiscal years 1998 to 2004 to fund the work of the commission. Additionally, the commission may accept monetary contributions and other in kind contributions, volunteer [[Page S11965]] services and the like. In order to further defray the expenses of the commission, the legislation gives it exclusive right to names, logos, emblems, seals, and marks, which may be licensed on which proceeds from royalties will be used to offset the operating costs of the commission. S. 1397 requires that annual audits of the commission be conducted by the Inspector General of the General Services Administration to ensure its financial integrity. The commission shall be terminated no later than 60 days after the submission of the final audit report. Senators may ask why establish a Federal commission to commemorate this event? The Wright brothers' triumph at Kitty Hawk on that bone- chilling day of December 17, 1903 has to rank as one of mankind's greatest achievement. The world has not been the same since. As the development of the airplane progressed so did its uses in warfare and civilian aviation. Its development spawned generations of aviation trailblazers. Names like Eddie Rickenbacker, Billy Mitchell, Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle, Chuck Yeager, and the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and space shuttle astronauts became household words. What is even more astonishing is that 66 years later, Neil Armstrong of Ohio became the first man to set foot on the moon. That would not have been possible without the Wright brothers. Because of the Wright brothers you can get on a jet aircraft at Dulles Airport and be in London in six or seven hours, far less if you are flying the Concorde. You can fly from New York to Tokyo in 14 hours. On the Concorde, you can travel from New York to London in 3 hours and 50 minutes. We are seeing daily developments in aviation, faster planes, new space technologies, all because of the genius of Wilbur and Orville Wright. I hope the Senate will swiftly approve this legislation. Mr. DeWINE. Madam President, I thank the Chair, and I thank my distinguished colleague from North Carolina. I am delighted to join him, as well as Senator Faircloth and Senator Glenn, in introducing a bill to create the Centennial of Flight Commission. In the year 2003, the United States and, indeed, the world will celebrate a truly breathtaking anniversary. That date will mark exactly 100 years of the adventure of human flight. For those of us who are from the State of Ohio, it is an especially important anniversary as Senator Helms has so ably described--first and foremost because the Wright brothers, the very first pioneers of powered flight, were from Dayton, OH. It was in Dayton, OH, that they grew up. It was in Dayton, OH, that they had a print shop. It was in Dayton, OH, that they had the bicycle shop that was referred to a moment ago by Senator Helms. It was at Huffman Prairie, in Montgomery County, actually what is now enclosed in Wright Patterson Air Force Base, technically in Greene County, that the Wright brothers learned to fly. So, those of us from Ohio are very proud of the Wright brothers, as this whole country is. We are also proud in Ohio that ever since the time of the Wright brothers, Ohio has continued to build a proud aviation history. From the Wright brothers to World War I flying ace David Ingalls, to John Glenn who just walked on to the floor of the Senate, the first man, the first American to orbit the Earth, to Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, to the incredible research being done right now at NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, OH, has continually been a part of the great epic of aviation. This is, indeed, cause for celebration, and that is what this bill is all about. It would create a commission to coordinate the centennial of flight celebration in the year 2003. The commission will be composed of 21 members: the Secretaries of the Interior, Transportation, and Defense; the Director of the National Air and Space Museum; the Administrator of NASA; two people from North Carolina; the president and chairman of the First Flight Centennial Commission; and two people from the State of Ohio, the Governor and the chairman of the 2003 Committee, and 12 additional Presidential appointees. Madam President, this commission will help the United States take a leadership role in planning international celebrations of the centennial of flight, promoting participation and sponsorship by the aerospace industry, the commercial aviation industry, educational institutions, and State and local governments. The commission is going to distribute a calendar, a register of national and international programs and projects concerning the flight centennial. What I hope most of all is that these celebrations will recognize that the history of flight is not just the story about machines or about the triumph of technology. It is rather a story about people. It is a story of how human creativity overcame one of the most fundamental barriers that humans ever faced. For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings could not fly, but in this century, thanks to the freedom and spirit of creativity in this country, the human race broke the bonds of Earth. So, from Dayton to Kitty Hawk and beyond the limits of our solar system, this is a story to truly celebrate. Madam President, I see my distinguished senior Senator from the State of Ohio, the honorable John Glenn, is on the floor. I yield to Senator Glenn. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized. Mr. GLENN. Thank you, Madam President. I thank my distinguished colleague. I rise as a cosponsor of this legislation to establish a national Commission on the Centennial of Flight. We have been very proud through the years to have worked with the people of Dayton, OH, in an effort to recognize the very exceptional contribution of the two brothers who ran the bicycle shop and dreamed of flight. They watched the birds and dreamed of flight, not knowing whether it would ever be possible. In 1992, it was my privilege to sponsor the legislation that established the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park which commemorates the extraordinary lives of Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, a black man, a poet, one of the finest poets, who was a close friend of the Wright brothers. That park and the memorial in North Carolina recall that on December 17, 1903, Orville Wright flew 120 feet in 12 seconds. Can we imagine that, 120 feet in 12 seconds? But it was under power. It was the airplane that is over in the Smithsonian now. It was under powered flight with an engine and propeller. It was the first sustained flight in a power-driven, heavier-than-air machine. There were three other flights that day. We don't often hear about those. There were three other flights that day, and Wilbur Wright set a new world record flying on one of those flights 352 feet in 59 seconds. It was more than the length of a football field. Very little attention was paid at that time. People were very doubtful. Octave Chanute reported the achievement in Popular Science Monthly in March 1904. But the first--I think this is very interesting--the first eyewitness report about those flights appeared in a publication called Gleanings in Bee Culture, and that was in January 1905. That was the first real eyewitness report of Orville and Wilbur Wright's flights. The work had begun in 1899 with a serious study of everything the Wrights could find on aeronautics. In 1900, to test their glider, they selected Kitty Hawk on the word of the weather bureau because of the steadiness of the winds and direction of the winds at that time. The test glider in 1900 and 1901 failed to achieve the lifting power that they thought they needed and anticipated. They went back to Dayton and built a 6-foot wind tunnel to conduct experiments with over 200 different wing models. They developed the first reliable tables on the effects of air pressure on curved surfaces, the principles that we use today and that you see on every airplane, whether it is a general aviation small light airplane or a giant 747 or whether it is the Concorde flying at supersonic speed across the Atlantic Ocean. They developed these 200 different wing models and experimented with them. They developed the first reliable tables on the effects of air pressure on curved surfaces. [[Page S11966]] In 1902, they conducted over almost 1,000 tests with a more promising glider. In 1903, the Wright brothers had completed the construction of a larger plane powered by their own lightweight gas-powered engine. Arriving in Kitty Hawk in September, storms and mechanical difficulties delayed trials until December. On the 17th, four men and a boy witnessed the very first flight, and a memorable photograph, fortunately, was captured. Four men and a boy witnessed that first flight. Back home in Dayton in 1904 and 1905, the Wright brothers continued testing their invention at Huffman Prairie, which is the area adjacent to what is today Wright Patterson Air Force Base where they first achieved maneuverable flight. In 1908, Wilbur and Orville signed a contract with the War Department for the first military airplane. In September, Orville circled the parade ground at an altitude of 120 feet just across the Potomac River from us today, over at Fort Meyer in Virginia. When most people these days think of the Wright brothers, we tend to think of them as having lived a long, long time ago. We tend to think of the Wright brothers as being part of ancient history. We also think of their airplane, the Wright Flyer III, as being an incredibly primitive machine, at least by today's standards. And it was a primitive machine. There were no fancy guidance systems or high-tech controls. By swiveling their hips from one side to the other, Orville and Wilbur could steer the airplane. To this day, when young people come in, when school groups come to Washington and visit my office and they say they are going over to the Air and Space Museum, I always tell them to get up on the gallery level and look down on the Wright brothers' airplane and see how they controlled flight, because the person flying lay on the lower wing and had a wooden yoke around his hips. That wooden yoke slid back and forth and there was a wire that went to the trailing edge of the upper wing, and they would slide in the direction they wanted to go, slide their hips over, pull that wire and literally warp the trailing edge of the wing down and made more lift on the wing on that side and the airplane would turn in the direction their hips were slid toward. I am glad they developed later on in aviation a better means of control. We can imagine a 747 pilot today making an approach swiveling his hips back and forth. But that was the way the Wright brothers controlled those very early flights. The first flight at Kitty Hawk and Huffman Prairie seemed so far removed from what we did later on, from my own experience in orbital flight in 1962, or from the first lunar landing, or from living aboard the orbiting space station for weeks on end, as Shannon Lucid did. She was up there for 188 days. She will be honored at the Smithsonian this evening, as a matter of fact. Yet, all this occurred within a lifetime. I know we kid Senator Thurmond around here quite a lot about his age, but Senator Thurmond was born December 5, 1902. The Wright brothers did not fly until a year later, on December 7, 1903. So we have in this body right now a man whose lifetime spans all of manned flight, powered flight, from that first day at Kitty Hawk into space. Strom Thurmond has witnessed the complete history of flight. And we marvel at just how far we have come in an incredibly short period of time. We have literally gone from the Wright brothers to the Moon and beyond in a single lifetime. That is amazing. In that sense, I think it is fair to say that Orville and Wilbur Wright were our first astronauts, really, because they were the first who really did rise off the Earth's surface in a sustained way and make flight that then advanced to higher and higher altitudes until we are above the Earth's atmosphere now with different kinds of machines; though I think in some ways we could say that they were the first two who, as the poem goes, ``slipped the surly bonds of Earth''--slipped the surly bonds of Earth and ventured into the air under the power of a motor. Everything since then has just been going higher and going faster. I also think it is fair to say the Wright brothers personified something that is behind every single leap or advancement in science or human knowledge since the beginning of time. The one characteristic they had--we could lump it all together and say that is something that is in the heart of all human progress--is curiosity and an innate curiosity about how we can do things differently or whether we can explore and find new shores or whether we can do experiments and do research in new areas. Whether you look at the voyage of Christopher Columbus, who brought Europeans to the shore of North America, whether you look at the experiments of Alexander Fleming--you know what Alexander Fleming was curious about? It was plain old green mold on bread. He did not know why the patterns formed around the mold the way they did. The green mold, it was a particular pattern. He was curious about that. You know what that led to? His curiosity led to the discovery of penicillin and the development of modern antibiotics. That curiosity about green mold on bread has led to increased life expectancy of people all around this Earth. We have gone up in life expectancy more in the last 100 years than in the previous 2,000 years, I read in a magazine just a short time ago. So the discovery of penicillin and Alexander Fleming's curiosity about green bread mold that led to that, has really revolutionized this Earth. Or we go ahead with the unexpected circumstance in a small electronic switching device that led to the development of the first transistor and ultimately to today's incredibly sophisticated computer systems. It is clear to me that curiosity isn't what killed the cat. It is also the goose that laid the golden egg for all of humankind. That is going to be true in the future as well as the past. In field after field, in discipline after discipline, in industry after industry, it is curiosity, that insatiable, relentlessly questioning spirit that keeps asking ``why'' that has moved our species ahead. The irony, of course, is any time someone or a group such as the Wright brothers, or a group of people undertake an exploration or undertake to demonstrate a new idea, whether in a laboratory, a spaceship, a bicycle shop or on a production line, there are many who question the wisdom of it all. Those naysayers who wanted to know when their bike would be fixed with the Wright brothers believed that if we were to fly God would have given us feathers, they said. So there was a joke about the Wright brothers at that time. ``If God wanted us to fly, why don't we have feathers?" Well, they fortunately laughed along with everybody else, but at the same time went ahead with their work. They were not deterred. But if there is one thing we know for sure about research or any kind of exploration of the unknown, it is that it is impossible to know what we will see at the end or what it may lead to. I believe that today, as perhaps never before, we cannot afford to lose that kind of curiosity and questing spirit that the Wright brothers had. With it, we can continue to learn new things, first, for this Nation, putting them to practical application, staying ahead of global competition. That has been the story of this country's advancement. Without it, we will quickly become yesterday's leader, yesterday's leader, not tomorrow's leader but yesterday's leader, hopelessly trying to hold back the hands of the clock and to hold on to a past glory that can never be just retained or recaptured. So the spirit of the Wright brothers is needed as much today as before their very first flight. That is why today I am pleased to join with my colleagues--my colleague from Ohio, my colleagues from North Carolina--in introducing this legislation to establish a national commission to assist in the commemoration of the centennial of powered flight that will occur in 2003 and the achievements of the Wright brothers. Those who worked to build our national parks and memorials to the Wright brothers in Ohio and North Carolina where flight was born and first achieved will now work together to recall and remember the spirit of flight to be commemorated as we approach the centennial of flight in 2003. The spirit represented by the Wright brothers was captured in their own day by their good friend, Paul Lawrence [[Page S11967]] Dunbar, who captured in the prophetic verse which he penned the triumphs that are remembered at the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. One of his notations was: What dreams we have and how they fly like rosy clouds across the sky; of wealth, of fame of sure success . . . That is certainly what curiosity has brought us and what the Wright brothers brought us. Think of all that has occurred since that first flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Think of aviation today and all it entails and the giant industry. It has revised all the world's transportation, has revised our military, our security. All of that stemmed from that first flight in 1903. So we are happy to put in this legislation today. We hope that it is supported by all here, not just those from Ohio and North Carolina, because what started there in 1903 is something that affects everyone. It affects every State and every nation around the globe, even these days. And we look forward to this commission doing a great job in assisting in the commemoration of the centennial of powered flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers. Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of legislation being introduced by Senator Helms--the two Senators from Ohio--that would establish a National Commission to oversee the 100th anniversary of the first flight. Mr. President, on a cold, windy December morning in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Wright brothers changed the history of the world. Orville Wright flew for just 12 seconds--but it was the first manned flight. Today, many people take for granted what was accomplished by the Wright brothers that day, but at the time it was a historic achievement. Man had been thinking of flight for thousand of years--and yet the Wright brothers, here in the United States, were the first to do it. The development of flight grew rapidly. A little over a decade later, airplanes were used in the battles of World War I. Two decades after the 12-second first flight--Charles Lindbergh flew over the Atlantic. And of course, in 1962, in just a half century after the first 12- second flight, our distinguished colleague John Glenn was the first man to fly around the world in space. Seven years after that, we landed a man on the Moon. It is hard to believe that all of this has taken place in the span of less than 100 years. This is why the centennial anniversary of first flight is so significant to us, the sponsors of this legislation. The Commission will coordinate the plans for the celebration. The Wright brothers were from Ohio, of course, where they ran a bicycle shop. The State of North Carolina's license plates bear the slogan ``First in Flight''--so we are especially proud of this achievement in my State. To these two States, the celebration is important. But much more than that, I think the anniversary should be used to inspire students to learn more about the history of flight. Hopefully, it will remind people that this is a great nation inventors--and that American ingenuity has made us the greatest country in the history of the world. Finally, it should remind our citizens that America is a land of opportunity and freedom--where anyone's imagination can change the world. This is an entrepreneurial spirit that we must keep alive. I want to thank Senator Helms and Senators Glenn and DeWine for joining together today to introduce this legislation. I hope that the Senate will take it up soon. ______ By Mr. THOMAS (for himself, Mr. Kerrey, Mr. Enzi, and Mr. Hagel): S. 1398. A bill to extend certain contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and irrigation water contractors in Wyoming and Nebraska that receive water from Glendo Reservoir; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. THE IRRIGATION PROJECT CONTRACT EXTENSION ACT OF 1997 Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Irrigation Project Contract Extension Act of 1997. I am pleased to be joined in this endeavor by Senators Enzi, Kerrey, and Hagel. This legislation would extend, for a period of 3 years, certain water contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and irrigators in Wyoming and Nebraska that receive water from Glendo Reservoir. All contracts are subject to renewal on December 31, 1998. Extending these contracts is considered a major Federal action and, therefore, subject to review of the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] and the Endangered Species Act [ESA]. Without a short-term continuation agreement, the irrigators would be responsible for the costs of the analysis and other environmental documentation. Currently, the States of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado--and the Department of the Interior--are in the process of implementing a comprehensive ``Cooperative Agreement for Platte River Research and Other Efforts relating to Endangered Species Habitats along the Central Platte River, Nebraska.'' The term of this initiative is for 3 years, with an allowable 6-month extension. Upon completion of the cooperative agreement, efforts to enact the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program can begin. This basin wide, three-State plan will help to recover the endangered whooping crane, piping plover, and least stern, and improve critical habitats in the Central Platte River Basin. I believe it is important for Congress to act on this measure and extend these contracts for 3 years, or until the cooperative agreement is completed. In that time, the needed NEPA and ESA reviews will be fulfilled--clearing the way for the program to be initiated. It is important to remember that the program cannot be implemented until the environmental studies are completed and the parties have agreed to the results. Mr. President, this bill does not avoid environmental evaluation. It merely provides some relief to the water users, while allowing the NEPA and ESA documentation to take place through the cooperative agreement process. It is my understanding that once this agreement has expired, and if the Department of the Interior and the three States decide not to pursue the program, the contract renewal process would proceed as a separate Federal action at that time. This is good and fair legislation. It will benefit the environment and the water users. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and House to secure its passage. ______ By Mr. BOND: S. 1399. A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Army to carry out a project to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat of the Missouri River and the middle Mississippi River; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. THE FISH AND WILDLIFE HABITAT ACT OF 1997 Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation to enhance, preserve and protect habitat for fish and wildlife on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. This new 5-year $50 million authorization is a win-win approach that will implement and expand the use of new and innovative measures developed by the Corps of Engineers to improve habitat conservation without impacting adversely private property and other water-related needs of the rivers including navigation, flood control and water supply. As I have always maintained, fish and wildlife conservation and commercial activity are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, we cannot afford to abandon either river commerce or the species that live in and on the river. This new approach is a win for man, for nature and for the river. This legislation is supported by Missouri Farm Bureau, MARC2000, American Rivers, the Missouri Soybean Association, the Missouri Corngrowers Association, and Farmland Industries. While these groups have not always agreed on river policy, that should not preclude us from seeking common ground and working together to address the questions of resource management and I am delighted that we can all come together in support of this commonsense approach. Without specific authorization and only scarce dollars, the St. Louis Corps of Engineers has been developing and [[Page S11968]] testing ways in which navigation structures used to guide the river and maintain the channel may be modified to meet environmental as well as navigation goals. These innovations have proven successful earning wide acclaim including a Presidential Design Award and Federal Design Achievement Award. This legislation seeks to put these successful innovations to work on the Missouri River and expand their use on the middle Mississippi by providing a specific authorization and a dedicated and substantial source of funds. In other words, we are giving the corps the tools they need to put their ideas to work to improve the rivers to benefit fish and wildlife. The legislation authorizes $10 million per year to protect, create and enhance side channels, island habitat, sand bars, and other riverine habitat. For example, by notching rock dikes that run perpendicular to the shoreline, sandbars develop between the dikes which has been provided nesting habitat for the endangered least tern and valuable spawning ground for the endangered pallid sturgeon. The Missouri Department of Conservation has run tests validating an increase in diversity and numbers of microinvertebrates surrounding the notched dikes. Chevron dikes have been developed to improve river habitat and to create beneficial uses of dredge material. These structures are placed in the shallow side of the river channel pointing upstream which improves the river channel while serving as small islands. These islands encourage the development of all four primary river ecosystem habitats and additionally, various micro-organisms cling to the underwater rock structures, providing a food source for fish. Changing the gradation of rock revetments, used to stabilize eroding riverbanks, has proved to provide greater bank stability and precluded the need to remove bank vegetation so that, for the first time, trees and rock revetment could coexist providing greater habitat diversity. The draft legislation authorizes $10 million per year over 5 years to develop and implement a plan including the following activities: Modification and improvement of navigation training structures to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat; creation of side channels to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat; restoration and creation of island fish and wildlife habitat; creation of riverine fish and wildlife habitat; establishment of criteria to prioritize based on cost-effectiveness and likelihood of success; and physical and biological monitoring for evaluating the success of the project. The draft provides that the project be coordinated with other related Federal and State activities and that there be public participation in the development and implementation of the project. It requires a 25- percent non-Federal cost share and limits the Federal cost of any single project to $5 million. Finally, the draft legislation confers no new regulatory authority and requires compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The legislation is designed to work between the banks of the river and forbids expressly any adverse impacts on private lands and water- related activities including flood control, navigation, and water supply. Additionally, it is designed to compliment other existing programs such as the Missouri River Mitigation project and the Environmental Management Program on the Mississippi River. I intend to work with the administration and with other Senators and interested groups to build the broad support necessary to enact this legislation in an omnibus Water Resources Development Act the Senate is expected to consider in 1998. Mr. President, the problems experienced in the Midwest and elsewhere with railroad bottlenecks highlight the need for diverse transportation options. As the fall harvest proceeds, there are reports of grain being piled on the ground in neighboring Kansas and Nebraska. Notwithstanding that I must continue working on behalf of Missouri to preserve river navigation as a transportation option, our joint efforts to pursue this new legislation is a strong indicator that we may be experiencing an episode of domestic detente on river policy between groups that have pursued differing approaches in the past. This legislation offers a significant boost for our need to make the various river uses compatible and an important step toward unifying the river's stakeholders behind a realistic approach for the future. I thank and congratulate the various groups who have come together behind this legislation and look forward to enacting this consensus legislation. ______ By Mr. BUMPERS (for himself and Mr. Gorton): S. 1401. A bill to provide for the transition to competition around electric energy suppliers for the benefit and protection of consumers, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. the transition to electric competition act of 1997 Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I rise to day to introduce the Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997 along with my colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Gorton. This bill provides for the transition toward deregulation and competition in the electric utility industry. While few people find a discussion of the electric utility industry and the many laws and regulations governing the industry exciting, the fact is that electricity is an extremely important commodity which affects everyone on a daily basis. Any event that increases or reduces electric rates can impact: First, the lives of the poor and those on fixed incomes that depend on electricity to heat their homes in the winter and cool them in the summer; second, the price of goods we buy every day; as well as third, the competitiveness of our factories. In addition, decisions made by electric generators often have a direct effect on our environment as well as our energy security. It is not at all inconsequential that the electric utility industry, which has remained relatively static for the last 60 years, is undergoing a fundamental change. Instead of the traditional vertically integrated local utility, which generates power at its own plants, transmits that power over its own lines and sells that power to all consumers in a particular area, consumers in some States are starting to be bombarded with all sorts of offers from companies competing to become their power supplier, and other entrepreneurs will be seeking to buy large blocks of power to serve certain kinds of consumers. Naturally, these changes are bound to create considerable apprehension among both utilities and consumers. Mr. President, in January I introduced S. 237, the Electric Consumers Protection Act, because I believed that retail electric competition was inevitable and Federal legislation was necessary to ensure that certain consumers were not disadvantaged in the process. Several States were proceeding to introduce competition in their jurisdictions and a number of others were examining the matter. Since that time I have become even more convinced that competition is on the horizon. Eleven States have now enacted legislation or issued regulations requiring retail competition by a time certain. Almost every other State currently has the matter under review. Some argue that there is no need for the Federal Government to intervene; that the States are doing just fine on their own and they should decide when and how to proceed with retail electric competition. Mr. President, I couldn't disagree more. A State-by-State approach will likely produce a lot of unintended consequences which will limit the benefits associated with retail competition and could disadvantage certain consumers. Electric generation markets are becoming increasingly regional and even multi- regional. What happens in one State can have direct and indirect impacts on consumers and utilities located in another State. Utilities operating in more than one State can be subjected to conflicting regulatory regimes which could impact the way they operate their systems and the electric rates paid by consumers. This phenomenon is best illustrated by the multistate utility holding companies registered under the Public Utility Holding Company [PUHCA]. I have had a lot of experience with registered holding companies because two of them serve my home State of Arkansas. These holding companies generally plan for and operate generating facilities on a system-wide basis for the benefit of customers in the entire region [[Page S11969]] served by the company. If restructuring proceeds on a State-by-State basis, these holding companies would find themselves subjected to different requirements which could negatively impact consumers. A State-by-State approach to retail competition also present problems where utilities operate entirely within a single State. It would make no sense for a utility in a State that does not require retail competition, to be able to sell power at retail in an adjoining State that requires retail competition, while a utility subjected to retail competition is unable to mitigate its losses by competing for customers in the adjoining State. Such a result both increases stranded costs and distorts the generation marketplace. Moreover, the States can't adequately address issues associated with the use of transmission lines that provide for the transportation across a number of States or the ability of a utility with significant market power to dominate electricity generation in an entire region. Clearly these are issues that need to be resolved at the Federal level. When I introduced S. 237 there weren't many calling for Federal action. However, interested observers are increasingly coming to the conclusion that Federal electric restructuring legislation is not only helpful, but is necessary. Even some of the States are calling on the Federal Government to act. The legislation we are introducing today is an updated version of S. 237. The bill includes the following provisions: All consumers would have the right to choose their power supplier by January 1, 2002. States could choose an earlier date for their residents if they wish. Utilities would be able to recover their legitimate, prudent and verifiable costs that they would have been able to recover from ratepayers if retail competition had not been implemented. Consumers located in States that currently have low cost electricity would be protected from rate increases by ensuring that utilities can't use their existing assets to sell power in more lucrative markets to the disadvantage of their existing customers. All utilities selling retail power would be required to generate a portion of that power using renewable resources. All of the interstate transmission facilities throughout the country would be managed by independent system operators to ensure that electricity flows in an efficient manner and that markets are competitive. FERC would be given greater authority to protect against the use of market power by utilities to inhibit competition. Both the Public Utility Holding Company Act [PUHCA] and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act [PURPA] would be repealed in conjunction with the implementation of retail electric competition. In addition, Mr. President, the legislation attempts to address some of the issues that relate to the impact of retail electric competition on two Federal entities--the Bonneville Power Administration [BPA] and the Tennessee Valley Authority [TVA]. Senator Gorton is especially knowledgeable about the special problems facing BPA and I expect that he will work closely with the other Members of the Senate from the Pacific Northwest in developing a consensus approach. With regard to TVA, our bill attempts to develop an approach that will enable retail competition to be smoothly introduced in the Tennessee Valley and will help TVA pay off its tremendous debt. The bill also requires the TVA board to prepare a study examining whether TVA should be privatized. I know that some observers may be concerned that this could be a first step toward the privatization of the Federal Power Marketing Administration [PMA's]. Mr. President, there is no connection whatsoever between TVA and the PMA's. The PMA's market power generated at hydroelectric facilities located at Federal dams. These dams perform a variety of public services and cannot be privatized. TVA, on the other hand, generates the bulk of its power from coal and nuclear plants that serve no public purposes. In addition, the Federal PMA's pay for themselves through power sales. TVA, on the other hand, has an enormous level of privately held debt which it must find a way to pay off, since the Federal Government is not responsible for it. Mr. President, I am especially pleased that Senator Gorton has decided to join with me in the effort to enact comprehensive electric restructuring legislation. He has a reputation as a very bright and thoughtful Member of this body and is a distinguished member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the matter. I know that he shares my desire to move this legislation through Congress quickly next year. Senator Murkowski, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, recently indicated that he expects the committee to mark up electric restructuring legislation next year. Both Senator Gorton and I want to work with him and the other members of the committee in moving forward. I look forward to undertaking this important task. Mr. President, I want to say how honored I am to have one of our most distinguished Senators, Senator Gorton of Washington, as my chief cosponsor on this bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a section-by-section analysis of the Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997 be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: S. 1401 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. (a) Short title. This Act may be cited as the ``Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997''. (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents is as follows: Sec. 1. Short title and table of contents. Sec. 2. Findings. Sec. 3. Definitions. Sec. 4. Severability. Sec. 5. Enforcement. TITLE I--RETAIL COMPETITION Sec. 101. Mandatory retail access. Sec. 102. Aggregation. Sec. 103. Prior implementation. Sec. 104. State regulation. Sec. 105. Retail stranded cost recovery. Sec. 106. Wholesale stranded cost recovery. Sec. 107. Lost retail benefits. Sec. 108. Universal service. Sec. 109. Public benefits. Sec. 110. Renewable energy. Sec. 111. Determination of local distribution facilities. Sec. 112. Transmission. Sec. 113. Competitive generation markets. Sec. 114. Nuclear decommissioning costs. Sec. 115. Right to know. Sec. 116. Exemption of Alaska and Hawaii. TITLE II--PUBLIC UTILITY HOLDING COMPANIES Sec. 201. Repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Sec. 202. Exemptions. Sec. 203. Federal access to books and records. Sec. 204. State access to books and records. Sec. 205. Affiliate transactions. Sec. 206. Clarification of regulatory authority. Sec. 207. Effect on other regulation. Sec. 208. Enforcement. Sec. 209. Savings provision. Sec. 210. Implementation. Sec. 211. Resources. TITLE III--PUBLIC UTILITY REGULATORY POLICIES ACT Sec. 301. Definition. Sec. 302. Facilities. Sec. 303. Contracts. Sec. 304. Savings clause. Sec. 305. Effective date. TITLE IV--ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Sec. 401. Study. TITLE V--BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION Sec. 501. Findings and purposes. Sec. 502. Columbia River fish and wildlife coordination and governance. Sec. 503. Pacific Northwest federal transmission access. Sec. 504. Transition cost mechanism. Sec. 505. Independent system operator participation. Sec. 506. Financial obligations. Sec. 507. Prohibition on retail sales. Sec. 508. Clarification of Commission authority. Sec. 509. Repealed statute. TITLE VI--TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY Sec. 601. Competition in service territory. Sec. 602. Ability to sell electric energy. Sec. 603. Termination of contracts. Sec. 604. Rates for electric energy. Sec. 605. Privatization study. SEC. 2. FINDINGS. The Congress finds that: (a) Congress has the authority to enact laws, under the Commerce Clause of the [[Page S11970]] United States Constitution, regarding the wholesale and retail generation, transmission, distribution, and sale of electric energy in interstate commerce. (b) Several States have taken steps to require competition among retail electric supplies and a large number of other States are expected to act. (c) It has been the policy of Congress and the Commission to promote competition among wholesale electric suppliers. (d) It is in the public interest that the transition towards competition in electric service ensures that all consumers receive reliable and competitively-priced electric service. (e) Electric utility companies that prudently incurred costs pursuant to a regulatory structure that required them to provide electricity to consumers should not be penalized during the transition to competition. (f) Consumers will not benefit from the introduction of competition among electric energy suppliers if certain suppliers have undue market power. (g) It is important to encourage conservation and the use of renewable resources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, promote domestic energy security and protect the environment. (h) Competition among electric energy suppliers should not degrade reliability nor cause consumers to lose electric service. SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. For purposes of this Act: (a) The term ``affiliate'' of a specific company means any company 5 percent or more of whose outstanding voting securities are owned, controlled, or held with power to vote, directly or indirectly, by such specific company. (b) The term ``aggregator'' means any person that purchases or acquires retail electric energy on behalf of two or more consumers. (c) The term ``ancillary services'' shall have the same meaning assigned to it by the Commission. (d) The term ``associate company'' of a company means any company in the same holding company system with such company. (e) The term ``Commission'' means the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (f) The term ``company'' means a corporation, joint stock company, partnership, association, business trust, organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, or a receiver or receivers, trustee or trustees of any of the foregoing. (g) The term ``corporation'' means any corporation, joint- stock company, partnership, association, rural electric cooperative, municipal utility, business trust, organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, or a receiver or receivers, trustee or trustees of any of the foregoing. (h) The term ``electric utility company'' means any company that owns or operates facilities used for the generation, transmission or distribution of electric energy for sale. (i) The term ``gas utility company'' means any company that owns or operates facilities used for distribution at retail (other than the distribution only in enclosed portable containers) of natural or manufactured gas for heat, light or power. (j) The term ``holding company system'' means a holding company together with its subsidiary companies. (k) The term ``large hydroelectric facility'' means a facility which has a power production capacity which, together with any other facilities located at the same site, is greater than 80 megawatts. (l) The term ``local distribution facilities'' means facilities used to provide retail electric energy for ultimate consumption. (m) The term ``lost retail benefits'' means the increased cost of retail electric energy in a retail electric energy provider's service territory resulting from the sale subsequent to the implementation of retail electric competition, outside such service territory, of electric energy generated at facilities the cost of which were included in the retail rate base of the retail electric energy provider prior to the implementation of retail electric competition. (n) The term ``mitigation'' means any widely accepted business practice used by an electric utility company to dispose of or reduce uneconomic assets or costs. (o) The term ``municipal utility'' means a city, county, irrigation district, drainage district, or other political subdivision or agency of a State competent under the laws thereof to carry on the business of a retail electric energy provider and/or a retail electric energy supplier. (p) The term ``person'' means an individual or corporation. (q) The term ``public utility company'' means an electric utility company or gas utility company but does not mean a qualifying facility as defined in the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, or an exempt wholesale generator or a foreign utility company defined in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. (r) The term ``public utility holding company'' means (A) any company that directly or indirectly owns, controls, or holds with power to vote, 10 percent or more of the outstanding voting securities of a public utility company or of a holding company of any public utility company; and (B) any person, determined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, to exercise directly or indirectly (either alone or pursuant to an arrangement or understanding with one or more persons) such a controlling influence over the management or policies of any public utility or holding company as to make it necessary or appropriate for the protection of consumers with respect to rates that such person be subject to the obligations, duties, and liabilities imposed in this title upon holding companies. (s) The term ``renewable energy'' means electricity generated from solar, wind, waste, including municipal solid waste, biomass, hydroelectric or geothermal resources. (t) The term ``Renewable Energy Credit'' means a tradable certificate of proof that one unit (as determined by the Commission) of renewable energy was generated by any person. (u) The term ``retail electric competition'' means the ability of each consumer in a particular State to purchase retail electric energy from any person seeking to sell electric energy to such consumer. (v) The term ``retail electric energy'' means electric energy and ancillary services sold for ultimate consumption. (w) The term ``retail electric energy provider'' means any person who distributes retail electric energy to consumers regardless of whether the consumers purchase such energy from the provider or an alternative supplier. A retail electric energy provider may also be a retail electric energy supplier. (x) The term ``retail electric energy supplier'' means any person which sells retail electric energy to consumers. (y) The term ``retail stranded costs'' means all legitimate, prudent, verifiable and non-mitigatable costs incurred by an electric utility company in all of its generation assets which would have been recoverable in retail rates but for the implementation of retail electric competition, less the total market value of these assets after retail electric competition is implemented. Binding power purchase contracts and regulatory assets, the costs of which would have been recovered but for the implementation of retail electric competition, shall be considered generation assets for purposes of this subsection. (z) The term ``rural electric cooperative'' means a corporation that is currently paying off a loan for the purposes of providing electric service from the Administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration or the Rural Utilities Service under the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. (aa) The term ``State'' means any State or the District of Columbia. (bb) The term ``State regulatory authority'' means the regulatory body of a State or municipality having sole jurisdiction to regulate rates and charges for the distribution of electric energy to consumers within the State or municipality. (cc) The term ``subsidiary company'' of a holding company means-- (1) any company 10 percent or more of the outstanding voting securities of which are directly or indirectly owned, controlled, or held with power to vote, by such holding company; and (2) any person the management or policies of which the Securities and Exchange Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, determines to be subject to a controlling influence, directly or indirectly, by such holding company (either alone or pursuant to an arrangement or understanding with one or more other persons) so as to make it necessary for the protection of consumers that such person be subject to the obligations, duties, and liabilities imposed upon subsidiary companies of public utility holding companies. (dd) The term ``transmission system'' means all facilities, including federally-owned facilities, transmitting electricity in interstate commerce in a particular region, including all facilities transmitting electricity in the State of Texas and those providing international interconnections, but does not include local distribution facilities as determined by the Commission. (ee) The term ``wholesale electric energy'' means electric energy and ancillary services sold for resale. (ff) The term ``wholesale electric energy supplier'' means any person which sells wholesale electric energy. (gg) The term ``wholesale stranded costs'' shall have the same meaning as in the Commission's Order No. 888. (hh) The term ``voting security'' means any security presently entitling the owner or holder thereof to vote in the direction or management of the affairs of a company. SEC. 4. SEVERABILITY. If any provision of this Act, or the application of such provision to any person or circumstance, shall be held invalid, the remainder of the Act, and the application of such provision to persons or circumstances other than those as to which it is held invalid, shall not be affected thereby. SEC. 5. ENFORCEMENT. (a) Violation of the Act.--If any individual or corporation or any other retail electric energy supplier or provider fails to comply with the requirements of this Act, any aggrieved person may bring an action against such entity to enforce the requirements of this Act in the appropriate Federal district court. (b) State or Commission Action.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person seeking redress from an action taken by a State regulatory authority, the Commission or a regulatory board pursuant to this Act shall bring such action in the appropriate circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. [[Page S11971]] TITLE I--ELECTRIC COMPETITION SEC. 101. MANDATORY RETAIL ACCESS. (a) Customer Choice.--Beginning on January 1, 2002, each consumer shall have the right to purchase retail electric energy from any person offering to sell retail electric energy to such consumer, subject to any limitations imposed pursuant to section 104(a) of this Act. (b) Local Distribution and Retail Transmission Facilities.--Beginning on January 1, 2002, all persons seeking to sell retail electric energy shall have reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to the local distribution and retail transmission facilities of all retail electric energy providers and all ancillary services. SEC. 102. AGGREGATION. Subject to any limitations imposed pursuant to section 104(a) of this Act, a group of consumers or any person acting on behalf of such group may purchase or acquire retail electric energy for the members of the group if they are located in a State or States where there is retail electric competition. SEC. 103. PRIOR IMPLEMENTATION. (a) State Action.--Nothing in the Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 824 et seq.) shall be deemed to prohibit a State or State regulatory authority, if authorized under State law, from requiring retail electric energy providers selling retail electric energy to consumers in such State to provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to its local distribution facilities and all ancillary services to any retail electric energy supplier prior to January 1, 2002. (b) Grandfather.--Legislation enacted by a State or a regulation issued by a State regulatory authority which has the effect of providing all consumers in such State the opportunity to purchase retail electric energy from any retail electric energy supplier by January 1, 2002 and provides electric utility companies with the opportunity to recover their retail stranded costs as defined by this Act (unless there is an agreement between a State or State regulatory authority and a retail electric energy provider which provides for a different level of recovery), shall be deemed to be in compliance with the requirements of sections 101 and 105 of this Act. (c) Reciprocity.--A State or State regulatory authority that provides for retail electric competition may preclude any retail electric energy provider selling retail electric energy to consumers in another State and their affiliates from selling retail electric energy to consumers in the State with retail electric competition if the retail electric energy provider does not provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to its local distribution facilities to any retail electric energy supplier. SEC. 104. STATE REGULATION. (a) State Requirements.--A State or a State regulatory authority may impose requirements on persons seeking to sell retail electric energy to consumers in that State which are intended to promote the public interest, including requirements related to generation reliability and the provision of information to consumers and other retail electric energy suppliers. Any such requirements must be applied on a nondiscriminatory basis and may not be used to exclude any class of potential suppliers, such as retail electric energy providers, from the opportunity to sell retail electric energy. (b) Maintenance of State Authority.--Nothing in this Act is intended to prohibit a State from enacting laws or imposing regulations related to retail electric energy service that are consistent with the requirements of this Act. (c) Continued State Authority Over Distribution.--A State or State regulatory authority may continue to regulate local distribution service currently subject to State regulation, including billing and metering in any manner consistent with this Act. SEC. 105. RETAIL STRANDED COST RECOVERY. (a) Application for Deter

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STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
(Senate - November 07, 1997)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S11964-S12022] STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS By Mr. HELMS (for himself, Mr. Glenn, Mr. DeWine, and Mr. Faircloth): S. 1397. A bill to establish a commission to assist in commemoration of the centennial of powered flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers; to the Committee on Governmental Affairs. the centennial of flight commemorative act Mr. HELMS. Madam President, I have a bill, S. 1397, at the desk. Now, Senators DeWine, Faircloth, Glenn, and I are introducing this legislation, and we are naming it the Centennial of Flight Commemorative Act. As I indicated, the bill number is S. 1397. This significant legislation will establish a commission to assist the numerous events that will lead up to and include the celebration of the 100th anniversary of powered flight, a feat in all the history books, accomplished in my State of North Carolina by the geniuses, two brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Ohio brothers who were born and raised in Dayton where they operated a bicycle shop. I don't know whether you have been to Kitty Hawk, particularly in the middle of December, but it is not a comfortable place to be. Wilbur and Orville came to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to conduct their experiments. The first powered flight occurred at Kitty Hawk, NC, on December 17, 1903. In fact, the Wright brothers engaged in four flights that day, and with their effort they changed the concept of travel forever. About noon on that cold and windy December day, at Kitty Hawk, NC, the aviation age, the air age, began. So, Madam President, the Wright brothers were indisputably the first pioneers of powered flight, and they became national heroes, justifiably etched in history. As for our bill, S. 1397, the able Senator from Ohio, Mr. DeWine, and the able Senator from Ohio, Mr. Glenn, did excellent work in drafting this legislation. Senator Glenn, I am obliged to mention, and I am glad to do so, is a man of history himself in terms of powered flight. He was the first American, as all of us know, to orbit the Earth. When he walks up and down the corridors, I see mamas and daddies pointing to him saying, ``That's Senator Glenn.'' Senator Glenn and six other pioneers, the Mercury astronauts, got America's space program off the ground. Madam President, S. 1397--let me say the title again so it will register--the Centennial of Flight Commemorative Act--proposes the establishment of a commission of 21 individuals to plan for and assist in events leading up to and including the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' flights at Kitty Hawk. The commission will be composed of the Secretary of the Interior, the Director of the National Air and Space Museum, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Transportation, the NASA Administrator, and each of these officials can name a designee. Then there will be two representatives each from the States of North Carolina and Ohio and 12 other private citizens. Of these 12 private citizens, the President of the United States will appoint two from a list recommended by the Senate majority leader in consultation with the Senate minority leader, and two from a list recommended by the Speaker of the House in consultation with the House minority leader. The remaining eight will be chosen based on qualifications and/or experience in the fields of history, aerospace, science, industry, or other professions that will enhance the work of the commission. The commission will represent the United States and take a leadership role with other nations in recognizing the achievement of the Wright brothers and the importance of aviation history. The commission's activities will be closely coordinated with the First Flight Centennial Commission and the First Flight Centennial Foundation of North Carolina and the 2003 Committee of the State of Ohio. The commission is allowed to retain an executive director and staff that may be required in order to carry out its functions. S. 1397 authorizes appropriations of $250,000 for each of the fiscal years 1998 to 2004 to fund the work of the commission. Additionally, the commission may accept monetary contributions and other in kind contributions, volunteer [[Page S11965]] services and the like. In order to further defray the expenses of the commission, the legislation gives it exclusive right to names, logos, emblems, seals, and marks, which may be licensed on which proceeds from royalties will be used to offset the operating costs of the commission. S. 1397 requires that annual audits of the commission be conducted by the Inspector General of the General Services Administration to ensure its financial integrity. The commission shall be terminated no later than 60 days after the submission of the final audit report. Senators may ask why establish a Federal commission to commemorate this event? The Wright brothers' triumph at Kitty Hawk on that bone- chilling day of December 17, 1903 has to rank as one of mankind's greatest achievement. The world has not been the same since. As the development of the airplane progressed so did its uses in warfare and civilian aviation. Its development spawned generations of aviation trailblazers. Names like Eddie Rickenbacker, Billy Mitchell, Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle, Chuck Yeager, and the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and space shuttle astronauts became household words. What is even more astonishing is that 66 years later, Neil Armstrong of Ohio became the first man to set foot on the moon. That would not have been possible without the Wright brothers. Because of the Wright brothers you can get on a jet aircraft at Dulles Airport and be in London in six or seven hours, far less if you are flying the Concorde. You can fly from New York to Tokyo in 14 hours. On the Concorde, you can travel from New York to London in 3 hours and 50 minutes. We are seeing daily developments in aviation, faster planes, new space technologies, all because of the genius of Wilbur and Orville Wright. I hope the Senate will swiftly approve this legislation. Mr. DeWINE. Madam President, I thank the Chair, and I thank my distinguished colleague from North Carolina. I am delighted to join him, as well as Senator Faircloth and Senator Glenn, in introducing a bill to create the Centennial of Flight Commission. In the year 2003, the United States and, indeed, the world will celebrate a truly breathtaking anniversary. That date will mark exactly 100 years of the adventure of human flight. For those of us who are from the State of Ohio, it is an especially important anniversary as Senator Helms has so ably described--first and foremost because the Wright brothers, the very first pioneers of powered flight, were from Dayton, OH. It was in Dayton, OH, that they grew up. It was in Dayton, OH, that they had a print shop. It was in Dayton, OH, that they had the bicycle shop that was referred to a moment ago by Senator Helms. It was at Huffman Prairie, in Montgomery County, actually what is now enclosed in Wright Patterson Air Force Base, technically in Greene County, that the Wright brothers learned to fly. So, those of us from Ohio are very proud of the Wright brothers, as this whole country is. We are also proud in Ohio that ever since the time of the Wright brothers, Ohio has continued to build a proud aviation history. From the Wright brothers to World War I flying ace David Ingalls, to John Glenn who just walked on to the floor of the Senate, the first man, the first American to orbit the Earth, to Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, to the incredible research being done right now at NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, OH, has continually been a part of the great epic of aviation. This is, indeed, cause for celebration, and that is what this bill is all about. It would create a commission to coordinate the centennial of flight celebration in the year 2003. The commission will be composed of 21 members: the Secretaries of the Interior, Transportation, and Defense; the Director of the National Air and Space Museum; the Administrator of NASA; two people from North Carolina; the president and chairman of the First Flight Centennial Commission; and two people from the State of Ohio, the Governor and the chairman of the 2003 Committee, and 12 additional Presidential appointees. Madam President, this commission will help the United States take a leadership role in planning international celebrations of the centennial of flight, promoting participation and sponsorship by the aerospace industry, the commercial aviation industry, educational institutions, and State and local governments. The commission is going to distribute a calendar, a register of national and international programs and projects concerning the flight centennial. What I hope most of all is that these celebrations will recognize that the history of flight is not just the story about machines or about the triumph of technology. It is rather a story about people. It is a story of how human creativity overcame one of the most fundamental barriers that humans ever faced. For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings could not fly, but in this century, thanks to the freedom and spirit of creativity in this country, the human race broke the bonds of Earth. So, from Dayton to Kitty Hawk and beyond the limits of our solar system, this is a story to truly celebrate. Madam President, I see my distinguished senior Senator from the State of Ohio, the honorable John Glenn, is on the floor. I yield to Senator Glenn. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized. Mr. GLENN. Thank you, Madam President. I thank my distinguished colleague. I rise as a cosponsor of this legislation to establish a national Commission on the Centennial of Flight. We have been very proud through the years to have worked with the people of Dayton, OH, in an effort to recognize the very exceptional contribution of the two brothers who ran the bicycle shop and dreamed of flight. They watched the birds and dreamed of flight, not knowing whether it would ever be possible. In 1992, it was my privilege to sponsor the legislation that established the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park which commemorates the extraordinary lives of Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, a black man, a poet, one of the finest poets, who was a close friend of the Wright brothers. That park and the memorial in North Carolina recall that on December 17, 1903, Orville Wright flew 120 feet in 12 seconds. Can we imagine that, 120 feet in 12 seconds? But it was under power. It was the airplane that is over in the Smithsonian now. It was under powered flight with an engine and propeller. It was the first sustained flight in a power-driven, heavier-than-air machine. There were three other flights that day. We don't often hear about those. There were three other flights that day, and Wilbur Wright set a new world record flying on one of those flights 352 feet in 59 seconds. It was more than the length of a football field. Very little attention was paid at that time. People were very doubtful. Octave Chanute reported the achievement in Popular Science Monthly in March 1904. But the first--I think this is very interesting--the first eyewitness report about those flights appeared in a publication called Gleanings in Bee Culture, and that was in January 1905. That was the first real eyewitness report of Orville and Wilbur Wright's flights. The work had begun in 1899 with a serious study of everything the Wrights could find on aeronautics. In 1900, to test their glider, they selected Kitty Hawk on the word of the weather bureau because of the steadiness of the winds and direction of the winds at that time. The test glider in 1900 and 1901 failed to achieve the lifting power that they thought they needed and anticipated. They went back to Dayton and built a 6-foot wind tunnel to conduct experiments with over 200 different wing models. They developed the first reliable tables on the effects of air pressure on curved surfaces, the principles that we use today and that you see on every airplane, whether it is a general aviation small light airplane or a giant 747 or whether it is the Concorde flying at supersonic speed across the Atlantic Ocean. They developed these 200 different wing models and experimented with them. They developed the first reliable tables on the effects of air pressure on curved surfaces. [[Page S11966]] In 1902, they conducted over almost 1,000 tests with a more promising glider. In 1903, the Wright brothers had completed the construction of a larger plane powered by their own lightweight gas-powered engine. Arriving in Kitty Hawk in September, storms and mechanical difficulties delayed trials until December. On the 17th, four men and a boy witnessed the very first flight, and a memorable photograph, fortunately, was captured. Four men and a boy witnessed that first flight. Back home in Dayton in 1904 and 1905, the Wright brothers continued testing their invention at Huffman Prairie, which is the area adjacent to what is today Wright Patterson Air Force Base where they first achieved maneuverable flight. In 1908, Wilbur and Orville signed a contract with the War Department for the first military airplane. In September, Orville circled the parade ground at an altitude of 120 feet just across the Potomac River from us today, over at Fort Meyer in Virginia. When most people these days think of the Wright brothers, we tend to think of them as having lived a long, long time ago. We tend to think of the Wright brothers as being part of ancient history. We also think of their airplane, the Wright Flyer III, as being an incredibly primitive machine, at least by today's standards. And it was a primitive machine. There were no fancy guidance systems or high-tech controls. By swiveling their hips from one side to the other, Orville and Wilbur could steer the airplane. To this day, when young people come in, when school groups come to Washington and visit my office and they say they are going over to the Air and Space Museum, I always tell them to get up on the gallery level and look down on the Wright brothers' airplane and see how they controlled flight, because the person flying lay on the lower wing and had a wooden yoke around his hips. That wooden yoke slid back and forth and there was a wire that went to the trailing edge of the upper wing, and they would slide in the direction they wanted to go, slide their hips over, pull that wire and literally warp the trailing edge of the wing down and made more lift on the wing on that side and the airplane would turn in the direction their hips were slid toward. I am glad they developed later on in aviation a better means of control. We can imagine a 747 pilot today making an approach swiveling his hips back and forth. But that was the way the Wright brothers controlled those very early flights. The first flight at Kitty Hawk and Huffman Prairie seemed so far removed from what we did later on, from my own experience in orbital flight in 1962, or from the first lunar landing, or from living aboard the orbiting space station for weeks on end, as Shannon Lucid did. She was up there for 188 days. She will be honored at the Smithsonian this evening, as a matter of fact. Yet, all this occurred within a lifetime. I know we kid Senator Thurmond around here quite a lot about his age, but Senator Thurmond was born December 5, 1902. The Wright brothers did not fly until a year later, on December 7, 1903. So we have in this body right now a man whose lifetime spans all of manned flight, powered flight, from that first day at Kitty Hawk into space. Strom Thurmond has witnessed the complete history of flight. And we marvel at just how far we have come in an incredibly short period of time. We have literally gone from the Wright brothers to the Moon and beyond in a single lifetime. That is amazing. In that sense, I think it is fair to say that Orville and Wilbur Wright were our first astronauts, really, because they were the first who really did rise off the Earth's surface in a sustained way and make flight that then advanced to higher and higher altitudes until we are above the Earth's atmosphere now with different kinds of machines; though I think in some ways we could say that they were the first two who, as the poem goes, ``slipped the surly bonds of Earth''--slipped the surly bonds of Earth and ventured into the air under the power of a motor. Everything since then has just been going higher and going faster. I also think it is fair to say the Wright brothers personified something that is behind every single leap or advancement in science or human knowledge since the beginning of time. The one characteristic they had--we could lump it all together and say that is something that is in the heart of all human progress--is curiosity and an innate curiosity about how we can do things differently or whether we can explore and find new shores or whether we can do experiments and do research in new areas. Whether you look at the voyage of Christopher Columbus, who brought Europeans to the shore of North America, whether you look at the experiments of Alexander Fleming--you know what Alexander Fleming was curious about? It was plain old green mold on bread. He did not know why the patterns formed around the mold the way they did. The green mold, it was a particular pattern. He was curious about that. You know what that led to? His curiosity led to the discovery of penicillin and the development of modern antibiotics. That curiosity about green mold on bread has led to increased life expectancy of people all around this Earth. We have gone up in life expectancy more in the last 100 years than in the previous 2,000 years, I read in a magazine just a short time ago. So the discovery of penicillin and Alexander Fleming's curiosity about green bread mold that led to that, has really revolutionized this Earth. Or we go ahead with the unexpected circumstance in a small electronic switching device that led to the development of the first transistor and ultimately to today's incredibly sophisticated computer systems. It is clear to me that curiosity isn't what killed the cat. It is also the goose that laid the golden egg for all of humankind. That is going to be true in the future as well as the past. In field after field, in discipline after discipline, in industry after industry, it is curiosity, that insatiable, relentlessly questioning spirit that keeps asking ``why'' that has moved our species ahead. The irony, of course, is any time someone or a group such as the Wright brothers, or a group of people undertake an exploration or undertake to demonstrate a new idea, whether in a laboratory, a spaceship, a bicycle shop or on a production line, there are many who question the wisdom of it all. Those naysayers who wanted to know when their bike would be fixed with the Wright brothers believed that if we were to fly God would have given us feathers, they said. So there was a joke about the Wright brothers at that time. ``If God wanted us to fly, why don't we have feathers?" Well, they fortunately laughed along with everybody else, but at the same time went ahead with their work. They were not deterred. But if there is one thing we know for sure about research or any kind of exploration of the unknown, it is that it is impossible to know what we will see at the end or what it may lead to. I believe that today, as perhaps never before, we cannot afford to lose that kind of curiosity and questing spirit that the Wright brothers had. With it, we can continue to learn new things, first, for this Nation, putting them to practical application, staying ahead of global competition. That has been the story of this country's advancement. Without it, we will quickly become yesterday's leader, yesterday's leader, not tomorrow's leader but yesterday's leader, hopelessly trying to hold back the hands of the clock and to hold on to a past glory that can never be just retained or recaptured. So the spirit of the Wright brothers is needed as much today as before their very first flight. That is why today I am pleased to join with my colleagues--my colleague from Ohio, my colleagues from North Carolina--in introducing this legislation to establish a national commission to assist in the commemoration of the centennial of powered flight that will occur in 2003 and the achievements of the Wright brothers. Those who worked to build our national parks and memorials to the Wright brothers in Ohio and North Carolina where flight was born and first achieved will now work together to recall and remember the spirit of flight to be commemorated as we approach the centennial of flight in 2003. The spirit represented by the Wright brothers was captured in their own day by their good friend, Paul Lawrence [[Page S11967]] Dunbar, who captured in the prophetic verse which he penned the triumphs that are remembered at the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. One of his notations was: What dreams we have and how they fly like rosy clouds across the sky; of wealth, of fame of sure success . . . That is certainly what curiosity has brought us and what the Wright brothers brought us. Think of all that has occurred since that first flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Think of aviation today and all it entails and the giant industry. It has revised all the world's transportation, has revised our military, our security. All of that stemmed from that first flight in 1903. So we are happy to put in this legislation today. We hope that it is supported by all here, not just those from Ohio and North Carolina, because what started there in 1903 is something that affects everyone. It affects every State and every nation around the globe, even these days. And we look forward to this commission doing a great job in assisting in the commemoration of the centennial of powered flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers. Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of legislation being introduced by Senator Helms--the two Senators from Ohio--that would establish a National Commission to oversee the 100th anniversary of the first flight. Mr. President, on a cold, windy December morning in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Wright brothers changed the history of the world. Orville Wright flew for just 12 seconds--but it was the first manned flight. Today, many people take for granted what was accomplished by the Wright brothers that day, but at the time it was a historic achievement. Man had been thinking of flight for thousand of years--and yet the Wright brothers, here in the United States, were the first to do it. The development of flight grew rapidly. A little over a decade later, airplanes were used in the battles of World War I. Two decades after the 12-second first flight--Charles Lindbergh flew over the Atlantic. And of course, in 1962, in just a half century after the first 12- second flight, our distinguished colleague John Glenn was the first man to fly around the world in space. Seven years after that, we landed a man on the Moon. It is hard to believe that all of this has taken place in the span of less than 100 years. This is why the centennial anniversary of first flight is so significant to us, the sponsors of this legislation. The Commission will coordinate the plans for the celebration. The Wright brothers were from Ohio, of course, where they ran a bicycle shop. The State of North Carolina's license plates bear the slogan ``First in Flight''--so we are especially proud of this achievement in my State. To these two States, the celebration is important. But much more than that, I think the anniversary should be used to inspire students to learn more about the history of flight. Hopefully, it will remind people that this is a great nation inventors--and that American ingenuity has made us the greatest country in the history of the world. Finally, it should remind our citizens that America is a land of opportunity and freedom--where anyone's imagination can change the world. This is an entrepreneurial spirit that we must keep alive. I want to thank Senator Helms and Senators Glenn and DeWine for joining together today to introduce this legislation. I hope that the Senate will take it up soon. ______ By Mr. THOMAS (for himself, Mr. Kerrey, Mr. Enzi, and Mr. Hagel): S. 1398. A bill to extend certain contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and irrigation water contractors in Wyoming and Nebraska that receive water from Glendo Reservoir; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. THE IRRIGATION PROJECT CONTRACT EXTENSION ACT OF 1997 Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Irrigation Project Contract Extension Act of 1997. I am pleased to be joined in this endeavor by Senators Enzi, Kerrey, and Hagel. This legislation would extend, for a period of 3 years, certain water contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and irrigators in Wyoming and Nebraska that receive water from Glendo Reservoir. All contracts are subject to renewal on December 31, 1998. Extending these contracts is considered a major Federal action and, therefore, subject to review of the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] and the Endangered Species Act [ESA]. Without a short-term continuation agreement, the irrigators would be responsible for the costs of the analysis and other environmental documentation. Currently, the States of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado--and the Department of the Interior--are in the process of implementing a comprehensive ``Cooperative Agreement for Platte River Research and Other Efforts relating to Endangered Species Habitats along the Central Platte River, Nebraska.'' The term of this initiative is for 3 years, with an allowable 6-month extension. Upon completion of the cooperative agreement, efforts to enact the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program can begin. This basin wide, three-State plan will help to recover the endangered whooping crane, piping plover, and least stern, and improve critical habitats in the Central Platte River Basin. I believe it is important for Congress to act on this measure and extend these contracts for 3 years, or until the cooperative agreement is completed. In that time, the needed NEPA and ESA reviews will be fulfilled--clearing the way for the program to be initiated. It is important to remember that the program cannot be implemented until the environmental studies are completed and the parties have agreed to the results. Mr. President, this bill does not avoid environmental evaluation. It merely provides some relief to the water users, while allowing the NEPA and ESA documentation to take place through the cooperative agreement process. It is my understanding that once this agreement has expired, and if the Department of the Interior and the three States decide not to pursue the program, the contract renewal process would proceed as a separate Federal action at that time. This is good and fair legislation. It will benefit the environment and the water users. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and House to secure its passage. ______ By Mr. BOND: S. 1399. A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Army to carry out a project to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat of the Missouri River and the middle Mississippi River; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. THE FISH AND WILDLIFE HABITAT ACT OF 1997 Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation to enhance, preserve and protect habitat for fish and wildlife on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. This new 5-year $50 million authorization is a win-win approach that will implement and expand the use of new and innovative measures developed by the Corps of Engineers to improve habitat conservation without impacting adversely private property and other water-related needs of the rivers including navigation, flood control and water supply. As I have always maintained, fish and wildlife conservation and commercial activity are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, we cannot afford to abandon either river commerce or the species that live in and on the river. This new approach is a win for man, for nature and for the river. This legislation is supported by Missouri Farm Bureau, MARC2000, American Rivers, the Missouri Soybean Association, the Missouri Corngrowers Association, and Farmland Industries. While these groups have not always agreed on river policy, that should not preclude us from seeking common ground and working together to address the questions of resource management and I am delighted that we can all come together in support of this commonsense approach. Without specific authorization and only scarce dollars, the St. Louis Corps of Engineers has been developing and [[Page S11968]] testing ways in which navigation structures used to guide the river and maintain the channel may be modified to meet environmental as well as navigation goals. These innovations have proven successful earning wide acclaim including a Presidential Design Award and Federal Design Achievement Award. This legislation seeks to put these successful innovations to work on the Missouri River and expand their use on the middle Mississippi by providing a specific authorization and a dedicated and substantial source of funds. In other words, we are giving the corps the tools they need to put their ideas to work to improve the rivers to benefit fish and wildlife. The legislation authorizes $10 million per year to protect, create and enhance side channels, island habitat, sand bars, and other riverine habitat. For example, by notching rock dikes that run perpendicular to the shoreline, sandbars develop between the dikes which has been provided nesting habitat for the endangered least tern and valuable spawning ground for the endangered pallid sturgeon. The Missouri Department of Conservation has run tests validating an increase in diversity and numbers of microinvertebrates surrounding the notched dikes. Chevron dikes have been developed to improve river habitat and to create beneficial uses of dredge material. These structures are placed in the shallow side of the river channel pointing upstream which improves the river channel while serving as small islands. These islands encourage the development of all four primary river ecosystem habitats and additionally, various micro-organisms cling to the underwater rock structures, providing a food source for fish. Changing the gradation of rock revetments, used to stabilize eroding riverbanks, has proved to provide greater bank stability and precluded the need to remove bank vegetation so that, for the first time, trees and rock revetment could coexist providing greater habitat diversity. The draft legislation authorizes $10 million per year over 5 years to develop and implement a plan including the following activities: Modification and improvement of navigation training structures to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat; creation of side channels to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat; restoration and creation of island fish and wildlife habitat; creation of riverine fish and wildlife habitat; establishment of criteria to prioritize based on cost-effectiveness and likelihood of success; and physical and biological monitoring for evaluating the success of the project. The draft provides that the project be coordinated with other related Federal and State activities and that there be public participation in the development and implementation of the project. It requires a 25- percent non-Federal cost share and limits the Federal cost of any single project to $5 million. Finally, the draft legislation confers no new regulatory authority and requires compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The legislation is designed to work between the banks of the river and forbids expressly any adverse impacts on private lands and water- related activities including flood control, navigation, and water supply. Additionally, it is designed to compliment other existing programs such as the Missouri River Mitigation project and the Environmental Management Program on the Mississippi River. I intend to work with the administration and with other Senators and interested groups to build the broad support necessary to enact this legislation in an omnibus Water Resources Development Act the Senate is expected to consider in 1998. Mr. President, the problems experienced in the Midwest and elsewhere with railroad bottlenecks highlight the need for diverse transportation options. As the fall harvest proceeds, there are reports of grain being piled on the ground in neighboring Kansas and Nebraska. Notwithstanding that I must continue working on behalf of Missouri to preserve river navigation as a transportation option, our joint efforts to pursue this new legislation is a strong indicator that we may be experiencing an episode of domestic detente on river policy between groups that have pursued differing approaches in the past. This legislation offers a significant boost for our need to make the various river uses compatible and an important step toward unifying the river's stakeholders behind a realistic approach for the future. I thank and congratulate the various groups who have come together behind this legislation and look forward to enacting this consensus legislation. ______ By Mr. BUMPERS (for himself and Mr. Gorton): S. 1401. A bill to provide for the transition to competition around electric energy suppliers for the benefit and protection of consumers, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. the transition to electric competition act of 1997 Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I rise to day to introduce the Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997 along with my colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Gorton. This bill provides for the transition toward deregulation and competition in the electric utility industry. While few people find a discussion of the electric utility industry and the many laws and regulations governing the industry exciting, the fact is that electricity is an extremely important commodity which affects everyone on a daily basis. Any event that increases or reduces electric rates can impact: First, the lives of the poor and those on fixed incomes that depend on electricity to heat their homes in the winter and cool them in the summer; second, the price of goods we buy every day; as well as third, the competitiveness of our factories. In addition, decisions made by electric generators often have a direct effect on our environment as well as our energy security. It is not at all inconsequential that the electric utility industry, which has remained relatively static for the last 60 years, is undergoing a fundamental change. Instead of the traditional vertically integrated local utility, which generates power at its own plants, transmits that power over its own lines and sells that power to all consumers in a particular area, consumers in some States are starting to be bombarded with all sorts of offers from companies competing to become their power supplier, and other entrepreneurs will be seeking to buy large blocks of power to serve certain kinds of consumers. Naturally, these changes are bound to create considerable apprehension among both utilities and consumers. Mr. President, in January I introduced S. 237, the Electric Consumers Protection Act, because I believed that retail electric competition was inevitable and Federal legislation was necessary to ensure that certain consumers were not disadvantaged in the process. Several States were proceeding to introduce competition in their jurisdictions and a number of others were examining the matter. Since that time I have become even more convinced that competition is on the horizon. Eleven States have now enacted legislation or issued regulations requiring retail competition by a time certain. Almost every other State currently has the matter under review. Some argue that there is no need for the Federal Government to intervene; that the States are doing just fine on their own and they should decide when and how to proceed with retail electric competition. Mr. President, I couldn't disagree more. A State-by-State approach will likely produce a lot of unintended consequences which will limit the benefits associated with retail competition and could disadvantage certain consumers. Electric generation markets are becoming increasingly regional and even multi- regional. What happens in one State can have direct and indirect impacts on consumers and utilities located in another State. Utilities operating in more than one State can be subjected to conflicting regulatory regimes which could impact the way they operate their systems and the electric rates paid by consumers. This phenomenon is best illustrated by the multistate utility holding companies registered under the Public Utility Holding Company [PUHCA]. I have had a lot of experience with registered holding companies because two of them serve my home State of Arkansas. These holding companies generally plan for and operate generating facilities on a system-wide basis for the benefit of customers in the entire region [[Page S11969]] served by the company. If restructuring proceeds on a State-by-State basis, these holding companies would find themselves subjected to different requirements which could negatively impact consumers. A State-by-State approach to retail competition also present problems where utilities operate entirely within a single State. It would make no sense for a utility in a State that does not require retail competition, to be able to sell power at retail in an adjoining State that requires retail competition, while a utility subjected to retail competition is unable to mitigate its losses by competing for customers in the adjoining State. Such a result both increases stranded costs and distorts the generation marketplace. Moreover, the States can't adequately address issues associated with the use of transmission lines that provide for the transportation across a number of States or the ability of a utility with significant market power to dominate electricity generation in an entire region. Clearly these are issues that need to be resolved at the Federal level. When I introduced S. 237 there weren't many calling for Federal action. However, interested observers are increasingly coming to the conclusion that Federal electric restructuring legislation is not only helpful, but is necessary. Even some of the States are calling on the Federal Government to act. The legislation we are introducing today is an updated version of S. 237. The bill includes the following provisions: All consumers would have the right to choose their power supplier by January 1, 2002. States could choose an earlier date for their residents if they wish. Utilities would be able to recover their legitimate, prudent and verifiable costs that they would have been able to recover from ratepayers if retail competition had not been implemented. Consumers located in States that currently have low cost electricity would be protected from rate increases by ensuring that utilities can't use their existing assets to sell power in more lucrative markets to the disadvantage of their existing customers. All utilities selling retail power would be required to generate a portion of that power using renewable resources. All of the interstate transmission facilities throughout the country would be managed by independent system operators to ensure that electricity flows in an efficient manner and that markets are competitive. FERC would be given greater authority to protect against the use of market power by utilities to inhibit competition. Both the Public Utility Holding Company Act [PUHCA] and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act [PURPA] would be repealed in conjunction with the implementation of retail electric competition. In addition, Mr. President, the legislation attempts to address some of the issues that relate to the impact of retail electric competition on two Federal entities--the Bonneville Power Administration [BPA] and the Tennessee Valley Authority [TVA]. Senator Gorton is especially knowledgeable about the special problems facing BPA and I expect that he will work closely with the other Members of the Senate from the Pacific Northwest in developing a consensus approach. With regard to TVA, our bill attempts to develop an approach that will enable retail competition to be smoothly introduced in the Tennessee Valley and will help TVA pay off its tremendous debt. The bill also requires the TVA board to prepare a study examining whether TVA should be privatized. I know that some observers may be concerned that this could be a first step toward the privatization of the Federal Power Marketing Administration [PMA's]. Mr. President, there is no connection whatsoever between TVA and the PMA's. The PMA's market power generated at hydroelectric facilities located at Federal dams. These dams perform a variety of public services and cannot be privatized. TVA, on the other hand, generates the bulk of its power from coal and nuclear plants that serve no public purposes. In addition, the Federal PMA's pay for themselves through power sales. TVA, on the other hand, has an enormous level of privately held debt which it must find a way to pay off, since the Federal Government is not responsible for it. Mr. President, I am especially pleased that Senator Gorton has decided to join with me in the effort to enact comprehensive electric restructuring legislation. He has a reputation as a very bright and thoughtful Member of this body and is a distinguished member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the matter. I know that he shares my desire to move this legislation through Congress quickly next year. Senator Murkowski, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, recently indicated that he expects the committee to mark up electric restructuring legislation next year. Both Senator Gorton and I want to work with him and the other members of the committee in moving forward. I look forward to undertaking this important task. Mr. President, I want to say how honored I am to have one of our most distinguished Senators, Senator Gorton of Washington, as my chief cosponsor on this bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a section-by-section analysis of the Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997 be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: S. 1401 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. (a) Short title. This Act may be cited as the ``Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997''. (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents is as follows: Sec. 1. Short title and table of contents. Sec. 2. Findings. Sec. 3. Definitions. Sec. 4. Severability. Sec. 5. Enforcement. TITLE I--RETAIL COMPETITION Sec. 101. Mandatory retail access. Sec. 102. Aggregation. Sec. 103. Prior implementation. Sec. 104. State regulation. Sec. 105. Retail stranded cost recovery. Sec. 106. Wholesale stranded cost recovery. Sec. 107. Lost retail benefits. Sec. 108. Universal service. Sec. 109. Public benefits. Sec. 110. Renewable energy. Sec. 111. Determination of local distribution facilities. Sec. 112. Transmission. Sec. 113. Competitive generation markets. Sec. 114. Nuclear decommissioning costs. Sec. 115. Right to know. Sec. 116. Exemption of Alaska and Hawaii. TITLE II--PUBLIC UTILITY HOLDING COMPANIES Sec. 201. Repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Sec. 202. Exemptions. Sec. 203. Federal access to books and records. Sec. 204. State access to books and records. Sec. 205. Affiliate transactions. Sec. 206. Clarification of regulatory authority. Sec. 207. Effect on other regulation. Sec. 208. Enforcement. Sec. 209. Savings provision. Sec. 210. Implementation. Sec. 211. Resources. TITLE III--PUBLIC UTILITY REGULATORY POLICIES ACT Sec. 301. Definition. Sec. 302. Facilities. Sec. 303. Contracts. Sec. 304. Savings clause. Sec. 305. Effective date. TITLE IV--ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Sec. 401. Study. TITLE V--BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION Sec. 501. Findings and purposes. Sec. 502. Columbia River fish and wildlife coordination and governance. Sec. 503. Pacific Northwest federal transmission access. Sec. 504. Transition cost mechanism. Sec. 505. Independent system operator participation. Sec. 506. Financial obligations. Sec. 507. Prohibition on retail sales. Sec. 508. Clarification of Commission authority. Sec. 509. Repealed statute. TITLE VI--TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY Sec. 601. Competition in service territory. Sec. 602. Ability to sell electric energy. Sec. 603. Termination of contracts. Sec. 604. Rates for electric energy. Sec. 605. Privatization study. SEC. 2. FINDINGS. The Congress finds that: (a) Congress has the authority to enact laws, under the Commerce Clause of the [[Page S11970]] United States Constitution, regarding the wholesale and retail generation, transmission, distribution, and sale of electric energy in interstate commerce. (b) Several States have taken steps to require competition among retail electric supplies and a large number of other States are expected to act. (c) It has been the policy of Congress and the Commission to promote competition among wholesale electric suppliers. (d) It is in the public interest that the transition towards competition in electric service ensures that all consumers receive reliable and competitively-priced electric service. (e) Electric utility companies that prudently incurred costs pursuant to a regulatory structure that required them to provide electricity to consumers should not be penalized during the transition to competition. (f) Consumers will not benefit from the introduction of competition among electric energy suppliers if certain suppliers have undue market power. (g) It is important to encourage conservation and the use of renewable resources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, promote domestic energy security and protect the environment. (h) Competition among electric energy suppliers should not degrade reliability nor cause consumers to lose electric service. SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. For purposes of this Act: (a) The term ``affiliate'' of a specific company means any company 5 percent or more of whose outstanding voting securities are owned, controlled, or held with power to vote, directly or indirectly, by such specific company. (b) The term ``aggregator'' means any person that purchases or acquires retail electric energy on behalf of two or more consumers. (c) The term ``ancillary services'' shall have the same meaning assigned to it by the Commission. (d) The term ``associate company'' of a company means any company in the same holding company system with such company. (e) The term ``Commission'' means the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (f) The term ``company'' means a corporation, joint stock company, partnership, association, business trust, organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, or a receiver or receivers, trustee or trustees of any of the foregoing. (g) The term ``corporation'' means any corporation, joint- stock company, partnership, association, rural electric cooperative, municipal utility, business trust, organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, or a receiver or receivers, trustee or trustees of any of the foregoing. (h) The term ``electric utility company'' means any company that owns or operates facilities used for the generation, transmission or distribution of electric energy for sale. (i) The term ``gas utility company'' means any company that owns or operates facilities used for distribution at retail (other than the distribution only in enclosed portable containers) of natural or manufactured gas for heat, light or power. (j) The term ``holding company system'' means a holding company together with its subsidiary companies. (k) The term ``large hydroelectric facility'' means a facility which has a power production capacity which, together with any other facilities located at the same site, is greater than 80 megawatts. (l) The term ``local distribution facilities'' means facilities used to provide retail electric energy for ultimate consumption. (m) The term ``lost retail benefits'' means the increased cost of retail electric energy in a retail electric energy provider's service territory resulting from the sale subsequent to the implementation of retail electric competition, outside such service territory, of electric energy generated at facilities the cost of which were included in the retail rate base of the retail electric energy provider prior to the implementation of retail electric competition. (n) The term ``mitigation'' means any widely accepted business practice used by an electric utility company to dispose of or reduce uneconomic assets or costs. (o) The term ``municipal utility'' means a city, county, irrigation district, drainage district, or other political subdivision or agency of a State competent under the laws thereof to carry on the business of a retail electric energy provider and/or a retail electric energy supplier. (p) The term ``person'' means an individual or corporation. (q) The term ``public utility company'' means an electric utility company or gas utility company but does not mean a qualifying facility as defined in the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, or an exempt wholesale generator or a foreign utility company defined in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. (r) The term ``public utility holding company'' means (A) any company that directly or indirectly owns, controls, or holds with power to vote, 10 percent or more of the outstanding voting securities of a public utility company or of a holding company of any public utility company; and (B) any person, determined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, to exercise directly or indirectly (either alone or pursuant to an arrangement or understanding with one or more persons) such a controlling influence over the management or policies of any public utility or holding company as to make it necessary or appropriate for the protection of consumers with respect to rates that such person be subject to the obligations, duties, and liabilities imposed in this title upon holding companies. (s) The term ``renewable energy'' means electricity generated from solar, wind, waste, including municipal solid waste, biomass, hydroelectric or geothermal resources. (t) The term ``Renewable Energy Credit'' means a tradable certificate of proof that one unit (as determined by the Commission) of renewable energy was generated by any person. (u) The term ``retail electric competition'' means the ability of each consumer in a particular State to purchase retail electric energy from any person seeking to sell electric energy to such consumer. (v) The term ``retail electric energy'' means electric energy and ancillary services sold for ultimate consumption. (w) The term ``retail electric energy provider'' means any person who distributes retail electric energy to consumers regardless of whether the consumers purchase such energy from the provider or an alternative supplier. A retail electric energy provider may also be a retail electric energy supplier. (x) The term ``retail electric energy supplier'' means any person which sells retail electric energy to consumers. (y) The term ``retail stranded costs'' means all legitimate, prudent, verifiable and non-mitigatable costs incurred by an electric utility company in all of its generation assets which would have been recoverable in retail rates but for the implementation of retail electric competition, less the total market value of these assets after retail electric competition is implemented. Binding power purchase contracts and regulatory assets, the costs of which would have been recovered but for the implementation of retail electric competition, shall be considered generation assets for purposes of this subsection. (z) The term ``rural electric cooperative'' means a corporation that is currently paying off a loan for the purposes of providing electric service from the Administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration or the Rural Utilities Service under the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. (aa) The term ``State'' means any State or the District of Columbia. (bb) The term ``State regulatory authority'' means the regulatory body of a State or municipality having sole jurisdiction to regulate rates and charges for the distribution of electric energy to consumers within the State or municipality. (cc) The term ``subsidiary company'' of a holding company means-- (1) any company 10 percent or more of the outstanding voting securities of which are directly or indirectly owned, controlled, or held with power to vote, by such holding company; and (2) any person the management or policies of which the Securities and Exchange Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, determines to be subject to a controlling influence, directly or indirectly, by such holding company (either alone or pursuant to an arrangement or understanding with one or more other persons) so as to make it necessary for the protection of consumers that such person be subject to the obligations, duties, and liabilities imposed upon subsidiary companies of public utility holding companies. (dd) The term ``transmission system'' means all facilities, including federally-owned facilities, transmitting electricity in interstate commerce in a particular region, including all facilities transmitting electricity in the State of Texas and those providing international interconnections, but does not include local distribution facilities as determined by the Commission. (ee) The term ``wholesale electric energy'' means electric energy and ancillary services sold for resale. (ff) The term ``wholesale electric energy supplier'' means any person which sells wholesale electric energy. (gg) The term ``wholesale stranded costs'' shall have the same meaning as in the Commission's Order No. 888. (hh) The term ``voting security'' means any security presently entitling the owner or holder thereof to vote in the direction or management of the affairs of a company. SEC. 4. SEVERABILITY. If any provision of this Act, or the application of such provision to any person or circumstance, shall be held invalid, the remainder of the Act, and the application of such provision to persons or circumstances other than those as to which it is held invalid, shall not be affected thereby. SEC. 5. ENFORCEMENT. (a) Violation of the Act.--If any individual or corporation or any other retail electric energy supplier or provider fails to comply with the requirements of this Act, any aggrieved person may bring an action against such entity to enforce the requirements of this Act in the appropriate Federal district court. (b) State or Commission Action.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person seeking redress from an action taken by a State regulatory authority, the Commission or a regulatory board pursuant to this Act shall bring such action in the appropriate circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. [[Page S11971]] TITLE I--ELECTRIC COMPETITION SEC. 101. MANDATORY RETAIL ACCESS. (a) Customer Choice.--Beginning on January 1, 2002, each consumer shall have the right to purchase retail electric energy from any person offering to sell retail electric energy to such consumer, subject to any limitations imposed pursuant to section 104(a) of this Act. (b) Local Distribution and Retail Transmission Facilities.--Beginning on January 1, 2002, all persons seeking to sell retail electric energy shall have reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to the local distribution and retail transmission facilities of all retail electric energy providers and all ancillary services. SEC. 102. AGGREGATION. Subject to any limitations imposed pursuant to section 104(a) of this Act, a group of consumers or any person acting on behalf of such group may purchase or acquire retail electric energy for the members of the group if they are located in a State or States where there is retail electric competition. SEC. 103. PRIOR IMPLEMENTATION. (a) State Action.--Nothing in the Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 824 et seq.) shall be deemed to prohibit a State or State regulatory authority, if authorized under State law, from requiring retail electric energy providers selling retail electric energy to consumers in such State to provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to its local distribution facilities and all ancillary services to any retail electric energy supplier prior to January 1, 2002. (b) Grandfather.--Legislation enacted by a State or a regulation issued by a State regulatory authority which has the effect of providing all consumers in such State the opportunity to purchase retail electric energy from any retail electric energy supplier by January 1, 2002 and provides electric utility companies with the opportunity to recover their retail stranded costs as defined by this Act (unless there is an agreement between a State or State regulatory authority and a retail electric energy provider which provides for a different level of recovery), shall be deemed to be in compliance with the requirements of sections 101 and 105 of this Act. (c) Reciprocity.--A State or State regulatory authority that provides for retail electric competition may preclude any retail electric energy provider selling retail electric energy to consumers in another State and their affiliates from selling retail electric energy to consumers in the State with retail electric competition if the retail electric energy provider does not provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to its local distribution facilities to any retail electric energy supplier. SEC. 104. STATE REGULATION. (a) State Requirements.--A State or a State regulatory authority may impose requirements on persons seeking to sell retail electric energy to consumers in that State which are intended to promote the public interest, including requirements related to generation reliability and the provision of information to consumers and other retail electric energy suppliers. Any such requirements must be applied on a nondiscriminatory basis and may not be used to exclude any class of potential suppliers, such as retail electric energy providers, from the opportunity to sell retail electric energy. (b) Maintenance of State Authority.--Nothing in this Act is intended to prohibit a State from enacting laws or imposing regulations related to retail electric energy service that are consistent with the requirements of this Act. (c) Continued State Authority Over Distribution.--A State or State regulatory authority may continue to regulate local distribution service currently subject to State regulation, including billing and metering in any manner consistent with this Act. SEC. 105. RETAIL STRANDED COST RECOVERY. (a) Application

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STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS


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STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
(Senate - November 07, 1997)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S11964-S12022] STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS By Mr. HELMS (for himself, Mr. Glenn, Mr. DeWine, and Mr. Faircloth): S. 1397. A bill to establish a commission to assist in commemoration of the centennial of powered flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers; to the Committee on Governmental Affairs. the centennial of flight commemorative act Mr. HELMS. Madam President, I have a bill, S. 1397, at the desk. Now, Senators DeWine, Faircloth, Glenn, and I are introducing this legislation, and we are naming it the Centennial of Flight Commemorative Act. As I indicated, the bill number is S. 1397. This significant legislation will establish a commission to assist the numerous events that will lead up to and include the celebration of the 100th anniversary of powered flight, a feat in all the history books, accomplished in my State of North Carolina by the geniuses, two brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Ohio brothers who were born and raised in Dayton where they operated a bicycle shop. I don't know whether you have been to Kitty Hawk, particularly in the middle of December, but it is not a comfortable place to be. Wilbur and Orville came to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to conduct their experiments. The first powered flight occurred at Kitty Hawk, NC, on December 17, 1903. In fact, the Wright brothers engaged in four flights that day, and with their effort they changed the concept of travel forever. About noon on that cold and windy December day, at Kitty Hawk, NC, the aviation age, the air age, began. So, Madam President, the Wright brothers were indisputably the first pioneers of powered flight, and they became national heroes, justifiably etched in history. As for our bill, S. 1397, the able Senator from Ohio, Mr. DeWine, and the able Senator from Ohio, Mr. Glenn, did excellent work in drafting this legislation. Senator Glenn, I am obliged to mention, and I am glad to do so, is a man of history himself in terms of powered flight. He was the first American, as all of us know, to orbit the Earth. When he walks up and down the corridors, I see mamas and daddies pointing to him saying, ``That's Senator Glenn.'' Senator Glenn and six other pioneers, the Mercury astronauts, got America's space program off the ground. Madam President, S. 1397--let me say the title again so it will register--the Centennial of Flight Commemorative Act--proposes the establishment of a commission of 21 individuals to plan for and assist in events leading up to and including the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' flights at Kitty Hawk. The commission will be composed of the Secretary of the Interior, the Director of the National Air and Space Museum, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Transportation, the NASA Administrator, and each of these officials can name a designee. Then there will be two representatives each from the States of North Carolina and Ohio and 12 other private citizens. Of these 12 private citizens, the President of the United States will appoint two from a list recommended by the Senate majority leader in consultation with the Senate minority leader, and two from a list recommended by the Speaker of the House in consultation with the House minority leader. The remaining eight will be chosen based on qualifications and/or experience in the fields of history, aerospace, science, industry, or other professions that will enhance the work of the commission. The commission will represent the United States and take a leadership role with other nations in recognizing the achievement of the Wright brothers and the importance of aviation history. The commission's activities will be closely coordinated with the First Flight Centennial Commission and the First Flight Centennial Foundation of North Carolina and the 2003 Committee of the State of Ohio. The commission is allowed to retain an executive director and staff that may be required in order to carry out its functions. S. 1397 authorizes appropriations of $250,000 for each of the fiscal years 1998 to 2004 to fund the work of the commission. Additionally, the commission may accept monetary contributions and other in kind contributions, volunteer [[Page S11965]] services and the like. In order to further defray the expenses of the commission, the legislation gives it exclusive right to names, logos, emblems, seals, and marks, which may be licensed on which proceeds from royalties will be used to offset the operating costs of the commission. S. 1397 requires that annual audits of the commission be conducted by the Inspector General of the General Services Administration to ensure its financial integrity. The commission shall be terminated no later than 60 days after the submission of the final audit report. Senators may ask why establish a Federal commission to commemorate this event? The Wright brothers' triumph at Kitty Hawk on that bone- chilling day of December 17, 1903 has to rank as one of mankind's greatest achievement. The world has not been the same since. As the development of the airplane progressed so did its uses in warfare and civilian aviation. Its development spawned generations of aviation trailblazers. Names like Eddie Rickenbacker, Billy Mitchell, Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle, Chuck Yeager, and the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and space shuttle astronauts became household words. What is even more astonishing is that 66 years later, Neil Armstrong of Ohio became the first man to set foot on the moon. That would not have been possible without the Wright brothers. Because of the Wright brothers you can get on a jet aircraft at Dulles Airport and be in London in six or seven hours, far less if you are flying the Concorde. You can fly from New York to Tokyo in 14 hours. On the Concorde, you can travel from New York to London in 3 hours and 50 minutes. We are seeing daily developments in aviation, faster planes, new space technologies, all because of the genius of Wilbur and Orville Wright. I hope the Senate will swiftly approve this legislation. Mr. DeWINE. Madam President, I thank the Chair, and I thank my distinguished colleague from North Carolina. I am delighted to join him, as well as Senator Faircloth and Senator Glenn, in introducing a bill to create the Centennial of Flight Commission. In the year 2003, the United States and, indeed, the world will celebrate a truly breathtaking anniversary. That date will mark exactly 100 years of the adventure of human flight. For those of us who are from the State of Ohio, it is an especially important anniversary as Senator Helms has so ably described--first and foremost because the Wright brothers, the very first pioneers of powered flight, were from Dayton, OH. It was in Dayton, OH, that they grew up. It was in Dayton, OH, that they had a print shop. It was in Dayton, OH, that they had the bicycle shop that was referred to a moment ago by Senator Helms. It was at Huffman Prairie, in Montgomery County, actually what is now enclosed in Wright Patterson Air Force Base, technically in Greene County, that the Wright brothers learned to fly. So, those of us from Ohio are very proud of the Wright brothers, as this whole country is. We are also proud in Ohio that ever since the time of the Wright brothers, Ohio has continued to build a proud aviation history. From the Wright brothers to World War I flying ace David Ingalls, to John Glenn who just walked on to the floor of the Senate, the first man, the first American to orbit the Earth, to Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, to the incredible research being done right now at NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, OH, has continually been a part of the great epic of aviation. This is, indeed, cause for celebration, and that is what this bill is all about. It would create a commission to coordinate the centennial of flight celebration in the year 2003. The commission will be composed of 21 members: the Secretaries of the Interior, Transportation, and Defense; the Director of the National Air and Space Museum; the Administrator of NASA; two people from North Carolina; the president and chairman of the First Flight Centennial Commission; and two people from the State of Ohio, the Governor and the chairman of the 2003 Committee, and 12 additional Presidential appointees. Madam President, this commission will help the United States take a leadership role in planning international celebrations of the centennial of flight, promoting participation and sponsorship by the aerospace industry, the commercial aviation industry, educational institutions, and State and local governments. The commission is going to distribute a calendar, a register of national and international programs and projects concerning the flight centennial. What I hope most of all is that these celebrations will recognize that the history of flight is not just the story about machines or about the triumph of technology. It is rather a story about people. It is a story of how human creativity overcame one of the most fundamental barriers that humans ever faced. For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings could not fly, but in this century, thanks to the freedom and spirit of creativity in this country, the human race broke the bonds of Earth. So, from Dayton to Kitty Hawk and beyond the limits of our solar system, this is a story to truly celebrate. Madam President, I see my distinguished senior Senator from the State of Ohio, the honorable John Glenn, is on the floor. I yield to Senator Glenn. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized. Mr. GLENN. Thank you, Madam President. I thank my distinguished colleague. I rise as a cosponsor of this legislation to establish a national Commission on the Centennial of Flight. We have been very proud through the years to have worked with the people of Dayton, OH, in an effort to recognize the very exceptional contribution of the two brothers who ran the bicycle shop and dreamed of flight. They watched the birds and dreamed of flight, not knowing whether it would ever be possible. In 1992, it was my privilege to sponsor the legislation that established the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park which commemorates the extraordinary lives of Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, a black man, a poet, one of the finest poets, who was a close friend of the Wright brothers. That park and the memorial in North Carolina recall that on December 17, 1903, Orville Wright flew 120 feet in 12 seconds. Can we imagine that, 120 feet in 12 seconds? But it was under power. It was the airplane that is over in the Smithsonian now. It was under powered flight with an engine and propeller. It was the first sustained flight in a power-driven, heavier-than-air machine. There were three other flights that day. We don't often hear about those. There were three other flights that day, and Wilbur Wright set a new world record flying on one of those flights 352 feet in 59 seconds. It was more than the length of a football field. Very little attention was paid at that time. People were very doubtful. Octave Chanute reported the achievement in Popular Science Monthly in March 1904. But the first--I think this is very interesting--the first eyewitness report about those flights appeared in a publication called Gleanings in Bee Culture, and that was in January 1905. That was the first real eyewitness report of Orville and Wilbur Wright's flights. The work had begun in 1899 with a serious study of everything the Wrights could find on aeronautics. In 1900, to test their glider, they selected Kitty Hawk on the word of the weather bureau because of the steadiness of the winds and direction of the winds at that time. The test glider in 1900 and 1901 failed to achieve the lifting power that they thought they needed and anticipated. They went back to Dayton and built a 6-foot wind tunnel to conduct experiments with over 200 different wing models. They developed the first reliable tables on the effects of air pressure on curved surfaces, the principles that we use today and that you see on every airplane, whether it is a general aviation small light airplane or a giant 747 or whether it is the Concorde flying at supersonic speed across the Atlantic Ocean. They developed these 200 different wing models and experimented with them. They developed the first reliable tables on the effects of air pressure on curved surfaces. [[Page S11966]] In 1902, they conducted over almost 1,000 tests with a more promising glider. In 1903, the Wright brothers had completed the construction of a larger plane powered by their own lightweight gas-powered engine. Arriving in Kitty Hawk in September, storms and mechanical difficulties delayed trials until December. On the 17th, four men and a boy witnessed the very first flight, and a memorable photograph, fortunately, was captured. Four men and a boy witnessed that first flight. Back home in Dayton in 1904 and 1905, the Wright brothers continued testing their invention at Huffman Prairie, which is the area adjacent to what is today Wright Patterson Air Force Base where they first achieved maneuverable flight. In 1908, Wilbur and Orville signed a contract with the War Department for the first military airplane. In September, Orville circled the parade ground at an altitude of 120 feet just across the Potomac River from us today, over at Fort Meyer in Virginia. When most people these days think of the Wright brothers, we tend to think of them as having lived a long, long time ago. We tend to think of the Wright brothers as being part of ancient history. We also think of their airplane, the Wright Flyer III, as being an incredibly primitive machine, at least by today's standards. And it was a primitive machine. There were no fancy guidance systems or high-tech controls. By swiveling their hips from one side to the other, Orville and Wilbur could steer the airplane. To this day, when young people come in, when school groups come to Washington and visit my office and they say they are going over to the Air and Space Museum, I always tell them to get up on the gallery level and look down on the Wright brothers' airplane and see how they controlled flight, because the person flying lay on the lower wing and had a wooden yoke around his hips. That wooden yoke slid back and forth and there was a wire that went to the trailing edge of the upper wing, and they would slide in the direction they wanted to go, slide their hips over, pull that wire and literally warp the trailing edge of the wing down and made more lift on the wing on that side and the airplane would turn in the direction their hips were slid toward. I am glad they developed later on in aviation a better means of control. We can imagine a 747 pilot today making an approach swiveling his hips back and forth. But that was the way the Wright brothers controlled those very early flights. The first flight at Kitty Hawk and Huffman Prairie seemed so far removed from what we did later on, from my own experience in orbital flight in 1962, or from the first lunar landing, or from living aboard the orbiting space station for weeks on end, as Shannon Lucid did. She was up there for 188 days. She will be honored at the Smithsonian this evening, as a matter of fact. Yet, all this occurred within a lifetime. I know we kid Senator Thurmond around here quite a lot about his age, but Senator Thurmond was born December 5, 1902. The Wright brothers did not fly until a year later, on December 7, 1903. So we have in this body right now a man whose lifetime spans all of manned flight, powered flight, from that first day at Kitty Hawk into space. Strom Thurmond has witnessed the complete history of flight. And we marvel at just how far we have come in an incredibly short period of time. We have literally gone from the Wright brothers to the Moon and beyond in a single lifetime. That is amazing. In that sense, I think it is fair to say that Orville and Wilbur Wright were our first astronauts, really, because they were the first who really did rise off the Earth's surface in a sustained way and make flight that then advanced to higher and higher altitudes until we are above the Earth's atmosphere now with different kinds of machines; though I think in some ways we could say that they were the first two who, as the poem goes, ``slipped the surly bonds of Earth''--slipped the surly bonds of Earth and ventured into the air under the power of a motor. Everything since then has just been going higher and going faster. I also think it is fair to say the Wright brothers personified something that is behind every single leap or advancement in science or human knowledge since the beginning of time. The one characteristic they had--we could lump it all together and say that is something that is in the heart of all human progress--is curiosity and an innate curiosity about how we can do things differently or whether we can explore and find new shores or whether we can do experiments and do research in new areas. Whether you look at the voyage of Christopher Columbus, who brought Europeans to the shore of North America, whether you look at the experiments of Alexander Fleming--you know what Alexander Fleming was curious about? It was plain old green mold on bread. He did not know why the patterns formed around the mold the way they did. The green mold, it was a particular pattern. He was curious about that. You know what that led to? His curiosity led to the discovery of penicillin and the development of modern antibiotics. That curiosity about green mold on bread has led to increased life expectancy of people all around this Earth. We have gone up in life expectancy more in the last 100 years than in the previous 2,000 years, I read in a magazine just a short time ago. So the discovery of penicillin and Alexander Fleming's curiosity about green bread mold that led to that, has really revolutionized this Earth. Or we go ahead with the unexpected circumstance in a small electronic switching device that led to the development of the first transistor and ultimately to today's incredibly sophisticated computer systems. It is clear to me that curiosity isn't what killed the cat. It is also the goose that laid the golden egg for all of humankind. That is going to be true in the future as well as the past. In field after field, in discipline after discipline, in industry after industry, it is curiosity, that insatiable, relentlessly questioning spirit that keeps asking ``why'' that has moved our species ahead. The irony, of course, is any time someone or a group such as the Wright brothers, or a group of people undertake an exploration or undertake to demonstrate a new idea, whether in a laboratory, a spaceship, a bicycle shop or on a production line, there are many who question the wisdom of it all. Those naysayers who wanted to know when their bike would be fixed with the Wright brothers believed that if we were to fly God would have given us feathers, they said. So there was a joke about the Wright brothers at that time. ``If God wanted us to fly, why don't we have feathers?" Well, they fortunately laughed along with everybody else, but at the same time went ahead with their work. They were not deterred. But if there is one thing we know for sure about research or any kind of exploration of the unknown, it is that it is impossible to know what we will see at the end or what it may lead to. I believe that today, as perhaps never before, we cannot afford to lose that kind of curiosity and questing spirit that the Wright brothers had. With it, we can continue to learn new things, first, for this Nation, putting them to practical application, staying ahead of global competition. That has been the story of this country's advancement. Without it, we will quickly become yesterday's leader, yesterday's leader, not tomorrow's leader but yesterday's leader, hopelessly trying to hold back the hands of the clock and to hold on to a past glory that can never be just retained or recaptured. So the spirit of the Wright brothers is needed as much today as before their very first flight. That is why today I am pleased to join with my colleagues--my colleague from Ohio, my colleagues from North Carolina--in introducing this legislation to establish a national commission to assist in the commemoration of the centennial of powered flight that will occur in 2003 and the achievements of the Wright brothers. Those who worked to build our national parks and memorials to the Wright brothers in Ohio and North Carolina where flight was born and first achieved will now work together to recall and remember the spirit of flight to be commemorated as we approach the centennial of flight in 2003. The spirit represented by the Wright brothers was captured in their own day by their good friend, Paul Lawrence [[Page S11967]] Dunbar, who captured in the prophetic verse which he penned the triumphs that are remembered at the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. One of his notations was: What dreams we have and how they fly like rosy clouds across the sky; of wealth, of fame of sure success . . . That is certainly what curiosity has brought us and what the Wright brothers brought us. Think of all that has occurred since that first flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Think of aviation today and all it entails and the giant industry. It has revised all the world's transportation, has revised our military, our security. All of that stemmed from that first flight in 1903. So we are happy to put in this legislation today. We hope that it is supported by all here, not just those from Ohio and North Carolina, because what started there in 1903 is something that affects everyone. It affects every State and every nation around the globe, even these days. And we look forward to this commission doing a great job in assisting in the commemoration of the centennial of powered flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers. Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of legislation being introduced by Senator Helms--the two Senators from Ohio--that would establish a National Commission to oversee the 100th anniversary of the first flight. Mr. President, on a cold, windy December morning in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Wright brothers changed the history of the world. Orville Wright flew for just 12 seconds--but it was the first manned flight. Today, many people take for granted what was accomplished by the Wright brothers that day, but at the time it was a historic achievement. Man had been thinking of flight for thousand of years--and yet the Wright brothers, here in the United States, were the first to do it. The development of flight grew rapidly. A little over a decade later, airplanes were used in the battles of World War I. Two decades after the 12-second first flight--Charles Lindbergh flew over the Atlantic. And of course, in 1962, in just a half century after the first 12- second flight, our distinguished colleague John Glenn was the first man to fly around the world in space. Seven years after that, we landed a man on the Moon. It is hard to believe that all of this has taken place in the span of less than 100 years. This is why the centennial anniversary of first flight is so significant to us, the sponsors of this legislation. The Commission will coordinate the plans for the celebration. The Wright brothers were from Ohio, of course, where they ran a bicycle shop. The State of North Carolina's license plates bear the slogan ``First in Flight''--so we are especially proud of this achievement in my State. To these two States, the celebration is important. But much more than that, I think the anniversary should be used to inspire students to learn more about the history of flight. Hopefully, it will remind people that this is a great nation inventors--and that American ingenuity has made us the greatest country in the history of the world. Finally, it should remind our citizens that America is a land of opportunity and freedom--where anyone's imagination can change the world. This is an entrepreneurial spirit that we must keep alive. I want to thank Senator Helms and Senators Glenn and DeWine for joining together today to introduce this legislation. I hope that the Senate will take it up soon. ______ By Mr. THOMAS (for himself, Mr. Kerrey, Mr. Enzi, and Mr. Hagel): S. 1398. A bill to extend certain contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and irrigation water contractors in Wyoming and Nebraska that receive water from Glendo Reservoir; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. THE IRRIGATION PROJECT CONTRACT EXTENSION ACT OF 1997 Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Irrigation Project Contract Extension Act of 1997. I am pleased to be joined in this endeavor by Senators Enzi, Kerrey, and Hagel. This legislation would extend, for a period of 3 years, certain water contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and irrigators in Wyoming and Nebraska that receive water from Glendo Reservoir. All contracts are subject to renewal on December 31, 1998. Extending these contracts is considered a major Federal action and, therefore, subject to review of the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] and the Endangered Species Act [ESA]. Without a short-term continuation agreement, the irrigators would be responsible for the costs of the analysis and other environmental documentation. Currently, the States of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado--and the Department of the Interior--are in the process of implementing a comprehensive ``Cooperative Agreement for Platte River Research and Other Efforts relating to Endangered Species Habitats along the Central Platte River, Nebraska.'' The term of this initiative is for 3 years, with an allowable 6-month extension. Upon completion of the cooperative agreement, efforts to enact the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program can begin. This basin wide, three-State plan will help to recover the endangered whooping crane, piping plover, and least stern, and improve critical habitats in the Central Platte River Basin. I believe it is important for Congress to act on this measure and extend these contracts for 3 years, or until the cooperative agreement is completed. In that time, the needed NEPA and ESA reviews will be fulfilled--clearing the way for the program to be initiated. It is important to remember that the program cannot be implemented until the environmental studies are completed and the parties have agreed to the results. Mr. President, this bill does not avoid environmental evaluation. It merely provides some relief to the water users, while allowing the NEPA and ESA documentation to take place through the cooperative agreement process. It is my understanding that once this agreement has expired, and if the Department of the Interior and the three States decide not to pursue the program, the contract renewal process would proceed as a separate Federal action at that time. This is good and fair legislation. It will benefit the environment and the water users. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and House to secure its passage. ______ By Mr. BOND: S. 1399. A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Army to carry out a project to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat of the Missouri River and the middle Mississippi River; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. THE FISH AND WILDLIFE HABITAT ACT OF 1997 Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation to enhance, preserve and protect habitat for fish and wildlife on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. This new 5-year $50 million authorization is a win-win approach that will implement and expand the use of new and innovative measures developed by the Corps of Engineers to improve habitat conservation without impacting adversely private property and other water-related needs of the rivers including navigation, flood control and water supply. As I have always maintained, fish and wildlife conservation and commercial activity are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, we cannot afford to abandon either river commerce or the species that live in and on the river. This new approach is a win for man, for nature and for the river. This legislation is supported by Missouri Farm Bureau, MARC2000, American Rivers, the Missouri Soybean Association, the Missouri Corngrowers Association, and Farmland Industries. While these groups have not always agreed on river policy, that should not preclude us from seeking common ground and working together to address the questions of resource management and I am delighted that we can all come together in support of this commonsense approach. Without specific authorization and only scarce dollars, the St. Louis Corps of Engineers has been developing and [[Page S11968]] testing ways in which navigation structures used to guide the river and maintain the channel may be modified to meet environmental as well as navigation goals. These innovations have proven successful earning wide acclaim including a Presidential Design Award and Federal Design Achievement Award. This legislation seeks to put these successful innovations to work on the Missouri River and expand their use on the middle Mississippi by providing a specific authorization and a dedicated and substantial source of funds. In other words, we are giving the corps the tools they need to put their ideas to work to improve the rivers to benefit fish and wildlife. The legislation authorizes $10 million per year to protect, create and enhance side channels, island habitat, sand bars, and other riverine habitat. For example, by notching rock dikes that run perpendicular to the shoreline, sandbars develop between the dikes which has been provided nesting habitat for the endangered least tern and valuable spawning ground for the endangered pallid sturgeon. The Missouri Department of Conservation has run tests validating an increase in diversity and numbers of microinvertebrates surrounding the notched dikes. Chevron dikes have been developed to improve river habitat and to create beneficial uses of dredge material. These structures are placed in the shallow side of the river channel pointing upstream which improves the river channel while serving as small islands. These islands encourage the development of all four primary river ecosystem habitats and additionally, various micro-organisms cling to the underwater rock structures, providing a food source for fish. Changing the gradation of rock revetments, used to stabilize eroding riverbanks, has proved to provide greater bank stability and precluded the need to remove bank vegetation so that, for the first time, trees and rock revetment could coexist providing greater habitat diversity. The draft legislation authorizes $10 million per year over 5 years to develop and implement a plan including the following activities: Modification and improvement of navigation training structures to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat; creation of side channels to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat; restoration and creation of island fish and wildlife habitat; creation of riverine fish and wildlife habitat; establishment of criteria to prioritize based on cost-effectiveness and likelihood of success; and physical and biological monitoring for evaluating the success of the project. The draft provides that the project be coordinated with other related Federal and State activities and that there be public participation in the development and implementation of the project. It requires a 25- percent non-Federal cost share and limits the Federal cost of any single project to $5 million. Finally, the draft legislation confers no new regulatory authority and requires compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The legislation is designed to work between the banks of the river and forbids expressly any adverse impacts on private lands and water- related activities including flood control, navigation, and water supply. Additionally, it is designed to compliment other existing programs such as the Missouri River Mitigation project and the Environmental Management Program on the Mississippi River. I intend to work with the administration and with other Senators and interested groups to build the broad support necessary to enact this legislation in an omnibus Water Resources Development Act the Senate is expected to consider in 1998. Mr. President, the problems experienced in the Midwest and elsewhere with railroad bottlenecks highlight the need for diverse transportation options. As the fall harvest proceeds, there are reports of grain being piled on the ground in neighboring Kansas and Nebraska. Notwithstanding that I must continue working on behalf of Missouri to preserve river navigation as a transportation option, our joint efforts to pursue this new legislation is a strong indicator that we may be experiencing an episode of domestic detente on river policy between groups that have pursued differing approaches in the past. This legislation offers a significant boost for our need to make the various river uses compatible and an important step toward unifying the river's stakeholders behind a realistic approach for the future. I thank and congratulate the various groups who have come together behind this legislation and look forward to enacting this consensus legislation. ______ By Mr. BUMPERS (for himself and Mr. Gorton): S. 1401. A bill to provide for the transition to competition around electric energy suppliers for the benefit and protection of consumers, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. the transition to electric competition act of 1997 Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I rise to day to introduce the Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997 along with my colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Gorton. This bill provides for the transition toward deregulation and competition in the electric utility industry. While few people find a discussion of the electric utility industry and the many laws and regulations governing the industry exciting, the fact is that electricity is an extremely important commodity which affects everyone on a daily basis. Any event that increases or reduces electric rates can impact: First, the lives of the poor and those on fixed incomes that depend on electricity to heat their homes in the winter and cool them in the summer; second, the price of goods we buy every day; as well as third, the competitiveness of our factories. In addition, decisions made by electric generators often have a direct effect on our environment as well as our energy security. It is not at all inconsequential that the electric utility industry, which has remained relatively static for the last 60 years, is undergoing a fundamental change. Instead of the traditional vertically integrated local utility, which generates power at its own plants, transmits that power over its own lines and sells that power to all consumers in a particular area, consumers in some States are starting to be bombarded with all sorts of offers from companies competing to become their power supplier, and other entrepreneurs will be seeking to buy large blocks of power to serve certain kinds of consumers. Naturally, these changes are bound to create considerable apprehension among both utilities and consumers. Mr. President, in January I introduced S. 237, the Electric Consumers Protection Act, because I believed that retail electric competition was inevitable and Federal legislation was necessary to ensure that certain consumers were not disadvantaged in the process. Several States were proceeding to introduce competition in their jurisdictions and a number of others were examining the matter. Since that time I have become even more convinced that competition is on the horizon. Eleven States have now enacted legislation or issued regulations requiring retail competition by a time certain. Almost every other State currently has the matter under review. Some argue that there is no need for the Federal Government to intervene; that the States are doing just fine on their own and they should decide when and how to proceed with retail electric competition. Mr. President, I couldn't disagree more. A State-by-State approach will likely produce a lot of unintended consequences which will limit the benefits associated with retail competition and could disadvantage certain consumers. Electric generation markets are becoming increasingly regional and even multi- regional. What happens in one State can have direct and indirect impacts on consumers and utilities located in another State. Utilities operating in more than one State can be subjected to conflicting regulatory regimes which could impact the way they operate their systems and the electric rates paid by consumers. This phenomenon is best illustrated by the multistate utility holding companies registered under the Public Utility Holding Company [PUHCA]. I have had a lot of experience with registered holding companies because two of them serve my home State of Arkansas. These holding companies generally plan for and operate generating facilities on a system-wide basis for the benefit of customers in the entire region [[Page S11969]] served by the company. If restructuring proceeds on a State-by-State basis, these holding companies would find themselves subjected to different requirements which could negatively impact consumers. A State-by-State approach to retail competition also present problems where utilities operate entirely within a single State. It would make no sense for a utility in a State that does not require retail competition, to be able to sell power at retail in an adjoining State that requires retail competition, while a utility subjected to retail competition is unable to mitigate its losses by competing for customers in the adjoining State. Such a result both increases stranded costs and distorts the generation marketplace. Moreover, the States can't adequately address issues associated with the use of transmission lines that provide for the transportation across a number of States or the ability of a utility with significant market power to dominate electricity generation in an entire region. Clearly these are issues that need to be resolved at the Federal level. When I introduced S. 237 there weren't many calling for Federal action. However, interested observers are increasingly coming to the conclusion that Federal electric restructuring legislation is not only helpful, but is necessary. Even some of the States are calling on the Federal Government to act. The legislation we are introducing today is an updated version of S. 237. The bill includes the following provisions: All consumers would have the right to choose their power supplier by January 1, 2002. States could choose an earlier date for their residents if they wish. Utilities would be able to recover their legitimate, prudent and verifiable costs that they would have been able to recover from ratepayers if retail competition had not been implemented. Consumers located in States that currently have low cost electricity would be protected from rate increases by ensuring that utilities can't use their existing assets to sell power in more lucrative markets to the disadvantage of their existing customers. All utilities selling retail power would be required to generate a portion of that power using renewable resources. All of the interstate transmission facilities throughout the country would be managed by independent system operators to ensure that electricity flows in an efficient manner and that markets are competitive. FERC would be given greater authority to protect against the use of market power by utilities to inhibit competition. Both the Public Utility Holding Company Act [PUHCA] and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act [PURPA] would be repealed in conjunction with the implementation of retail electric competition. In addition, Mr. President, the legislation attempts to address some of the issues that relate to the impact of retail electric competition on two Federal entities--the Bonneville Power Administration [BPA] and the Tennessee Valley Authority [TVA]. Senator Gorton is especially knowledgeable about the special problems facing BPA and I expect that he will work closely with the other Members of the Senate from the Pacific Northwest in developing a consensus approach. With regard to TVA, our bill attempts to develop an approach that will enable retail competition to be smoothly introduced in the Tennessee Valley and will help TVA pay off its tremendous debt. The bill also requires the TVA board to prepare a study examining whether TVA should be privatized. I know that some observers may be concerned that this could be a first step toward the privatization of the Federal Power Marketing Administration [PMA's]. Mr. President, there is no connection whatsoever between TVA and the PMA's. The PMA's market power generated at hydroelectric facilities located at Federal dams. These dams perform a variety of public services and cannot be privatized. TVA, on the other hand, generates the bulk of its power from coal and nuclear plants that serve no public purposes. In addition, the Federal PMA's pay for themselves through power sales. TVA, on the other hand, has an enormous level of privately held debt which it must find a way to pay off, since the Federal Government is not responsible for it. Mr. President, I am especially pleased that Senator Gorton has decided to join with me in the effort to enact comprehensive electric restructuring legislation. He has a reputation as a very bright and thoughtful Member of this body and is a distinguished member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the matter. I know that he shares my desire to move this legislation through Congress quickly next year. Senator Murkowski, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, recently indicated that he expects the committee to mark up electric restructuring legislation next year. Both Senator Gorton and I want to work with him and the other members of the committee in moving forward. I look forward to undertaking this important task. Mr. President, I want to say how honored I am to have one of our most distinguished Senators, Senator Gorton of Washington, as my chief cosponsor on this bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a section-by-section analysis of the Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997 be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: S. 1401 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. (a) Short title. This Act may be cited as the ``Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997''. (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents is as follows: Sec. 1. Short title and table of contents. Sec. 2. Findings. Sec. 3. Definitions. Sec. 4. Severability. Sec. 5. Enforcement. TITLE I--RETAIL COMPETITION Sec. 101. Mandatory retail access. Sec. 102. Aggregation. Sec. 103. Prior implementation. Sec. 104. State regulation. Sec. 105. Retail stranded cost recovery. Sec. 106. Wholesale stranded cost recovery. Sec. 107. Lost retail benefits. Sec. 108. Universal service. Sec. 109. Public benefits. Sec. 110. Renewable energy. Sec. 111. Determination of local distribution facilities. Sec. 112. Transmission. Sec. 113. Competitive generation markets. Sec. 114. Nuclear decommissioning costs. Sec. 115. Right to know. Sec. 116. Exemption of Alaska and Hawaii. TITLE II--PUBLIC UTILITY HOLDING COMPANIES Sec. 201. Repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Sec. 202. Exemptions. Sec. 203. Federal access to books and records. Sec. 204. State access to books and records. Sec. 205. Affiliate transactions. Sec. 206. Clarification of regulatory authority. Sec. 207. Effect on other regulation. Sec. 208. Enforcement. Sec. 209. Savings provision. Sec. 210. Implementation. Sec. 211. Resources. TITLE III--PUBLIC UTILITY REGULATORY POLICIES ACT Sec. 301. Definition. Sec. 302. Facilities. Sec. 303. Contracts. Sec. 304. Savings clause. Sec. 305. Effective date. TITLE IV--ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Sec. 401. Study. TITLE V--BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION Sec. 501. Findings and purposes. Sec. 502. Columbia River fish and wildlife coordination and governance. Sec. 503. Pacific Northwest federal transmission access. Sec. 504. Transition cost mechanism. Sec. 505. Independent system operator participation. Sec. 506. Financial obligations. Sec. 507. Prohibition on retail sales. Sec. 508. Clarification of Commission authority. Sec. 509. Repealed statute. TITLE VI--TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY Sec. 601. Competition in service territory. Sec. 602. Ability to sell electric energy. Sec. 603. Termination of contracts. Sec. 604. Rates for electric energy. Sec. 605. Privatization study. SEC. 2. FINDINGS. The Congress finds that: (a) Congress has the authority to enact laws, under the Commerce Clause of the [[Page S11970]] United States Constitution, regarding the wholesale and retail generation, transmission, distribution, and sale of electric energy in interstate commerce. (b) Several States have taken steps to require competition among retail electric supplies and a large number of other States are expected to act. (c) It has been the policy of Congress and the Commission to promote competition among wholesale electric suppliers. (d) It is in the public interest that the transition towards competition in electric service ensures that all consumers receive reliable and competitively-priced electric service. (e) Electric utility companies that prudently incurred costs pursuant to a regulatory structure that required them to provide electricity to consumers should not be penalized during the transition to competition. (f) Consumers will not benefit from the introduction of competition among electric energy suppliers if certain suppliers have undue market power. (g) It is important to encourage conservation and the use of renewable resources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, promote domestic energy security and protect the environment. (h) Competition among electric energy suppliers should not degrade reliability nor cause consumers to lose electric service. SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. For purposes of this Act: (a) The term ``affiliate'' of a specific company means any company 5 percent or more of whose outstanding voting securities are owned, controlled, or held with power to vote, directly or indirectly, by such specific company. (b) The term ``aggregator'' means any person that purchases or acquires retail electric energy on behalf of two or more consumers. (c) The term ``ancillary services'' shall have the same meaning assigned to it by the Commission. (d) The term ``associate company'' of a company means any company in the same holding company system with such company. (e) The term ``Commission'' means the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (f) The term ``company'' means a corporation, joint stock company, partnership, association, business trust, organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, or a receiver or receivers, trustee or trustees of any of the foregoing. (g) The term ``corporation'' means any corporation, joint- stock company, partnership, association, rural electric cooperative, municipal utility, business trust, organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, or a receiver or receivers, trustee or trustees of any of the foregoing. (h) The term ``electric utility company'' means any company that owns or operates facilities used for the generation, transmission or distribution of electric energy for sale. (i) The term ``gas utility company'' means any company that owns or operates facilities used for distribution at retail (other than the distribution only in enclosed portable containers) of natural or manufactured gas for heat, light or power. (j) The term ``holding company system'' means a holding company together with its subsidiary companies. (k) The term ``large hydroelectric facility'' means a facility which has a power production capacity which, together with any other facilities located at the same site, is greater than 80 megawatts. (l) The term ``local distribution facilities'' means facilities used to provide retail electric energy for ultimate consumption. (m) The term ``lost retail benefits'' means the increased cost of retail electric energy in a retail electric energy provider's service territory resulting from the sale subsequent to the implementation of retail electric competition, outside such service territory, of electric energy generated at facilities the cost of which were included in the retail rate base of the retail electric energy provider prior to the implementation of retail electric competition. (n) The term ``mitigation'' means any widely accepted business practice used by an electric utility company to dispose of or reduce uneconomic assets or costs. (o) The term ``municipal utility'' means a city, county, irrigation district, drainage district, or other political subdivision or agency of a State competent under the laws thereof to carry on the business of a retail electric energy provider and/or a retail electric energy supplier. (p) The term ``person'' means an individual or corporation. (q) The term ``public utility company'' means an electric utility company or gas utility company but does not mean a qualifying facility as defined in the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, or an exempt wholesale generator or a foreign utility company defined in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. (r) The term ``public utility holding company'' means (A) any company that directly or indirectly owns, controls, or holds with power to vote, 10 percent or more of the outstanding voting securities of a public utility company or of a holding company of any public utility company; and (B) any person, determined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, to exercise directly or indirectly (either alone or pursuant to an arrangement or understanding with one or more persons) such a controlling influence over the management or policies of any public utility or holding company as to make it necessary or appropriate for the protection of consumers with respect to rates that such person be subject to the obligations, duties, and liabilities imposed in this title upon holding companies. (s) The term ``renewable energy'' means electricity generated from solar, wind, waste, including municipal solid waste, biomass, hydroelectric or geothermal resources. (t) The term ``Renewable Energy Credit'' means a tradable certificate of proof that one unit (as determined by the Commission) of renewable energy was generated by any person. (u) The term ``retail electric competition'' means the ability of each consumer in a particular State to purchase retail electric energy from any person seeking to sell electric energy to such consumer. (v) The term ``retail electric energy'' means electric energy and ancillary services sold for ultimate consumption. (w) The term ``retail electric energy provider'' means any person who distributes retail electric energy to consumers regardless of whether the consumers purchase such energy from the provider or an alternative supplier. A retail electric energy provider may also be a retail electric energy supplier. (x) The term ``retail electric energy supplier'' means any person which sells retail electric energy to consumers. (y) The term ``retail stranded costs'' means all legitimate, prudent, verifiable and non-mitigatable costs incurred by an electric utility company in all of its generation assets which would have been recoverable in retail rates but for the implementation of retail electric competition, less the total market value of these assets after retail electric competition is implemented. Binding power purchase contracts and regulatory assets, the costs of which would have been recovered but for the implementation of retail electric competition, shall be considered generation assets for purposes of this subsection. (z) The term ``rural electric cooperative'' means a corporation that is currently paying off a loan for the purposes of providing electric service from the Administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration or the Rural Utilities Service under the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. (aa) The term ``State'' means any State or the District of Columbia. (bb) The term ``State regulatory authority'' means the regulatory body of a State or municipality having sole jurisdiction to regulate rates and charges for the distribution of electric energy to consumers within the State or municipality. (cc) The term ``subsidiary company'' of a holding company means-- (1) any company 10 percent or more of the outstanding voting securities of which are directly or indirectly owned, controlled, or held with power to vote, by such holding company; and (2) any person the management or policies of which the Securities and Exchange Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, determines to be subject to a controlling influence, directly or indirectly, by such holding company (either alone or pursuant to an arrangement or understanding with one or more other persons) so as to make it necessary for the protection of consumers that such person be subject to the obligations, duties, and liabilities imposed upon subsidiary companies of public utility holding companies. (dd) The term ``transmission system'' means all facilities, including federally-owned facilities, transmitting electricity in interstate commerce in a particular region, including all facilities transmitting electricity in the State of Texas and those providing international interconnections, but does not include local distribution facilities as determined by the Commission. (ee) The term ``wholesale electric energy'' means electric energy and ancillary services sold for resale. (ff) The term ``wholesale electric energy supplier'' means any person which sells wholesale electric energy. (gg) The term ``wholesale stranded costs'' shall have the same meaning as in the Commission's Order No. 888. (hh) The term ``voting security'' means any security presently entitling the owner or holder thereof to vote in the direction or management of the affairs of a company. SEC. 4. SEVERABILITY. If any provision of this Act, or the application of such provision to any person or circumstance, shall be held invalid, the remainder of the Act, and the application of such provision to persons or circumstances other than those as to which it is held invalid, shall not be affected thereby. SEC. 5. ENFORCEMENT. (a) Violation of the Act.--If any individual or corporation or any other retail electric energy supplier or provider fails to comply with the requirements of this Act, any aggrieved person may bring an action against such entity to enforce the requirements of this Act in the appropriate Federal district court. (b) State or Commission Action.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person seeking redress from an action taken by a State regulatory authority, the Commission or a regulatory board pursuant to this Act shall bring such action in the appropriate circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. [[Page S11971]] TITLE I--ELECTRIC COMPETITION SEC. 101. MANDATORY RETAIL ACCESS. (a) Customer Choice.--Beginning on January 1, 2002, each consumer shall have the right to purchase retail electric energy from any person offering to sell retail electric energy to such consumer, subject to any limitations imposed pursuant to section 104(a) of this Act. (b) Local Distribution and Retail Transmission Facilities.--Beginning on January 1, 2002, all persons seeking to sell retail electric energy shall have reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to the local distribution and retail transmission facilities of all retail electric energy providers and all ancillary services. SEC. 102. AGGREGATION. Subject to any limitations imposed pursuant to section 104(a) of this Act, a group of consumers or any person acting on behalf of such group may purchase or acquire retail electric energy for the members of the group if they are located in a State or States where there is retail electric competition. SEC. 103. PRIOR IMPLEMENTATION. (a) State Action.--Nothing in the Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 824 et seq.) shall be deemed to prohibit a State or State regulatory authority, if authorized under State law, from requiring retail electric energy providers selling retail electric energy to consumers in such State to provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to its local distribution facilities and all ancillary services to any retail electric energy supplier prior to January 1, 2002. (b) Grandfather.--Legislation enacted by a State or a regulation issued by a State regulatory authority which has the effect of providing all consumers in such State the opportunity to purchase retail electric energy from any retail electric energy supplier by January 1, 2002 and provides electric utility companies with the opportunity to recover their retail stranded costs as defined by this Act (unless there is an agreement between a State or State regulatory authority and a retail electric energy provider which provides for a different level of recovery), shall be deemed to be in compliance with the requirements of sections 101 and 105 of this Act. (c) Reciprocity.--A State or State regulatory authority that provides for retail electric competition may preclude any retail electric energy provider selling retail electric energy to consumers in another State and their affiliates from selling retail electric energy to consumers in the State with retail electric competition if the retail electric energy provider does not provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to its local distribution facilities to any retail electric energy supplier. SEC. 104. STATE REGULATION. (a) State Requirements.--A State or a State regulatory authority may impose requirements on persons seeking to sell retail electric energy to consumers in that State which are intended to promote the public interest, including requirements related to generation reliability and the provision of information to consumers and other retail electric energy suppliers. Any such requirements must be applied on a nondiscriminatory basis and may not be used to exclude any class of potential suppliers, such as retail electric energy providers, from the opportunity to sell retail electric energy. (b) Maintenance of State Authority.--Nothing in this Act is intended to prohibit a State from enacting laws or imposing regulations related to retail electric energy service that are consistent with the requirements of this Act. (c) Continued State Authority Over Distribution.--A State or State regulatory authority may continue to regulate local distribution service currently subject to State regulation, including billing and metering in any manner consistent with this Act. SEC. 105. RETAIL STRANDED COST RECOVERY. (a) Application for Deter

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STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
(Senate - November 07, 1997)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S11964-S12022] STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS By Mr. HELMS (for himself, Mr. Glenn, Mr. DeWine, and Mr. Faircloth): S. 1397. A bill to establish a commission to assist in commemoration of the centennial of powered flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers; to the Committee on Governmental Affairs. the centennial of flight commemorative act Mr. HELMS. Madam President, I have a bill, S. 1397, at the desk. Now, Senators DeWine, Faircloth, Glenn, and I are introducing this legislation, and we are naming it the Centennial of Flight Commemorative Act. As I indicated, the bill number is S. 1397. This significant legislation will establish a commission to assist the numerous events that will lead up to and include the celebration of the 100th anniversary of powered flight, a feat in all the history books, accomplished in my State of North Carolina by the geniuses, two brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Ohio brothers who were born and raised in Dayton where they operated a bicycle shop. I don't know whether you have been to Kitty Hawk, particularly in the middle of December, but it is not a comfortable place to be. Wilbur and Orville came to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to conduct their experiments. The first powered flight occurred at Kitty Hawk, NC, on December 17, 1903. In fact, the Wright brothers engaged in four flights that day, and with their effort they changed the concept of travel forever. About noon on that cold and windy December day, at Kitty Hawk, NC, the aviation age, the air age, began. So, Madam President, the Wright brothers were indisputably the first pioneers of powered flight, and they became national heroes, justifiably etched in history. As for our bill, S. 1397, the able Senator from Ohio, Mr. DeWine, and the able Senator from Ohio, Mr. Glenn, did excellent work in drafting this legislation. Senator Glenn, I am obliged to mention, and I am glad to do so, is a man of history himself in terms of powered flight. He was the first American, as all of us know, to orbit the Earth. When he walks up and down the corridors, I see mamas and daddies pointing to him saying, ``That's Senator Glenn.'' Senator Glenn and six other pioneers, the Mercury astronauts, got America's space program off the ground. Madam President, S. 1397--let me say the title again so it will register--the Centennial of Flight Commemorative Act--proposes the establishment of a commission of 21 individuals to plan for and assist in events leading up to and including the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' flights at Kitty Hawk. The commission will be composed of the Secretary of the Interior, the Director of the National Air and Space Museum, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Transportation, the NASA Administrator, and each of these officials can name a designee. Then there will be two representatives each from the States of North Carolina and Ohio and 12 other private citizens. Of these 12 private citizens, the President of the United States will appoint two from a list recommended by the Senate majority leader in consultation with the Senate minority leader, and two from a list recommended by the Speaker of the House in consultation with the House minority leader. The remaining eight will be chosen based on qualifications and/or experience in the fields of history, aerospace, science, industry, or other professions that will enhance the work of the commission. The commission will represent the United States and take a leadership role with other nations in recognizing the achievement of the Wright brothers and the importance of aviation history. The commission's activities will be closely coordinated with the First Flight Centennial Commission and the First Flight Centennial Foundation of North Carolina and the 2003 Committee of the State of Ohio. The commission is allowed to retain an executive director and staff that may be required in order to carry out its functions. S. 1397 authorizes appropriations of $250,000 for each of the fiscal years 1998 to 2004 to fund the work of the commission. Additionally, the commission may accept monetary contributions and other in kind contributions, volunteer [[Page S11965]] services and the like. In order to further defray the expenses of the commission, the legislation gives it exclusive right to names, logos, emblems, seals, and marks, which may be licensed on which proceeds from royalties will be used to offset the operating costs of the commission. S. 1397 requires that annual audits of the commission be conducted by the Inspector General of the General Services Administration to ensure its financial integrity. The commission shall be terminated no later than 60 days after the submission of the final audit report. Senators may ask why establish a Federal commission to commemorate this event? The Wright brothers' triumph at Kitty Hawk on that bone- chilling day of December 17, 1903 has to rank as one of mankind's greatest achievement. The world has not been the same since. As the development of the airplane progressed so did its uses in warfare and civilian aviation. Its development spawned generations of aviation trailblazers. Names like Eddie Rickenbacker, Billy Mitchell, Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle, Chuck Yeager, and the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and space shuttle astronauts became household words. What is even more astonishing is that 66 years later, Neil Armstrong of Ohio became the first man to set foot on the moon. That would not have been possible without the Wright brothers. Because of the Wright brothers you can get on a jet aircraft at Dulles Airport and be in London in six or seven hours, far less if you are flying the Concorde. You can fly from New York to Tokyo in 14 hours. On the Concorde, you can travel from New York to London in 3 hours and 50 minutes. We are seeing daily developments in aviation, faster planes, new space technologies, all because of the genius of Wilbur and Orville Wright. I hope the Senate will swiftly approve this legislation. Mr. DeWINE. Madam President, I thank the Chair, and I thank my distinguished colleague from North Carolina. I am delighted to join him, as well as Senator Faircloth and Senator Glenn, in introducing a bill to create the Centennial of Flight Commission. In the year 2003, the United States and, indeed, the world will celebrate a truly breathtaking anniversary. That date will mark exactly 100 years of the adventure of human flight. For those of us who are from the State of Ohio, it is an especially important anniversary as Senator Helms has so ably described--first and foremost because the Wright brothers, the very first pioneers of powered flight, were from Dayton, OH. It was in Dayton, OH, that they grew up. It was in Dayton, OH, that they had a print shop. It was in Dayton, OH, that they had the bicycle shop that was referred to a moment ago by Senator Helms. It was at Huffman Prairie, in Montgomery County, actually what is now enclosed in Wright Patterson Air Force Base, technically in Greene County, that the Wright brothers learned to fly. So, those of us from Ohio are very proud of the Wright brothers, as this whole country is. We are also proud in Ohio that ever since the time of the Wright brothers, Ohio has continued to build a proud aviation history. From the Wright brothers to World War I flying ace David Ingalls, to John Glenn who just walked on to the floor of the Senate, the first man, the first American to orbit the Earth, to Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, to the incredible research being done right now at NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, OH, has continually been a part of the great epic of aviation. This is, indeed, cause for celebration, and that is what this bill is all about. It would create a commission to coordinate the centennial of flight celebration in the year 2003. The commission will be composed of 21 members: the Secretaries of the Interior, Transportation, and Defense; the Director of the National Air and Space Museum; the Administrator of NASA; two people from North Carolina; the president and chairman of the First Flight Centennial Commission; and two people from the State of Ohio, the Governor and the chairman of the 2003 Committee, and 12 additional Presidential appointees. Madam President, this commission will help the United States take a leadership role in planning international celebrations of the centennial of flight, promoting participation and sponsorship by the aerospace industry, the commercial aviation industry, educational institutions, and State and local governments. The commission is going to distribute a calendar, a register of national and international programs and projects concerning the flight centennial. What I hope most of all is that these celebrations will recognize that the history of flight is not just the story about machines or about the triumph of technology. It is rather a story about people. It is a story of how human creativity overcame one of the most fundamental barriers that humans ever faced. For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings could not fly, but in this century, thanks to the freedom and spirit of creativity in this country, the human race broke the bonds of Earth. So, from Dayton to Kitty Hawk and beyond the limits of our solar system, this is a story to truly celebrate. Madam President, I see my distinguished senior Senator from the State of Ohio, the honorable John Glenn, is on the floor. I yield to Senator Glenn. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized. Mr. GLENN. Thank you, Madam President. I thank my distinguished colleague. I rise as a cosponsor of this legislation to establish a national Commission on the Centennial of Flight. We have been very proud through the years to have worked with the people of Dayton, OH, in an effort to recognize the very exceptional contribution of the two brothers who ran the bicycle shop and dreamed of flight. They watched the birds and dreamed of flight, not knowing whether it would ever be possible. In 1992, it was my privilege to sponsor the legislation that established the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park which commemorates the extraordinary lives of Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, a black man, a poet, one of the finest poets, who was a close friend of the Wright brothers. That park and the memorial in North Carolina recall that on December 17, 1903, Orville Wright flew 120 feet in 12 seconds. Can we imagine that, 120 feet in 12 seconds? But it was under power. It was the airplane that is over in the Smithsonian now. It was under powered flight with an engine and propeller. It was the first sustained flight in a power-driven, heavier-than-air machine. There were three other flights that day. We don't often hear about those. There were three other flights that day, and Wilbur Wright set a new world record flying on one of those flights 352 feet in 59 seconds. It was more than the length of a football field. Very little attention was paid at that time. People were very doubtful. Octave Chanute reported the achievement in Popular Science Monthly in March 1904. But the first--I think this is very interesting--the first eyewitness report about those flights appeared in a publication called Gleanings in Bee Culture, and that was in January 1905. That was the first real eyewitness report of Orville and Wilbur Wright's flights. The work had begun in 1899 with a serious study of everything the Wrights could find on aeronautics. In 1900, to test their glider, they selected Kitty Hawk on the word of the weather bureau because of the steadiness of the winds and direction of the winds at that time. The test glider in 1900 and 1901 failed to achieve the lifting power that they thought they needed and anticipated. They went back to Dayton and built a 6-foot wind tunnel to conduct experiments with over 200 different wing models. They developed the first reliable tables on the effects of air pressure on curved surfaces, the principles that we use today and that you see on every airplane, whether it is a general aviation small light airplane or a giant 747 or whether it is the Concorde flying at supersonic speed across the Atlantic Ocean. They developed these 200 different wing models and experimented with them. They developed the first reliable tables on the effects of air pressure on curved surfaces. [[Page S11966]] In 1902, they conducted over almost 1,000 tests with a more promising glider. In 1903, the Wright brothers had completed the construction of a larger plane powered by their own lightweight gas-powered engine. Arriving in Kitty Hawk in September, storms and mechanical difficulties delayed trials until December. On the 17th, four men and a boy witnessed the very first flight, and a memorable photograph, fortunately, was captured. Four men and a boy witnessed that first flight. Back home in Dayton in 1904 and 1905, the Wright brothers continued testing their invention at Huffman Prairie, which is the area adjacent to what is today Wright Patterson Air Force Base where they first achieved maneuverable flight. In 1908, Wilbur and Orville signed a contract with the War Department for the first military airplane. In September, Orville circled the parade ground at an altitude of 120 feet just across the Potomac River from us today, over at Fort Meyer in Virginia. When most people these days think of the Wright brothers, we tend to think of them as having lived a long, long time ago. We tend to think of the Wright brothers as being part of ancient history. We also think of their airplane, the Wright Flyer III, as being an incredibly primitive machine, at least by today's standards. And it was a primitive machine. There were no fancy guidance systems or high-tech controls. By swiveling their hips from one side to the other, Orville and Wilbur could steer the airplane. To this day, when young people come in, when school groups come to Washington and visit my office and they say they are going over to the Air and Space Museum, I always tell them to get up on the gallery level and look down on the Wright brothers' airplane and see how they controlled flight, because the person flying lay on the lower wing and had a wooden yoke around his hips. That wooden yoke slid back and forth and there was a wire that went to the trailing edge of the upper wing, and they would slide in the direction they wanted to go, slide their hips over, pull that wire and literally warp the trailing edge of the wing down and made more lift on the wing on that side and the airplane would turn in the direction their hips were slid toward. I am glad they developed later on in aviation a better means of control. We can imagine a 747 pilot today making an approach swiveling his hips back and forth. But that was the way the Wright brothers controlled those very early flights. The first flight at Kitty Hawk and Huffman Prairie seemed so far removed from what we did later on, from my own experience in orbital flight in 1962, or from the first lunar landing, or from living aboard the orbiting space station for weeks on end, as Shannon Lucid did. She was up there for 188 days. She will be honored at the Smithsonian this evening, as a matter of fact. Yet, all this occurred within a lifetime. I know we kid Senator Thurmond around here quite a lot about his age, but Senator Thurmond was born December 5, 1902. The Wright brothers did not fly until a year later, on December 7, 1903. So we have in this body right now a man whose lifetime spans all of manned flight, powered flight, from that first day at Kitty Hawk into space. Strom Thurmond has witnessed the complete history of flight. And we marvel at just how far we have come in an incredibly short period of time. We have literally gone from the Wright brothers to the Moon and beyond in a single lifetime. That is amazing. In that sense, I think it is fair to say that Orville and Wilbur Wright were our first astronauts, really, because they were the first who really did rise off the Earth's surface in a sustained way and make flight that then advanced to higher and higher altitudes until we are above the Earth's atmosphere now with different kinds of machines; though I think in some ways we could say that they were the first two who, as the poem goes, ``slipped the surly bonds of Earth''--slipped the surly bonds of Earth and ventured into the air under the power of a motor. Everything since then has just been going higher and going faster. I also think it is fair to say the Wright brothers personified something that is behind every single leap or advancement in science or human knowledge since the beginning of time. The one characteristic they had--we could lump it all together and say that is something that is in the heart of all human progress--is curiosity and an innate curiosity about how we can do things differently or whether we can explore and find new shores or whether we can do experiments and do research in new areas. Whether you look at the voyage of Christopher Columbus, who brought Europeans to the shore of North America, whether you look at the experiments of Alexander Fleming--you know what Alexander Fleming was curious about? It was plain old green mold on bread. He did not know why the patterns formed around the mold the way they did. The green mold, it was a particular pattern. He was curious about that. You know what that led to? His curiosity led to the discovery of penicillin and the development of modern antibiotics. That curiosity about green mold on bread has led to increased life expectancy of people all around this Earth. We have gone up in life expectancy more in the last 100 years than in the previous 2,000 years, I read in a magazine just a short time ago. So the discovery of penicillin and Alexander Fleming's curiosity about green bread mold that led to that, has really revolutionized this Earth. Or we go ahead with the unexpected circumstance in a small electronic switching device that led to the development of the first transistor and ultimately to today's incredibly sophisticated computer systems. It is clear to me that curiosity isn't what killed the cat. It is also the goose that laid the golden egg for all of humankind. That is going to be true in the future as well as the past. In field after field, in discipline after discipline, in industry after industry, it is curiosity, that insatiable, relentlessly questioning spirit that keeps asking ``why'' that has moved our species ahead. The irony, of course, is any time someone or a group such as the Wright brothers, or a group of people undertake an exploration or undertake to demonstrate a new idea, whether in a laboratory, a spaceship, a bicycle shop or on a production line, there are many who question the wisdom of it all. Those naysayers who wanted to know when their bike would be fixed with the Wright brothers believed that if we were to fly God would have given us feathers, they said. So there was a joke about the Wright brothers at that time. ``If God wanted us to fly, why don't we have feathers?" Well, they fortunately laughed along with everybody else, but at the same time went ahead with their work. They were not deterred. But if there is one thing we know for sure about research or any kind of exploration of the unknown, it is that it is impossible to know what we will see at the end or what it may lead to. I believe that today, as perhaps never before, we cannot afford to lose that kind of curiosity and questing spirit that the Wright brothers had. With it, we can continue to learn new things, first, for this Nation, putting them to practical application, staying ahead of global competition. That has been the story of this country's advancement. Without it, we will quickly become yesterday's leader, yesterday's leader, not tomorrow's leader but yesterday's leader, hopelessly trying to hold back the hands of the clock and to hold on to a past glory that can never be just retained or recaptured. So the spirit of the Wright brothers is needed as much today as before their very first flight. That is why today I am pleased to join with my colleagues--my colleague from Ohio, my colleagues from North Carolina--in introducing this legislation to establish a national commission to assist in the commemoration of the centennial of powered flight that will occur in 2003 and the achievements of the Wright brothers. Those who worked to build our national parks and memorials to the Wright brothers in Ohio and North Carolina where flight was born and first achieved will now work together to recall and remember the spirit of flight to be commemorated as we approach the centennial of flight in 2003. The spirit represented by the Wright brothers was captured in their own day by their good friend, Paul Lawrence [[Page S11967]] Dunbar, who captured in the prophetic verse which he penned the triumphs that are remembered at the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. One of his notations was: What dreams we have and how they fly like rosy clouds across the sky; of wealth, of fame of sure success . . . That is certainly what curiosity has brought us and what the Wright brothers brought us. Think of all that has occurred since that first flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Think of aviation today and all it entails and the giant industry. It has revised all the world's transportation, has revised our military, our security. All of that stemmed from that first flight in 1903. So we are happy to put in this legislation today. We hope that it is supported by all here, not just those from Ohio and North Carolina, because what started there in 1903 is something that affects everyone. It affects every State and every nation around the globe, even these days. And we look forward to this commission doing a great job in assisting in the commemoration of the centennial of powered flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers. Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of legislation being introduced by Senator Helms--the two Senators from Ohio--that would establish a National Commission to oversee the 100th anniversary of the first flight. Mr. President, on a cold, windy December morning in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Wright brothers changed the history of the world. Orville Wright flew for just 12 seconds--but it was the first manned flight. Today, many people take for granted what was accomplished by the Wright brothers that day, but at the time it was a historic achievement. Man had been thinking of flight for thousand of years--and yet the Wright brothers, here in the United States, were the first to do it. The development of flight grew rapidly. A little over a decade later, airplanes were used in the battles of World War I. Two decades after the 12-second first flight--Charles Lindbergh flew over the Atlantic. And of course, in 1962, in just a half century after the first 12- second flight, our distinguished colleague John Glenn was the first man to fly around the world in space. Seven years after that, we landed a man on the Moon. It is hard to believe that all of this has taken place in the span of less than 100 years. This is why the centennial anniversary of first flight is so significant to us, the sponsors of this legislation. The Commission will coordinate the plans for the celebration. The Wright brothers were from Ohio, of course, where they ran a bicycle shop. The State of North Carolina's license plates bear the slogan ``First in Flight''--so we are especially proud of this achievement in my State. To these two States, the celebration is important. But much more than that, I think the anniversary should be used to inspire students to learn more about the history of flight. Hopefully, it will remind people that this is a great nation inventors--and that American ingenuity has made us the greatest country in the history of the world. Finally, it should remind our citizens that America is a land of opportunity and freedom--where anyone's imagination can change the world. This is an entrepreneurial spirit that we must keep alive. I want to thank Senator Helms and Senators Glenn and DeWine for joining together today to introduce this legislation. I hope that the Senate will take it up soon. ______ By Mr. THOMAS (for himself, Mr. Kerrey, Mr. Enzi, and Mr. Hagel): S. 1398. A bill to extend certain contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and irrigation water contractors in Wyoming and Nebraska that receive water from Glendo Reservoir; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. THE IRRIGATION PROJECT CONTRACT EXTENSION ACT OF 1997 Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Irrigation Project Contract Extension Act of 1997. I am pleased to be joined in this endeavor by Senators Enzi, Kerrey, and Hagel. This legislation would extend, for a period of 3 years, certain water contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and irrigators in Wyoming and Nebraska that receive water from Glendo Reservoir. All contracts are subject to renewal on December 31, 1998. Extending these contracts is considered a major Federal action and, therefore, subject to review of the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] and the Endangered Species Act [ESA]. Without a short-term continuation agreement, the irrigators would be responsible for the costs of the analysis and other environmental documentation. Currently, the States of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado--and the Department of the Interior--are in the process of implementing a comprehensive ``Cooperative Agreement for Platte River Research and Other Efforts relating to Endangered Species Habitats along the Central Platte River, Nebraska.'' The term of this initiative is for 3 years, with an allowable 6-month extension. Upon completion of the cooperative agreement, efforts to enact the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program can begin. This basin wide, three-State plan will help to recover the endangered whooping crane, piping plover, and least stern, and improve critical habitats in the Central Platte River Basin. I believe it is important for Congress to act on this measure and extend these contracts for 3 years, or until the cooperative agreement is completed. In that time, the needed NEPA and ESA reviews will be fulfilled--clearing the way for the program to be initiated. It is important to remember that the program cannot be implemented until the environmental studies are completed and the parties have agreed to the results. Mr. President, this bill does not avoid environmental evaluation. It merely provides some relief to the water users, while allowing the NEPA and ESA documentation to take place through the cooperative agreement process. It is my understanding that once this agreement has expired, and if the Department of the Interior and the three States decide not to pursue the program, the contract renewal process would proceed as a separate Federal action at that time. This is good and fair legislation. It will benefit the environment and the water users. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and House to secure its passage. ______ By Mr. BOND: S. 1399. A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Army to carry out a project to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat of the Missouri River and the middle Mississippi River; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. THE FISH AND WILDLIFE HABITAT ACT OF 1997 Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation to enhance, preserve and protect habitat for fish and wildlife on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. This new 5-year $50 million authorization is a win-win approach that will implement and expand the use of new and innovative measures developed by the Corps of Engineers to improve habitat conservation without impacting adversely private property and other water-related needs of the rivers including navigation, flood control and water supply. As I have always maintained, fish and wildlife conservation and commercial activity are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, we cannot afford to abandon either river commerce or the species that live in and on the river. This new approach is a win for man, for nature and for the river. This legislation is supported by Missouri Farm Bureau, MARC2000, American Rivers, the Missouri Soybean Association, the Missouri Corngrowers Association, and Farmland Industries. While these groups have not always agreed on river policy, that should not preclude us from seeking common ground and working together to address the questions of resource management and I am delighted that we can all come together in support of this commonsense approach. Without specific authorization and only scarce dollars, the St. Louis Corps of Engineers has been developing and [[Page S11968]] testing ways in which navigation structures used to guide the river and maintain the channel may be modified to meet environmental as well as navigation goals. These innovations have proven successful earning wide acclaim including a Presidential Design Award and Federal Design Achievement Award. This legislation seeks to put these successful innovations to work on the Missouri River and expand their use on the middle Mississippi by providing a specific authorization and a dedicated and substantial source of funds. In other words, we are giving the corps the tools they need to put their ideas to work to improve the rivers to benefit fish and wildlife. The legislation authorizes $10 million per year to protect, create and enhance side channels, island habitat, sand bars, and other riverine habitat. For example, by notching rock dikes that run perpendicular to the shoreline, sandbars develop between the dikes which has been provided nesting habitat for the endangered least tern and valuable spawning ground for the endangered pallid sturgeon. The Missouri Department of Conservation has run tests validating an increase in diversity and numbers of microinvertebrates surrounding the notched dikes. Chevron dikes have been developed to improve river habitat and to create beneficial uses of dredge material. These structures are placed in the shallow side of the river channel pointing upstream which improves the river channel while serving as small islands. These islands encourage the development of all four primary river ecosystem habitats and additionally, various micro-organisms cling to the underwater rock structures, providing a food source for fish. Changing the gradation of rock revetments, used to stabilize eroding riverbanks, has proved to provide greater bank stability and precluded the need to remove bank vegetation so that, for the first time, trees and rock revetment could coexist providing greater habitat diversity. The draft legislation authorizes $10 million per year over 5 years to develop and implement a plan including the following activities: Modification and improvement of navigation training structures to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat; creation of side channels to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat; restoration and creation of island fish and wildlife habitat; creation of riverine fish and wildlife habitat; establishment of criteria to prioritize based on cost-effectiveness and likelihood of success; and physical and biological monitoring for evaluating the success of the project. The draft provides that the project be coordinated with other related Federal and State activities and that there be public participation in the development and implementation of the project. It requires a 25- percent non-Federal cost share and limits the Federal cost of any single project to $5 million. Finally, the draft legislation confers no new regulatory authority and requires compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The legislation is designed to work between the banks of the river and forbids expressly any adverse impacts on private lands and water- related activities including flood control, navigation, and water supply. Additionally, it is designed to compliment other existing programs such as the Missouri River Mitigation project and the Environmental Management Program on the Mississippi River. I intend to work with the administration and with other Senators and interested groups to build the broad support necessary to enact this legislation in an omnibus Water Resources Development Act the Senate is expected to consider in 1998. Mr. President, the problems experienced in the Midwest and elsewhere with railroad bottlenecks highlight the need for diverse transportation options. As the fall harvest proceeds, there are reports of grain being piled on the ground in neighboring Kansas and Nebraska. Notwithstanding that I must continue working on behalf of Missouri to preserve river navigation as a transportation option, our joint efforts to pursue this new legislation is a strong indicator that we may be experiencing an episode of domestic detente on river policy between groups that have pursued differing approaches in the past. This legislation offers a significant boost for our need to make the various river uses compatible and an important step toward unifying the river's stakeholders behind a realistic approach for the future. I thank and congratulate the various groups who have come together behind this legislation and look forward to enacting this consensus legislation. ______ By Mr. BUMPERS (for himself and Mr. Gorton): S. 1401. A bill to provide for the transition to competition around electric energy suppliers for the benefit and protection of consumers, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. the transition to electric competition act of 1997 Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I rise to day to introduce the Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997 along with my colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Gorton. This bill provides for the transition toward deregulation and competition in the electric utility industry. While few people find a discussion of the electric utility industry and the many laws and regulations governing the industry exciting, the fact is that electricity is an extremely important commodity which affects everyone on a daily basis. Any event that increases or reduces electric rates can impact: First, the lives of the poor and those on fixed incomes that depend on electricity to heat their homes in the winter and cool them in the summer; second, the price of goods we buy every day; as well as third, the competitiveness of our factories. In addition, decisions made by electric generators often have a direct effect on our environment as well as our energy security. It is not at all inconsequential that the electric utility industry, which has remained relatively static for the last 60 years, is undergoing a fundamental change. Instead of the traditional vertically integrated local utility, which generates power at its own plants, transmits that power over its own lines and sells that power to all consumers in a particular area, consumers in some States are starting to be bombarded with all sorts of offers from companies competing to become their power supplier, and other entrepreneurs will be seeking to buy large blocks of power to serve certain kinds of consumers. Naturally, these changes are bound to create considerable apprehension among both utilities and consumers. Mr. President, in January I introduced S. 237, the Electric Consumers Protection Act, because I believed that retail electric competition was inevitable and Federal legislation was necessary to ensure that certain consumers were not disadvantaged in the process. Several States were proceeding to introduce competition in their jurisdictions and a number of others were examining the matter. Since that time I have become even more convinced that competition is on the horizon. Eleven States have now enacted legislation or issued regulations requiring retail competition by a time certain. Almost every other State currently has the matter under review. Some argue that there is no need for the Federal Government to intervene; that the States are doing just fine on their own and they should decide when and how to proceed with retail electric competition. Mr. President, I couldn't disagree more. A State-by-State approach will likely produce a lot of unintended consequences which will limit the benefits associated with retail competition and could disadvantage certain consumers. Electric generation markets are becoming increasingly regional and even multi- regional. What happens in one State can have direct and indirect impacts on consumers and utilities located in another State. Utilities operating in more than one State can be subjected to conflicting regulatory regimes which could impact the way they operate their systems and the electric rates paid by consumers. This phenomenon is best illustrated by the multistate utility holding companies registered under the Public Utility Holding Company [PUHCA]. I have had a lot of experience with registered holding companies because two of them serve my home State of Arkansas. These holding companies generally plan for and operate generating facilities on a system-wide basis for the benefit of customers in the entire region [[Page S11969]] served by the company. If restructuring proceeds on a State-by-State basis, these holding companies would find themselves subjected to different requirements which could negatively impact consumers. A State-by-State approach to retail competition also present problems where utilities operate entirely within a single State. It would make no sense for a utility in a State that does not require retail competition, to be able to sell power at retail in an adjoining State that requires retail competition, while a utility subjected to retail competition is unable to mitigate its losses by competing for customers in the adjoining State. Such a result both increases stranded costs and distorts the generation marketplace. Moreover, the States can't adequately address issues associated with the use of transmission lines that provide for the transportation across a number of States or the ability of a utility with significant market power to dominate electricity generation in an entire region. Clearly these are issues that need to be resolved at the Federal level. When I introduced S. 237 there weren't many calling for Federal action. However, interested observers are increasingly coming to the conclusion that Federal electric restructuring legislation is not only helpful, but is necessary. Even some of the States are calling on the Federal Government to act. The legislation we are introducing today is an updated version of S. 237. The bill includes the following provisions: All consumers would have the right to choose their power supplier by January 1, 2002. States could choose an earlier date for their residents if they wish. Utilities would be able to recover their legitimate, prudent and verifiable costs that they would have been able to recover from ratepayers if retail competition had not been implemented. Consumers located in States that currently have low cost electricity would be protected from rate increases by ensuring that utilities can't use their existing assets to sell power in more lucrative markets to the disadvantage of their existing customers. All utilities selling retail power would be required to generate a portion of that power using renewable resources. All of the interstate transmission facilities throughout the country would be managed by independent system operators to ensure that electricity flows in an efficient manner and that markets are competitive. FERC would be given greater authority to protect against the use of market power by utilities to inhibit competition. Both the Public Utility Holding Company Act [PUHCA] and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act [PURPA] would be repealed in conjunction with the implementation of retail electric competition. In addition, Mr. President, the legislation attempts to address some of the issues that relate to the impact of retail electric competition on two Federal entities--the Bonneville Power Administration [BPA] and the Tennessee Valley Authority [TVA]. Senator Gorton is especially knowledgeable about the special problems facing BPA and I expect that he will work closely with the other Members of the Senate from the Pacific Northwest in developing a consensus approach. With regard to TVA, our bill attempts to develop an approach that will enable retail competition to be smoothly introduced in the Tennessee Valley and will help TVA pay off its tremendous debt. The bill also requires the TVA board to prepare a study examining whether TVA should be privatized. I know that some observers may be concerned that this could be a first step toward the privatization of the Federal Power Marketing Administration [PMA's]. Mr. President, there is no connection whatsoever between TVA and the PMA's. The PMA's market power generated at hydroelectric facilities located at Federal dams. These dams perform a variety of public services and cannot be privatized. TVA, on the other hand, generates the bulk of its power from coal and nuclear plants that serve no public purposes. In addition, the Federal PMA's pay for themselves through power sales. TVA, on the other hand, has an enormous level of privately held debt which it must find a way to pay off, since the Federal Government is not responsible for it. Mr. President, I am especially pleased that Senator Gorton has decided to join with me in the effort to enact comprehensive electric restructuring legislation. He has a reputation as a very bright and thoughtful Member of this body and is a distinguished member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the matter. I know that he shares my desire to move this legislation through Congress quickly next year. Senator Murkowski, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, recently indicated that he expects the committee to mark up electric restructuring legislation next year. Both Senator Gorton and I want to work with him and the other members of the committee in moving forward. I look forward to undertaking this important task. Mr. President, I want to say how honored I am to have one of our most distinguished Senators, Senator Gorton of Washington, as my chief cosponsor on this bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a section-by-section analysis of the Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997 be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: S. 1401 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. (a) Short title. This Act may be cited as the ``Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997''. (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents is as follows: Sec. 1. Short title and table of contents. Sec. 2. Findings. Sec. 3. Definitions. Sec. 4. Severability. Sec. 5. Enforcement. TITLE I--RETAIL COMPETITION Sec. 101. Mandatory retail access. Sec. 102. Aggregation. Sec. 103. Prior implementation. Sec. 104. State regulation. Sec. 105. Retail stranded cost recovery. Sec. 106. Wholesale stranded cost recovery. Sec. 107. Lost retail benefits. Sec. 108. Universal service. Sec. 109. Public benefits. Sec. 110. Renewable energy. Sec. 111. Determination of local distribution facilities. Sec. 112. Transmission. Sec. 113. Competitive generation markets. Sec. 114. Nuclear decommissioning costs. Sec. 115. Right to know. Sec. 116. Exemption of Alaska and Hawaii. TITLE II--PUBLIC UTILITY HOLDING COMPANIES Sec. 201. Repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Sec. 202. Exemptions. Sec. 203. Federal access to books and records. Sec. 204. State access to books and records. Sec. 205. Affiliate transactions. Sec. 206. Clarification of regulatory authority. Sec. 207. Effect on other regulation. Sec. 208. Enforcement. Sec. 209. Savings provision. Sec. 210. Implementation. Sec. 211. Resources. TITLE III--PUBLIC UTILITY REGULATORY POLICIES ACT Sec. 301. Definition. Sec. 302. Facilities. Sec. 303. Contracts. Sec. 304. Savings clause. Sec. 305. Effective date. TITLE IV--ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Sec. 401. Study. TITLE V--BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION Sec. 501. Findings and purposes. Sec. 502. Columbia River fish and wildlife coordination and governance. Sec. 503. Pacific Northwest federal transmission access. Sec. 504. Transition cost mechanism. Sec. 505. Independent system operator participation. Sec. 506. Financial obligations. Sec. 507. Prohibition on retail sales. Sec. 508. Clarification of Commission authority. Sec. 509. Repealed statute. TITLE VI--TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY Sec. 601. Competition in service territory. Sec. 602. Ability to sell electric energy. Sec. 603. Termination of contracts. Sec. 604. Rates for electric energy. Sec. 605. Privatization study. SEC. 2. FINDINGS. The Congress finds that: (a) Congress has the authority to enact laws, under the Commerce Clause of the [[Page S11970]] United States Constitution, regarding the wholesale and retail generation, transmission, distribution, and sale of electric energy in interstate commerce. (b) Several States have taken steps to require competition among retail electric supplies and a large number of other States are expected to act. (c) It has been the policy of Congress and the Commission to promote competition among wholesale electric suppliers. (d) It is in the public interest that the transition towards competition in electric service ensures that all consumers receive reliable and competitively-priced electric service. (e) Electric utility companies that prudently incurred costs pursuant to a regulatory structure that required them to provide electricity to consumers should not be penalized during the transition to competition. (f) Consumers will not benefit from the introduction of competition among electric energy suppliers if certain suppliers have undue market power. (g) It is important to encourage conservation and the use of renewable resources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, promote domestic energy security and protect the environment. (h) Competition among electric energy suppliers should not degrade reliability nor cause consumers to lose electric service. SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. For purposes of this Act: (a) The term ``affiliate'' of a specific company means any company 5 percent or more of whose outstanding voting securities are owned, controlled, or held with power to vote, directly or indirectly, by such specific company. (b) The term ``aggregator'' means any person that purchases or acquires retail electric energy on behalf of two or more consumers. (c) The term ``ancillary services'' shall have the same meaning assigned to it by the Commission. (d) The term ``associate company'' of a company means any company in the same holding company system with such company. (e) The term ``Commission'' means the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (f) The term ``company'' means a corporation, joint stock company, partnership, association, business trust, organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, or a receiver or receivers, trustee or trustees of any of the foregoing. (g) The term ``corporation'' means any corporation, joint- stock company, partnership, association, rural electric cooperative, municipal utility, business trust, organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, or a receiver or receivers, trustee or trustees of any of the foregoing. (h) The term ``electric utility company'' means any company that owns or operates facilities used for the generation, transmission or distribution of electric energy for sale. (i) The term ``gas utility company'' means any company that owns or operates facilities used for distribution at retail (other than the distribution only in enclosed portable containers) of natural or manufactured gas for heat, light or power. (j) The term ``holding company system'' means a holding company together with its subsidiary companies. (k) The term ``large hydroelectric facility'' means a facility which has a power production capacity which, together with any other facilities located at the same site, is greater than 80 megawatts. (l) The term ``local distribution facilities'' means facilities used to provide retail electric energy for ultimate consumption. (m) The term ``lost retail benefits'' means the increased cost of retail electric energy in a retail electric energy provider's service territory resulting from the sale subsequent to the implementation of retail electric competition, outside such service territory, of electric energy generated at facilities the cost of which were included in the retail rate base of the retail electric energy provider prior to the implementation of retail electric competition. (n) The term ``mitigation'' means any widely accepted business practice used by an electric utility company to dispose of or reduce uneconomic assets or costs. (o) The term ``municipal utility'' means a city, county, irrigation district, drainage district, or other political subdivision or agency of a State competent under the laws thereof to carry on the business of a retail electric energy provider and/or a retail electric energy supplier. (p) The term ``person'' means an individual or corporation. (q) The term ``public utility company'' means an electric utility company or gas utility company but does not mean a qualifying facility as defined in the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, or an exempt wholesale generator or a foreign utility company defined in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. (r) The term ``public utility holding company'' means (A) any company that directly or indirectly owns, controls, or holds with power to vote, 10 percent or more of the outstanding voting securities of a public utility company or of a holding company of any public utility company; and (B) any person, determined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, to exercise directly or indirectly (either alone or pursuant to an arrangement or understanding with one or more persons) such a controlling influence over the management or policies of any public utility or holding company as to make it necessary or appropriate for the protection of consumers with respect to rates that such person be subject to the obligations, duties, and liabilities imposed in this title upon holding companies. (s) The term ``renewable energy'' means electricity generated from solar, wind, waste, including municipal solid waste, biomass, hydroelectric or geothermal resources. (t) The term ``Renewable Energy Credit'' means a tradable certificate of proof that one unit (as determined by the Commission) of renewable energy was generated by any person. (u) The term ``retail electric competition'' means the ability of each consumer in a particular State to purchase retail electric energy from any person seeking to sell electric energy to such consumer. (v) The term ``retail electric energy'' means electric energy and ancillary services sold for ultimate consumption. (w) The term ``retail electric energy provider'' means any person who distributes retail electric energy to consumers regardless of whether the consumers purchase such energy from the provider or an alternative supplier. A retail electric energy provider may also be a retail electric energy supplier. (x) The term ``retail electric energy supplier'' means any person which sells retail electric energy to consumers. (y) The term ``retail stranded costs'' means all legitimate, prudent, verifiable and non-mitigatable costs incurred by an electric utility company in all of its generation assets which would have been recoverable in retail rates but for the implementation of retail electric competition, less the total market value of these assets after retail electric competition is implemented. Binding power purchase contracts and regulatory assets, the costs of which would have been recovered but for the implementation of retail electric competition, shall be considered generation assets for purposes of this subsection. (z) The term ``rural electric cooperative'' means a corporation that is currently paying off a loan for the purposes of providing electric service from the Administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration or the Rural Utilities Service under the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. (aa) The term ``State'' means any State or the District of Columbia. (bb) The term ``State regulatory authority'' means the regulatory body of a State or municipality having sole jurisdiction to regulate rates and charges for the distribution of electric energy to consumers within the State or municipality. (cc) The term ``subsidiary company'' of a holding company means-- (1) any company 10 percent or more of the outstanding voting securities of which are directly or indirectly owned, controlled, or held with power to vote, by such holding company; and (2) any person the management or policies of which the Securities and Exchange Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, determines to be subject to a controlling influence, directly or indirectly, by such holding company (either alone or pursuant to an arrangement or understanding with one or more other persons) so as to make it necessary for the protection of consumers that such person be subject to the obligations, duties, and liabilities imposed upon subsidiary companies of public utility holding companies. (dd) The term ``transmission system'' means all facilities, including federally-owned facilities, transmitting electricity in interstate commerce in a particular region, including all facilities transmitting electricity in the State of Texas and those providing international interconnections, but does not include local distribution facilities as determined by the Commission. (ee) The term ``wholesale electric energy'' means electric energy and ancillary services sold for resale. (ff) The term ``wholesale electric energy supplier'' means any person which sells wholesale electric energy. (gg) The term ``wholesale stranded costs'' shall have the same meaning as in the Commission's Order No. 888. (hh) The term ``voting security'' means any security presently entitling the owner or holder thereof to vote in the direction or management of the affairs of a company. SEC. 4. SEVERABILITY. If any provision of this Act, or the application of such provision to any person or circumstance, shall be held invalid, the remainder of the Act, and the application of such provision to persons or circumstances other than those as to which it is held invalid, shall not be affected thereby. SEC. 5. ENFORCEMENT. (a) Violation of the Act.--If any individual or corporation or any other retail electric energy supplier or provider fails to comply with the requirements of this Act, any aggrieved person may bring an action against such entity to enforce the requirements of this Act in the appropriate Federal district court. (b) State or Commission Action.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person seeking redress from an action taken by a State regulatory authority, the Commission or a regulatory board pursuant to this Act shall bring such action in the appropriate circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. [[Page S11971]] TITLE I--ELECTRIC COMPETITION SEC. 101. MANDATORY RETAIL ACCESS. (a) Customer Choice.--Beginning on January 1, 2002, each consumer shall have the right to purchase retail electric energy from any person offering to sell retail electric energy to such consumer, subject to any limitations imposed pursuant to section 104(a) of this Act. (b) Local Distribution and Retail Transmission Facilities.--Beginning on January 1, 2002, all persons seeking to sell retail electric energy shall have reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to the local distribution and retail transmission facilities of all retail electric energy providers and all ancillary services. SEC. 102. AGGREGATION. Subject to any limitations imposed pursuant to section 104(a) of this Act, a group of consumers or any person acting on behalf of such group may purchase or acquire retail electric energy for the members of the group if they are located in a State or States where there is retail electric competition. SEC. 103. PRIOR IMPLEMENTATION. (a) State Action.--Nothing in the Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 824 et seq.) shall be deemed to prohibit a State or State regulatory authority, if authorized under State law, from requiring retail electric energy providers selling retail electric energy to consumers in such State to provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to its local distribution facilities and all ancillary services to any retail electric energy supplier prior to January 1, 2002. (b) Grandfather.--Legislation enacted by a State or a regulation issued by a State regulatory authority which has the effect of providing all consumers in such State the opportunity to purchase retail electric energy from any retail electric energy supplier by January 1, 2002 and provides electric utility companies with the opportunity to recover their retail stranded costs as defined by this Act (unless there is an agreement between a State or State regulatory authority and a retail electric energy provider which provides for a different level of recovery), shall be deemed to be in compliance with the requirements of sections 101 and 105 of this Act. (c) Reciprocity.--A State or State regulatory authority that provides for retail electric competition may preclude any retail electric energy provider selling retail electric energy to consumers in another State and their affiliates from selling retail electric energy to consumers in the State with retail electric competition if the retail electric energy provider does not provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to its local distribution facilities to any retail electric energy supplier. SEC. 104. STATE REGULATION. (a) State Requirements.--A State or a State regulatory authority may impose requirements on persons seeking to sell retail electric energy to consumers in that State which are intended to promote the public interest, including requirements related to generation reliability and the provision of information to consumers and other retail electric energy suppliers. Any such requirements must be applied on a nondiscriminatory basis and may not be used to exclude any class of potential suppliers, such as retail electric energy providers, from the opportunity to sell retail electric energy. (b) Maintenance of State Authority.--Nothing in this Act is intended to prohibit a State from enacting laws or imposing regulations related to retail electric energy service that are consistent with the requirements of this Act. (c) Continued State Authority Over Distribution.--A State or State regulatory authority may continue to regulate local distribution service currently subject to State regulation, including billing and metering in any manner consistent with this Act. SEC. 105. RETAIL STRANDED COST RECOVERY. (a) Application

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STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
(Senate - November 07, 1997)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S11964-S12022] STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS By Mr. HELMS (for himself, Mr. Glenn, Mr. DeWine, and Mr. Faircloth): S. 1397. A bill to establish a commission to assist in commemoration of the centennial of powered flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers; to the Committee on Governmental Affairs. the centennial of flight commemorative act Mr. HELMS. Madam President, I have a bill, S. 1397, at the desk. Now, Senators DeWine, Faircloth, Glenn, and I are introducing this legislation, and we are naming it the Centennial of Flight Commemorative Act. As I indicated, the bill number is S. 1397. This significant legislation will establish a commission to assist the numerous events that will lead up to and include the celebration of the 100th anniversary of powered flight, a feat in all the history books, accomplished in my State of North Carolina by the geniuses, two brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Ohio brothers who were born and raised in Dayton where they operated a bicycle shop. I don't know whether you have been to Kitty Hawk, particularly in the middle of December, but it is not a comfortable place to be. Wilbur and Orville came to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to conduct their experiments. The first powered flight occurred at Kitty Hawk, NC, on December 17, 1903. In fact, the Wright brothers engaged in four flights that day, and with their effort they changed the concept of travel forever. About noon on that cold and windy December day, at Kitty Hawk, NC, the aviation age, the air age, began. So, Madam President, the Wright brothers were indisputably the first pioneers of powered flight, and they became national heroes, justifiably etched in history. As for our bill, S. 1397, the able Senator from Ohio, Mr. DeWine, and the able Senator from Ohio, Mr. Glenn, did excellent work in drafting this legislation. Senator Glenn, I am obliged to mention, and I am glad to do so, is a man of history himself in terms of powered flight. He was the first American, as all of us know, to orbit the Earth. When he walks up and down the corridors, I see mamas and daddies pointing to him saying, ``That's Senator Glenn.'' Senator Glenn and six other pioneers, the Mercury astronauts, got America's space program off the ground. Madam President, S. 1397--let me say the title again so it will register--the Centennial of Flight Commemorative Act--proposes the establishment of a commission of 21 individuals to plan for and assist in events leading up to and including the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' flights at Kitty Hawk. The commission will be composed of the Secretary of the Interior, the Director of the National Air and Space Museum, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Transportation, the NASA Administrator, and each of these officials can name a designee. Then there will be two representatives each from the States of North Carolina and Ohio and 12 other private citizens. Of these 12 private citizens, the President of the United States will appoint two from a list recommended by the Senate majority leader in consultation with the Senate minority leader, and two from a list recommended by the Speaker of the House in consultation with the House minority leader. The remaining eight will be chosen based on qualifications and/or experience in the fields of history, aerospace, science, industry, or other professions that will enhance the work of the commission. The commission will represent the United States and take a leadership role with other nations in recognizing the achievement of the Wright brothers and the importance of aviation history. The commission's activities will be closely coordinated with the First Flight Centennial Commission and the First Flight Centennial Foundation of North Carolina and the 2003 Committee of the State of Ohio. The commission is allowed to retain an executive director and staff that may be required in order to carry out its functions. S. 1397 authorizes appropriations of $250,000 for each of the fiscal years 1998 to 2004 to fund the work of the commission. Additionally, the commission may accept monetary contributions and other in kind contributions, volunteer [[Page S11965]] services and the like. In order to further defray the expenses of the commission, the legislation gives it exclusive right to names, logos, emblems, seals, and marks, which may be licensed on which proceeds from royalties will be used to offset the operating costs of the commission. S. 1397 requires that annual audits of the commission be conducted by the Inspector General of the General Services Administration to ensure its financial integrity. The commission shall be terminated no later than 60 days after the submission of the final audit report. Senators may ask why establish a Federal commission to commemorate this event? The Wright brothers' triumph at Kitty Hawk on that bone- chilling day of December 17, 1903 has to rank as one of mankind's greatest achievement. The world has not been the same since. As the development of the airplane progressed so did its uses in warfare and civilian aviation. Its development spawned generations of aviation trailblazers. Names like Eddie Rickenbacker, Billy Mitchell, Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle, Chuck Yeager, and the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and space shuttle astronauts became household words. What is even more astonishing is that 66 years later, Neil Armstrong of Ohio became the first man to set foot on the moon. That would not have been possible without the Wright brothers. Because of the Wright brothers you can get on a jet aircraft at Dulles Airport and be in London in six or seven hours, far less if you are flying the Concorde. You can fly from New York to Tokyo in 14 hours. On the Concorde, you can travel from New York to London in 3 hours and 50 minutes. We are seeing daily developments in aviation, faster planes, new space technologies, all because of the genius of Wilbur and Orville Wright. I hope the Senate will swiftly approve this legislation. Mr. DeWINE. Madam President, I thank the Chair, and I thank my distinguished colleague from North Carolina. I am delighted to join him, as well as Senator Faircloth and Senator Glenn, in introducing a bill to create the Centennial of Flight Commission. In the year 2003, the United States and, indeed, the world will celebrate a truly breathtaking anniversary. That date will mark exactly 100 years of the adventure of human flight. For those of us who are from the State of Ohio, it is an especially important anniversary as Senator Helms has so ably described--first and foremost because the Wright brothers, the very first pioneers of powered flight, were from Dayton, OH. It was in Dayton, OH, that they grew up. It was in Dayton, OH, that they had a print shop. It was in Dayton, OH, that they had the bicycle shop that was referred to a moment ago by Senator Helms. It was at Huffman Prairie, in Montgomery County, actually what is now enclosed in Wright Patterson Air Force Base, technically in Greene County, that the Wright brothers learned to fly. So, those of us from Ohio are very proud of the Wright brothers, as this whole country is. We are also proud in Ohio that ever since the time of the Wright brothers, Ohio has continued to build a proud aviation history. From the Wright brothers to World War I flying ace David Ingalls, to John Glenn who just walked on to the floor of the Senate, the first man, the first American to orbit the Earth, to Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, to the incredible research being done right now at NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, OH, has continually been a part of the great epic of aviation. This is, indeed, cause for celebration, and that is what this bill is all about. It would create a commission to coordinate the centennial of flight celebration in the year 2003. The commission will be composed of 21 members: the Secretaries of the Interior, Transportation, and Defense; the Director of the National Air and Space Museum; the Administrator of NASA; two people from North Carolina; the president and chairman of the First Flight Centennial Commission; and two people from the State of Ohio, the Governor and the chairman of the 2003 Committee, and 12 additional Presidential appointees. Madam President, this commission will help the United States take a leadership role in planning international celebrations of the centennial of flight, promoting participation and sponsorship by the aerospace industry, the commercial aviation industry, educational institutions, and State and local governments. The commission is going to distribute a calendar, a register of national and international programs and projects concerning the flight centennial. What I hope most of all is that these celebrations will recognize that the history of flight is not just the story about machines or about the triumph of technology. It is rather a story about people. It is a story of how human creativity overcame one of the most fundamental barriers that humans ever faced. For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings could not fly, but in this century, thanks to the freedom and spirit of creativity in this country, the human race broke the bonds of Earth. So, from Dayton to Kitty Hawk and beyond the limits of our solar system, this is a story to truly celebrate. Madam President, I see my distinguished senior Senator from the State of Ohio, the honorable John Glenn, is on the floor. I yield to Senator Glenn. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized. Mr. GLENN. Thank you, Madam President. I thank my distinguished colleague. I rise as a cosponsor of this legislation to establish a national Commission on the Centennial of Flight. We have been very proud through the years to have worked with the people of Dayton, OH, in an effort to recognize the very exceptional contribution of the two brothers who ran the bicycle shop and dreamed of flight. They watched the birds and dreamed of flight, not knowing whether it would ever be possible. In 1992, it was my privilege to sponsor the legislation that established the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park which commemorates the extraordinary lives of Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, a black man, a poet, one of the finest poets, who was a close friend of the Wright brothers. That park and the memorial in North Carolina recall that on December 17, 1903, Orville Wright flew 120 feet in 12 seconds. Can we imagine that, 120 feet in 12 seconds? But it was under power. It was the airplane that is over in the Smithsonian now. It was under powered flight with an engine and propeller. It was the first sustained flight in a power-driven, heavier-than-air machine. There were three other flights that day. We don't often hear about those. There were three other flights that day, and Wilbur Wright set a new world record flying on one of those flights 352 feet in 59 seconds. It was more than the length of a football field. Very little attention was paid at that time. People were very doubtful. Octave Chanute reported the achievement in Popular Science Monthly in March 1904. But the first--I think this is very interesting--the first eyewitness report about those flights appeared in a publication called Gleanings in Bee Culture, and that was in January 1905. That was the first real eyewitness report of Orville and Wilbur Wright's flights. The work had begun in 1899 with a serious study of everything the Wrights could find on aeronautics. In 1900, to test their glider, they selected Kitty Hawk on the word of the weather bureau because of the steadiness of the winds and direction of the winds at that time. The test glider in 1900 and 1901 failed to achieve the lifting power that they thought they needed and anticipated. They went back to Dayton and built a 6-foot wind tunnel to conduct experiments with over 200 different wing models. They developed the first reliable tables on the effects of air pressure on curved surfaces, the principles that we use today and that you see on every airplane, whether it is a general aviation small light airplane or a giant 747 or whether it is the Concorde flying at supersonic speed across the Atlantic Ocean. They developed these 200 different wing models and experimented with them. They developed the first reliable tables on the effects of air pressure on curved surfaces. [[Page S11966]] In 1902, they conducted over almost 1,000 tests with a more promising glider. In 1903, the Wright brothers had completed the construction of a larger plane powered by their own lightweight gas-powered engine. Arriving in Kitty Hawk in September, storms and mechanical difficulties delayed trials until December. On the 17th, four men and a boy witnessed the very first flight, and a memorable photograph, fortunately, was captured. Four men and a boy witnessed that first flight. Back home in Dayton in 1904 and 1905, the Wright brothers continued testing their invention at Huffman Prairie, which is the area adjacent to what is today Wright Patterson Air Force Base where they first achieved maneuverable flight. In 1908, Wilbur and Orville signed a contract with the War Department for the first military airplane. In September, Orville circled the parade ground at an altitude of 120 feet just across the Potomac River from us today, over at Fort Meyer in Virginia. When most people these days think of the Wright brothers, we tend to think of them as having lived a long, long time ago. We tend to think of the Wright brothers as being part of ancient history. We also think of their airplane, the Wright Flyer III, as being an incredibly primitive machine, at least by today's standards. And it was a primitive machine. There were no fancy guidance systems or high-tech controls. By swiveling their hips from one side to the other, Orville and Wilbur could steer the airplane. To this day, when young people come in, when school groups come to Washington and visit my office and they say they are going over to the Air and Space Museum, I always tell them to get up on the gallery level and look down on the Wright brothers' airplane and see how they controlled flight, because the person flying lay on the lower wing and had a wooden yoke around his hips. That wooden yoke slid back and forth and there was a wire that went to the trailing edge of the upper wing, and they would slide in the direction they wanted to go, slide their hips over, pull that wire and literally warp the trailing edge of the wing down and made more lift on the wing on that side and the airplane would turn in the direction their hips were slid toward. I am glad they developed later on in aviation a better means of control. We can imagine a 747 pilot today making an approach swiveling his hips back and forth. But that was the way the Wright brothers controlled those very early flights. The first flight at Kitty Hawk and Huffman Prairie seemed so far removed from what we did later on, from my own experience in orbital flight in 1962, or from the first lunar landing, or from living aboard the orbiting space station for weeks on end, as Shannon Lucid did. She was up there for 188 days. She will be honored at the Smithsonian this evening, as a matter of fact. Yet, all this occurred within a lifetime. I know we kid Senator Thurmond around here quite a lot about his age, but Senator Thurmond was born December 5, 1902. The Wright brothers did not fly until a year later, on December 7, 1903. So we have in this body right now a man whose lifetime spans all of manned flight, powered flight, from that first day at Kitty Hawk into space. Strom Thurmond has witnessed the complete history of flight. And we marvel at just how far we have come in an incredibly short period of time. We have literally gone from the Wright brothers to the Moon and beyond in a single lifetime. That is amazing. In that sense, I think it is fair to say that Orville and Wilbur Wright were our first astronauts, really, because they were the first who really did rise off the Earth's surface in a sustained way and make flight that then advanced to higher and higher altitudes until we are above the Earth's atmosphere now with different kinds of machines; though I think in some ways we could say that they were the first two who, as the poem goes, ``slipped the surly bonds of Earth''--slipped the surly bonds of Earth and ventured into the air under the power of a motor. Everything since then has just been going higher and going faster. I also think it is fair to say the Wright brothers personified something that is behind every single leap or advancement in science or human knowledge since the beginning of time. The one characteristic they had--we could lump it all together and say that is something that is in the heart of all human progress--is curiosity and an innate curiosity about how we can do things differently or whether we can explore and find new shores or whether we can do experiments and do research in new areas. Whether you look at the voyage of Christopher Columbus, who brought Europeans to the shore of North America, whether you look at the experiments of Alexander Fleming--you know what Alexander Fleming was curious about? It was plain old green mold on bread. He did not know why the patterns formed around the mold the way they did. The green mold, it was a particular pattern. He was curious about that. You know what that led to? His curiosity led to the discovery of penicillin and the development of modern antibiotics. That curiosity about green mold on bread has led to increased life expectancy of people all around this Earth. We have gone up in life expectancy more in the last 100 years than in the previous 2,000 years, I read in a magazine just a short time ago. So the discovery of penicillin and Alexander Fleming's curiosity about green bread mold that led to that, has really revolutionized this Earth. Or we go ahead with the unexpected circumstance in a small electronic switching device that led to the development of the first transistor and ultimately to today's incredibly sophisticated computer systems. It is clear to me that curiosity isn't what killed the cat. It is also the goose that laid the golden egg for all of humankind. That is going to be true in the future as well as the past. In field after field, in discipline after discipline, in industry after industry, it is curiosity, that insatiable, relentlessly questioning spirit that keeps asking ``why'' that has moved our species ahead. The irony, of course, is any time someone or a group such as the Wright brothers, or a group of people undertake an exploration or undertake to demonstrate a new idea, whether in a laboratory, a spaceship, a bicycle shop or on a production line, there are many who question the wisdom of it all. Those naysayers who wanted to know when their bike would be fixed with the Wright brothers believed that if we were to fly God would have given us feathers, they said. So there was a joke about the Wright brothers at that time. ``If God wanted us to fly, why don't we have feathers?" Well, they fortunately laughed along with everybody else, but at the same time went ahead with their work. They were not deterred. But if there is one thing we know for sure about research or any kind of exploration of the unknown, it is that it is impossible to know what we will see at the end or what it may lead to. I believe that today, as perhaps never before, we cannot afford to lose that kind of curiosity and questing spirit that the Wright brothers had. With it, we can continue to learn new things, first, for this Nation, putting them to practical application, staying ahead of global competition. That has been the story of this country's advancement. Without it, we will quickly become yesterday's leader, yesterday's leader, not tomorrow's leader but yesterday's leader, hopelessly trying to hold back the hands of the clock and to hold on to a past glory that can never be just retained or recaptured. So the spirit of the Wright brothers is needed as much today as before their very first flight. That is why today I am pleased to join with my colleagues--my colleague from Ohio, my colleagues from North Carolina--in introducing this legislation to establish a national commission to assist in the commemoration of the centennial of powered flight that will occur in 2003 and the achievements of the Wright brothers. Those who worked to build our national parks and memorials to the Wright brothers in Ohio and North Carolina where flight was born and first achieved will now work together to recall and remember the spirit of flight to be commemorated as we approach the centennial of flight in 2003. The spirit represented by the Wright brothers was captured in their own day by their good friend, Paul Lawrence [[Page S11967]] Dunbar, who captured in the prophetic verse which he penned the triumphs that are remembered at the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. One of his notations was: What dreams we have and how they fly like rosy clouds across the sky; of wealth, of fame of sure success . . . That is certainly what curiosity has brought us and what the Wright brothers brought us. Think of all that has occurred since that first flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Think of aviation today and all it entails and the giant industry. It has revised all the world's transportation, has revised our military, our security. All of that stemmed from that first flight in 1903. So we are happy to put in this legislation today. We hope that it is supported by all here, not just those from Ohio and North Carolina, because what started there in 1903 is something that affects everyone. It affects every State and every nation around the globe, even these days. And we look forward to this commission doing a great job in assisting in the commemoration of the centennial of powered flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers. Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of legislation being introduced by Senator Helms--the two Senators from Ohio--that would establish a National Commission to oversee the 100th anniversary of the first flight. Mr. President, on a cold, windy December morning in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Wright brothers changed the history of the world. Orville Wright flew for just 12 seconds--but it was the first manned flight. Today, many people take for granted what was accomplished by the Wright brothers that day, but at the time it was a historic achievement. Man had been thinking of flight for thousand of years--and yet the Wright brothers, here in the United States, were the first to do it. The development of flight grew rapidly. A little over a decade later, airplanes were used in the battles of World War I. Two decades after the 12-second first flight--Charles Lindbergh flew over the Atlantic. And of course, in 1962, in just a half century after the first 12- second flight, our distinguished colleague John Glenn was the first man to fly around the world in space. Seven years after that, we landed a man on the Moon. It is hard to believe that all of this has taken place in the span of less than 100 years. This is why the centennial anniversary of first flight is so significant to us, the sponsors of this legislation. The Commission will coordinate the plans for the celebration. The Wright brothers were from Ohio, of course, where they ran a bicycle shop. The State of North Carolina's license plates bear the slogan ``First in Flight''--so we are especially proud of this achievement in my State. To these two States, the celebration is important. But much more than that, I think the anniversary should be used to inspire students to learn more about the history of flight. Hopefully, it will remind people that this is a great nation inventors--and that American ingenuity has made us the greatest country in the history of the world. Finally, it should remind our citizens that America is a land of opportunity and freedom--where anyone's imagination can change the world. This is an entrepreneurial spirit that we must keep alive. I want to thank Senator Helms and Senators Glenn and DeWine for joining together today to introduce this legislation. I hope that the Senate will take it up soon. ______ By Mr. THOMAS (for himself, Mr. Kerrey, Mr. Enzi, and Mr. Hagel): S. 1398. A bill to extend certain contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and irrigation water contractors in Wyoming and Nebraska that receive water from Glendo Reservoir; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. THE IRRIGATION PROJECT CONTRACT EXTENSION ACT OF 1997 Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Irrigation Project Contract Extension Act of 1997. I am pleased to be joined in this endeavor by Senators Enzi, Kerrey, and Hagel. This legislation would extend, for a period of 3 years, certain water contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and irrigators in Wyoming and Nebraska that receive water from Glendo Reservoir. All contracts are subject to renewal on December 31, 1998. Extending these contracts is considered a major Federal action and, therefore, subject to review of the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] and the Endangered Species Act [ESA]. Without a short-term continuation agreement, the irrigators would be responsible for the costs of the analysis and other environmental documentation. Currently, the States of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado--and the Department of the Interior--are in the process of implementing a comprehensive ``Cooperative Agreement for Platte River Research and Other Efforts relating to Endangered Species Habitats along the Central Platte River, Nebraska.'' The term of this initiative is for 3 years, with an allowable 6-month extension. Upon completion of the cooperative agreement, efforts to enact the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program can begin. This basin wide, three-State plan will help to recover the endangered whooping crane, piping plover, and least stern, and improve critical habitats in the Central Platte River Basin. I believe it is important for Congress to act on this measure and extend these contracts for 3 years, or until the cooperative agreement is completed. In that time, the needed NEPA and ESA reviews will be fulfilled--clearing the way for the program to be initiated. It is important to remember that the program cannot be implemented until the environmental studies are completed and the parties have agreed to the results. Mr. President, this bill does not avoid environmental evaluation. It merely provides some relief to the water users, while allowing the NEPA and ESA documentation to take place through the cooperative agreement process. It is my understanding that once this agreement has expired, and if the Department of the Interior and the three States decide not to pursue the program, the contract renewal process would proceed as a separate Federal action at that time. This is good and fair legislation. It will benefit the environment and the water users. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and House to secure its passage. ______ By Mr. BOND: S. 1399. A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Army to carry out a project to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat of the Missouri River and the middle Mississippi River; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. THE FISH AND WILDLIFE HABITAT ACT OF 1997 Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation to enhance, preserve and protect habitat for fish and wildlife on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. This new 5-year $50 million authorization is a win-win approach that will implement and expand the use of new and innovative measures developed by the Corps of Engineers to improve habitat conservation without impacting adversely private property and other water-related needs of the rivers including navigation, flood control and water supply. As I have always maintained, fish and wildlife conservation and commercial activity are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, we cannot afford to abandon either river commerce or the species that live in and on the river. This new approach is a win for man, for nature and for the river. This legislation is supported by Missouri Farm Bureau, MARC2000, American Rivers, the Missouri Soybean Association, the Missouri Corngrowers Association, and Farmland Industries. While these groups have not always agreed on river policy, that should not preclude us from seeking common ground and working together to address the questions of resource management and I am delighted that we can all come together in support of this commonsense approach. Without specific authorization and only scarce dollars, the St. Louis Corps of Engineers has been developing and [[Page S11968]] testing ways in which navigation structures used to guide the river and maintain the channel may be modified to meet environmental as well as navigation goals. These innovations have proven successful earning wide acclaim including a Presidential Design Award and Federal Design Achievement Award. This legislation seeks to put these successful innovations to work on the Missouri River and expand their use on the middle Mississippi by providing a specific authorization and a dedicated and substantial source of funds. In other words, we are giving the corps the tools they need to put their ideas to work to improve the rivers to benefit fish and wildlife. The legislation authorizes $10 million per year to protect, create and enhance side channels, island habitat, sand bars, and other riverine habitat. For example, by notching rock dikes that run perpendicular to the shoreline, sandbars develop between the dikes which has been provided nesting habitat for the endangered least tern and valuable spawning ground for the endangered pallid sturgeon. The Missouri Department of Conservation has run tests validating an increase in diversity and numbers of microinvertebrates surrounding the notched dikes. Chevron dikes have been developed to improve river habitat and to create beneficial uses of dredge material. These structures are placed in the shallow side of the river channel pointing upstream which improves the river channel while serving as small islands. These islands encourage the development of all four primary river ecosystem habitats and additionally, various micro-organisms cling to the underwater rock structures, providing a food source for fish. Changing the gradation of rock revetments, used to stabilize eroding riverbanks, has proved to provide greater bank stability and precluded the need to remove bank vegetation so that, for the first time, trees and rock revetment could coexist providing greater habitat diversity. The draft legislation authorizes $10 million per year over 5 years to develop and implement a plan including the following activities: Modification and improvement of navigation training structures to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat; creation of side channels to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat; restoration and creation of island fish and wildlife habitat; creation of riverine fish and wildlife habitat; establishment of criteria to prioritize based on cost-effectiveness and likelihood of success; and physical and biological monitoring for evaluating the success of the project. The draft provides that the project be coordinated with other related Federal and State activities and that there be public participation in the development and implementation of the project. It requires a 25- percent non-Federal cost share and limits the Federal cost of any single project to $5 million. Finally, the draft legislation confers no new regulatory authority and requires compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The legislation is designed to work between the banks of the river and forbids expressly any adverse impacts on private lands and water- related activities including flood control, navigation, and water supply. Additionally, it is designed to compliment other existing programs such as the Missouri River Mitigation project and the Environmental Management Program on the Mississippi River. I intend to work with the administration and with other Senators and interested groups to build the broad support necessary to enact this legislation in an omnibus Water Resources Development Act the Senate is expected to consider in 1998. Mr. President, the problems experienced in the Midwest and elsewhere with railroad bottlenecks highlight the need for diverse transportation options. As the fall harvest proceeds, there are reports of grain being piled on the ground in neighboring Kansas and Nebraska. Notwithstanding that I must continue working on behalf of Missouri to preserve river navigation as a transportation option, our joint efforts to pursue this new legislation is a strong indicator that we may be experiencing an episode of domestic detente on river policy between groups that have pursued differing approaches in the past. This legislation offers a significant boost for our need to make the various river uses compatible and an important step toward unifying the river's stakeholders behind a realistic approach for the future. I thank and congratulate the various groups who have come together behind this legislation and look forward to enacting this consensus legislation. ______ By Mr. BUMPERS (for himself and Mr. Gorton): S. 1401. A bill to provide for the transition to competition around electric energy suppliers for the benefit and protection of consumers, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. the transition to electric competition act of 1997 Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I rise to day to introduce the Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997 along with my colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Gorton. This bill provides for the transition toward deregulation and competition in the electric utility industry. While few people find a discussion of the electric utility industry and the many laws and regulations governing the industry exciting, the fact is that electricity is an extremely important commodity which affects everyone on a daily basis. Any event that increases or reduces electric rates can impact: First, the lives of the poor and those on fixed incomes that depend on electricity to heat their homes in the winter and cool them in the summer; second, the price of goods we buy every day; as well as third, the competitiveness of our factories. In addition, decisions made by electric generators often have a direct effect on our environment as well as our energy security. It is not at all inconsequential that the electric utility industry, which has remained relatively static for the last 60 years, is undergoing a fundamental change. Instead of the traditional vertically integrated local utility, which generates power at its own plants, transmits that power over its own lines and sells that power to all consumers in a particular area, consumers in some States are starting to be bombarded with all sorts of offers from companies competing to become their power supplier, and other entrepreneurs will be seeking to buy large blocks of power to serve certain kinds of consumers. Naturally, these changes are bound to create considerable apprehension among both utilities and consumers. Mr. President, in January I introduced S. 237, the Electric Consumers Protection Act, because I believed that retail electric competition was inevitable and Federal legislation was necessary to ensure that certain consumers were not disadvantaged in the process. Several States were proceeding to introduce competition in their jurisdictions and a number of others were examining the matter. Since that time I have become even more convinced that competition is on the horizon. Eleven States have now enacted legislation or issued regulations requiring retail competition by a time certain. Almost every other State currently has the matter under review. Some argue that there is no need for the Federal Government to intervene; that the States are doing just fine on their own and they should decide when and how to proceed with retail electric competition. Mr. President, I couldn't disagree more. A State-by-State approach will likely produce a lot of unintended consequences which will limit the benefits associated with retail competition and could disadvantage certain consumers. Electric generation markets are becoming increasingly regional and even multi- regional. What happens in one State can have direct and indirect impacts on consumers and utilities located in another State. Utilities operating in more than one State can be subjected to conflicting regulatory regimes which could impact the way they operate their systems and the electric rates paid by consumers. This phenomenon is best illustrated by the multistate utility holding companies registered under the Public Utility Holding Company [PUHCA]. I have had a lot of experience with registered holding companies because two of them serve my home State of Arkansas. These holding companies generally plan for and operate generating facilities on a system-wide basis for the benefit of customers in the entire region [[Page S11969]] served by the company. If restructuring proceeds on a State-by-State basis, these holding companies would find themselves subjected to different requirements which could negatively impact consumers. A State-by-State approach to retail competition also present problems where utilities operate entirely within a single State. It would make no sense for a utility in a State that does not require retail competition, to be able to sell power at retail in an adjoining State that requires retail competition, while a utility subjected to retail competition is unable to mitigate its losses by competing for customers in the adjoining State. Such a result both increases stranded costs and distorts the generation marketplace. Moreover, the States can't adequately address issues associated with the use of transmission lines that provide for the transportation across a number of States or the ability of a utility with significant market power to dominate electricity generation in an entire region. Clearly these are issues that need to be resolved at the Federal level. When I introduced S. 237 there weren't many calling for Federal action. However, interested observers are increasingly coming to the conclusion that Federal electric restructuring legislation is not only helpful, but is necessary. Even some of the States are calling on the Federal Government to act. The legislation we are introducing today is an updated version of S. 237. The bill includes the following provisions: All consumers would have the right to choose their power supplier by January 1, 2002. States could choose an earlier date for their residents if they wish. Utilities would be able to recover their legitimate, prudent and verifiable costs that they would have been able to recover from ratepayers if retail competition had not been implemented. Consumers located in States that currently have low cost electricity would be protected from rate increases by ensuring that utilities can't use their existing assets to sell power in more lucrative markets to the disadvantage of their existing customers. All utilities selling retail power would be required to generate a portion of that power using renewable resources. All of the interstate transmission facilities throughout the country would be managed by independent system operators to ensure that electricity flows in an efficient manner and that markets are competitive. FERC would be given greater authority to protect against the use of market power by utilities to inhibit competition. Both the Public Utility Holding Company Act [PUHCA] and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act [PURPA] would be repealed in conjunction with the implementation of retail electric competition. In addition, Mr. President, the legislation attempts to address some of the issues that relate to the impact of retail electric competition on two Federal entities--the Bonneville Power Administration [BPA] and the Tennessee Valley Authority [TVA]. Senator Gorton is especially knowledgeable about the special problems facing BPA and I expect that he will work closely with the other Members of the Senate from the Pacific Northwest in developing a consensus approach. With regard to TVA, our bill attempts to develop an approach that will enable retail competition to be smoothly introduced in the Tennessee Valley and will help TVA pay off its tremendous debt. The bill also requires the TVA board to prepare a study examining whether TVA should be privatized. I know that some observers may be concerned that this could be a first step toward the privatization of the Federal Power Marketing Administration [PMA's]. Mr. President, there is no connection whatsoever between TVA and the PMA's. The PMA's market power generated at hydroelectric facilities located at Federal dams. These dams perform a variety of public services and cannot be privatized. TVA, on the other hand, generates the bulk of its power from coal and nuclear plants that serve no public purposes. In addition, the Federal PMA's pay for themselves through power sales. TVA, on the other hand, has an enormous level of privately held debt which it must find a way to pay off, since the Federal Government is not responsible for it. Mr. President, I am especially pleased that Senator Gorton has decided to join with me in the effort to enact comprehensive electric restructuring legislation. He has a reputation as a very bright and thoughtful Member of this body and is a distinguished member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the matter. I know that he shares my desire to move this legislation through Congress quickly next year. Senator Murkowski, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, recently indicated that he expects the committee to mark up electric restructuring legislation next year. Both Senator Gorton and I want to work with him and the other members of the committee in moving forward. I look forward to undertaking this important task. Mr. President, I want to say how honored I am to have one of our most distinguished Senators, Senator Gorton of Washington, as my chief cosponsor on this bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a section-by-section analysis of the Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997 be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: S. 1401 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. (a) Short title. This Act may be cited as the ``Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997''. (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents is as follows: Sec. 1. Short title and table of contents. Sec. 2. Findings. Sec. 3. Definitions. Sec. 4. Severability. Sec. 5. Enforcement. TITLE I--RETAIL COMPETITION Sec. 101. Mandatory retail access. Sec. 102. Aggregation. Sec. 103. Prior implementation. Sec. 104. State regulation. Sec. 105. Retail stranded cost recovery. Sec. 106. Wholesale stranded cost recovery. Sec. 107. Lost retail benefits. Sec. 108. Universal service. Sec. 109. Public benefits. Sec. 110. Renewable energy. Sec. 111. Determination of local distribution facilities. Sec. 112. Transmission. Sec. 113. Competitive generation markets. Sec. 114. Nuclear decommissioning costs. Sec. 115. Right to know. Sec. 116. Exemption of Alaska and Hawaii. TITLE II--PUBLIC UTILITY HOLDING COMPANIES Sec. 201. Repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Sec. 202. Exemptions. Sec. 203. Federal access to books and records. Sec. 204. State access to books and records. Sec. 205. Affiliate transactions. Sec. 206. Clarification of regulatory authority. Sec. 207. Effect on other regulation. Sec. 208. Enforcement. Sec. 209. Savings provision. Sec. 210. Implementation. Sec. 211. Resources. TITLE III--PUBLIC UTILITY REGULATORY POLICIES ACT Sec. 301. Definition. Sec. 302. Facilities. Sec. 303. Contracts. Sec. 304. Savings clause. Sec. 305. Effective date. TITLE IV--ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Sec. 401. Study. TITLE V--BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION Sec. 501. Findings and purposes. Sec. 502. Columbia River fish and wildlife coordination and governance. Sec. 503. Pacific Northwest federal transmission access. Sec. 504. Transition cost mechanism. Sec. 505. Independent system operator participation. Sec. 506. Financial obligations. Sec. 507. Prohibition on retail sales. Sec. 508. Clarification of Commission authority. Sec. 509. Repealed statute. TITLE VI--TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY Sec. 601. Competition in service territory. Sec. 602. Ability to sell electric energy. Sec. 603. Termination of contracts. Sec. 604. Rates for electric energy. Sec. 605. Privatization study. SEC. 2. FINDINGS. The Congress finds that: (a) Congress has the authority to enact laws, under the Commerce Clause of the [[Page S11970]] United States Constitution, regarding the wholesale and retail generation, transmission, distribution, and sale of electric energy in interstate commerce. (b) Several States have taken steps to require competition among retail electric supplies and a large number of other States are expected to act. (c) It has been the policy of Congress and the Commission to promote competition among wholesale electric suppliers. (d) It is in the public interest that the transition towards competition in electric service ensures that all consumers receive reliable and competitively-priced electric service. (e) Electric utility companies that prudently incurred costs pursuant to a regulatory structure that required them to provide electricity to consumers should not be penalized during the transition to competition. (f) Consumers will not benefit from the introduction of competition among electric energy suppliers if certain suppliers have undue market power. (g) It is important to encourage conservation and the use of renewable resources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, promote domestic energy security and protect the environment. (h) Competition among electric energy suppliers should not degrade reliability nor cause consumers to lose electric service. SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. For purposes of this Act: (a) The term ``affiliate'' of a specific company means any company 5 percent or more of whose outstanding voting securities are owned, controlled, or held with power to vote, directly or indirectly, by such specific company. (b) The term ``aggregator'' means any person that purchases or acquires retail electric energy on behalf of two or more consumers. (c) The term ``ancillary services'' shall have the same meaning assigned to it by the Commission. (d) The term ``associate company'' of a company means any company in the same holding company system with such company. (e) The term ``Commission'' means the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (f) The term ``company'' means a corporation, joint stock company, partnership, association, business trust, organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, or a receiver or receivers, trustee or trustees of any of the foregoing. (g) The term ``corporation'' means any corporation, joint- stock company, partnership, association, rural electric cooperative, municipal utility, business trust, organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, or a receiver or receivers, trustee or trustees of any of the foregoing. (h) The term ``electric utility company'' means any company that owns or operates facilities used for the generation, transmission or distribution of electric energy for sale. (i) The term ``gas utility company'' means any company that owns or operates facilities used for distribution at retail (other than the distribution only in enclosed portable containers) of natural or manufactured gas for heat, light or power. (j) The term ``holding company system'' means a holding company together with its subsidiary companies. (k) The term ``large hydroelectric facility'' means a facility which has a power production capacity which, together with any other facilities located at the same site, is greater than 80 megawatts. (l) The term ``local distribution facilities'' means facilities used to provide retail electric energy for ultimate consumption. (m) The term ``lost retail benefits'' means the increased cost of retail electric energy in a retail electric energy provider's service territory resulting from the sale subsequent to the implementation of retail electric competition, outside such service territory, of electric energy generated at facilities the cost of which were included in the retail rate base of the retail electric energy provider prior to the implementation of retail electric competition. (n) The term ``mitigation'' means any widely accepted business practice used by an electric utility company to dispose of or reduce uneconomic assets or costs. (o) The term ``municipal utility'' means a city, county, irrigation district, drainage district, or other political subdivision or agency of a State competent under the laws thereof to carry on the business of a retail electric energy provider and/or a retail electric energy supplier. (p) The term ``person'' means an individual or corporation. (q) The term ``public utility company'' means an electric utility company or gas utility company but does not mean a qualifying facility as defined in the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, or an exempt wholesale generator or a foreign utility company defined in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. (r) The term ``public utility holding company'' means (A) any company that directly or indirectly owns, controls, or holds with power to vote, 10 percent or more of the outstanding voting securities of a public utility company or of a holding company of any public utility company; and (B) any person, determined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, to exercise directly or indirectly (either alone or pursuant to an arrangement or understanding with one or more persons) such a controlling influence over the management or policies of any public utility or holding company as to make it necessary or appropriate for the protection of consumers with respect to rates that such person be subject to the obligations, duties, and liabilities imposed in this title upon holding companies. (s) The term ``renewable energy'' means electricity generated from solar, wind, waste, including municipal solid waste, biomass, hydroelectric or geothermal resources. (t) The term ``Renewable Energy Credit'' means a tradable certificate of proof that one unit (as determined by the Commission) of renewable energy was generated by any person. (u) The term ``retail electric competition'' means the ability of each consumer in a particular State to purchase retail electric energy from any person seeking to sell electric energy to such consumer. (v) The term ``retail electric energy'' means electric energy and ancillary services sold for ultimate consumption. (w) The term ``retail electric energy provider'' means any person who distributes retail electric energy to consumers regardless of whether the consumers purchase such energy from the provider or an alternative supplier. A retail electric energy provider may also be a retail electric energy supplier. (x) The term ``retail electric energy supplier'' means any person which sells retail electric energy to consumers. (y) The term ``retail stranded costs'' means all legitimate, prudent, verifiable and non-mitigatable costs incurred by an electric utility company in all of its generation assets which would have been recoverable in retail rates but for the implementation of retail electric competition, less the total market value of these assets after retail electric competition is implemented. Binding power purchase contracts and regulatory assets, the costs of which would have been recovered but for the implementation of retail electric competition, shall be considered generation assets for purposes of this subsection. (z) The term ``rural electric cooperative'' means a corporation that is currently paying off a loan for the purposes of providing electric service from the Administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration or the Rural Utilities Service under the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. (aa) The term ``State'' means any State or the District of Columbia. (bb) The term ``State regulatory authority'' means the regulatory body of a State or municipality having sole jurisdiction to regulate rates and charges for the distribution of electric energy to consumers within the State or municipality. (cc) The term ``subsidiary company'' of a holding company means-- (1) any company 10 percent or more of the outstanding voting securities of which are directly or indirectly owned, controlled, or held with power to vote, by such holding company; and (2) any person the management or policies of which the Securities and Exchange Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, determines to be subject to a controlling influence, directly or indirectly, by such holding company (either alone or pursuant to an arrangement or understanding with one or more other persons) so as to make it necessary for the protection of consumers that such person be subject to the obligations, duties, and liabilities imposed upon subsidiary companies of public utility holding companies. (dd) The term ``transmission system'' means all facilities, including federally-owned facilities, transmitting electricity in interstate commerce in a particular region, including all facilities transmitting electricity in the State of Texas and those providing international interconnections, but does not include local distribution facilities as determined by the Commission. (ee) The term ``wholesale electric energy'' means electric energy and ancillary services sold for resale. (ff) The term ``wholesale electric energy supplier'' means any person which sells wholesale electric energy. (gg) The term ``wholesale stranded costs'' shall have the same meaning as in the Commission's Order No. 888. (hh) The term ``voting security'' means any security presently entitling the owner or holder thereof to vote in the direction or management of the affairs of a company. SEC. 4. SEVERABILITY. If any provision of this Act, or the application of such provision to any person or circumstance, shall be held invalid, the remainder of the Act, and the application of such provision to persons or circumstances other than those as to which it is held invalid, shall not be affected thereby. SEC. 5. ENFORCEMENT. (a) Violation of the Act.--If any individual or corporation or any other retail electric energy supplier or provider fails to comply with the requirements of this Act, any aggrieved person may bring an action against such entity to enforce the requirements of this Act in the appropriate Federal district court. (b) State or Commission Action.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person seeking redress from an action taken by a State regulatory authority, the Commission or a regulatory board pursuant to this Act shall bring such action in the appropriate circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. [[Page S11971]] TITLE I--ELECTRIC COMPETITION SEC. 101. MANDATORY RETAIL ACCESS. (a) Customer Choice.--Beginning on January 1, 2002, each consumer shall have the right to purchase retail electric energy from any person offering to sell retail electric energy to such consumer, subject to any limitations imposed pursuant to section 104(a) of this Act. (b) Local Distribution and Retail Transmission Facilities.--Beginning on January 1, 2002, all persons seeking to sell retail electric energy shall have reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to the local distribution and retail transmission facilities of all retail electric energy providers and all ancillary services. SEC. 102. AGGREGATION. Subject to any limitations imposed pursuant to section 104(a) of this Act, a group of consumers or any person acting on behalf of such group may purchase or acquire retail electric energy for the members of the group if they are located in a State or States where there is retail electric competition. SEC. 103. PRIOR IMPLEMENTATION. (a) State Action.--Nothing in the Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 824 et seq.) shall be deemed to prohibit a State or State regulatory authority, if authorized under State law, from requiring retail electric energy providers selling retail electric energy to consumers in such State to provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to its local distribution facilities and all ancillary services to any retail electric energy supplier prior to January 1, 2002. (b) Grandfather.--Legislation enacted by a State or a regulation issued by a State regulatory authority which has the effect of providing all consumers in such State the opportunity to purchase retail electric energy from any retail electric energy supplier by January 1, 2002 and provides electric utility companies with the opportunity to recover their retail stranded costs as defined by this Act (unless there is an agreement between a State or State regulatory authority and a retail electric energy provider which provides for a different level of recovery), shall be deemed to be in compliance with the requirements of sections 101 and 105 of this Act. (c) Reciprocity.--A State or State regulatory authority that provides for retail electric competition may preclude any retail electric energy provider selling retail electric energy to consumers in another State and their affiliates from selling retail electric energy to consumers in the State with retail electric competition if the retail electric energy provider does not provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to its local distribution facilities to any retail electric energy supplier. SEC. 104. STATE REGULATION. (a) State Requirements.--A State or a State regulatory authority may impose requirements on persons seeking to sell retail electric energy to consumers in that State which are intended to promote the public interest, including requirements related to generation reliability and the provision of information to consumers and other retail electric energy suppliers. Any such requirements must be applied on a nondiscriminatory basis and may not be used to exclude any class of potential suppliers, such as retail electric energy providers, from the opportunity to sell retail electric energy. (b) Maintenance of State Authority.--Nothing in this Act is intended to prohibit a State from enacting laws or imposing regulations related to retail electric energy service that are consistent with the requirements of this Act. (c) Continued State Authority Over Distribution.--A State or State regulatory authority may continue to regulate local distribution service currently subject to State regulation, including billing and metering in any manner consistent with this Act. SEC. 105. RETAIL STRANDED COST RECOVERY. (a) Application for Deter

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STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
(Senate - November 07, 1997)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S11964-S12022] STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS By Mr. HELMS (for himself, Mr. Glenn, Mr. DeWine, and Mr. Faircloth): S. 1397. A bill to establish a commission to assist in commemoration of the centennial of powered flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers; to the Committee on Governmental Affairs. the centennial of flight commemorative act Mr. HELMS. Madam President, I have a bill, S. 1397, at the desk. Now, Senators DeWine, Faircloth, Glenn, and I are introducing this legislation, and we are naming it the Centennial of Flight Commemorative Act. As I indicated, the bill number is S. 1397. This significant legislation will establish a commission to assist the numerous events that will lead up to and include the celebration of the 100th anniversary of powered flight, a feat in all the history books, accomplished in my State of North Carolina by the geniuses, two brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Ohio brothers who were born and raised in Dayton where they operated a bicycle shop. I don't know whether you have been to Kitty Hawk, particularly in the middle of December, but it is not a comfortable place to be. Wilbur and Orville came to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to conduct their experiments. The first powered flight occurred at Kitty Hawk, NC, on December 17, 1903. In fact, the Wright brothers engaged in four flights that day, and with their effort they changed the concept of travel forever. About noon on that cold and windy December day, at Kitty Hawk, NC, the aviation age, the air age, began. So, Madam President, the Wright brothers were indisputably the first pioneers of powered flight, and they became national heroes, justifiably etched in history. As for our bill, S. 1397, the able Senator from Ohio, Mr. DeWine, and the able Senator from Ohio, Mr. Glenn, did excellent work in drafting this legislation. Senator Glenn, I am obliged to mention, and I am glad to do so, is a man of history himself in terms of powered flight. He was the first American, as all of us know, to orbit the Earth. When he walks up and down the corridors, I see mamas and daddies pointing to him saying, ``That's Senator Glenn.'' Senator Glenn and six other pioneers, the Mercury astronauts, got America's space program off the ground. Madam President, S. 1397--let me say the title again so it will register--the Centennial of Flight Commemorative Act--proposes the establishment of a commission of 21 individuals to plan for and assist in events leading up to and including the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' flights at Kitty Hawk. The commission will be composed of the Secretary of the Interior, the Director of the National Air and Space Museum, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Transportation, the NASA Administrator, and each of these officials can name a designee. Then there will be two representatives each from the States of North Carolina and Ohio and 12 other private citizens. Of these 12 private citizens, the President of the United States will appoint two from a list recommended by the Senate majority leader in consultation with the Senate minority leader, and two from a list recommended by the Speaker of the House in consultation with the House minority leader. The remaining eight will be chosen based on qualifications and/or experience in the fields of history, aerospace, science, industry, or other professions that will enhance the work of the commission. The commission will represent the United States and take a leadership role with other nations in recognizing the achievement of the Wright brothers and the importance of aviation history. The commission's activities will be closely coordinated with the First Flight Centennial Commission and the First Flight Centennial Foundation of North Carolina and the 2003 Committee of the State of Ohio. The commission is allowed to retain an executive director and staff that may be required in order to carry out its functions. S. 1397 authorizes appropriations of $250,000 for each of the fiscal years 1998 to 2004 to fund the work of the commission. Additionally, the commission may accept monetary contributions and other in kind contributions, volunteer [[Page S11965]] services and the like. In order to further defray the expenses of the commission, the legislation gives it exclusive right to names, logos, emblems, seals, and marks, which may be licensed on which proceeds from royalties will be used to offset the operating costs of the commission. S. 1397 requires that annual audits of the commission be conducted by the Inspector General of the General Services Administration to ensure its financial integrity. The commission shall be terminated no later than 60 days after the submission of the final audit report. Senators may ask why establish a Federal commission to commemorate this event? The Wright brothers' triumph at Kitty Hawk on that bone- chilling day of December 17, 1903 has to rank as one of mankind's greatest achievement. The world has not been the same since. As the development of the airplane progressed so did its uses in warfare and civilian aviation. Its development spawned generations of aviation trailblazers. Names like Eddie Rickenbacker, Billy Mitchell, Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle, Chuck Yeager, and the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and space shuttle astronauts became household words. What is even more astonishing is that 66 years later, Neil Armstrong of Ohio became the first man to set foot on the moon. That would not have been possible without the Wright brothers. Because of the Wright brothers you can get on a jet aircraft at Dulles Airport and be in London in six or seven hours, far less if you are flying the Concorde. You can fly from New York to Tokyo in 14 hours. On the Concorde, you can travel from New York to London in 3 hours and 50 minutes. We are seeing daily developments in aviation, faster planes, new space technologies, all because of the genius of Wilbur and Orville Wright. I hope the Senate will swiftly approve this legislation. Mr. DeWINE. Madam President, I thank the Chair, and I thank my distinguished colleague from North Carolina. I am delighted to join him, as well as Senator Faircloth and Senator Glenn, in introducing a bill to create the Centennial of Flight Commission. In the year 2003, the United States and, indeed, the world will celebrate a truly breathtaking anniversary. That date will mark exactly 100 years of the adventure of human flight. For those of us who are from the State of Ohio, it is an especially important anniversary as Senator Helms has so ably described--first and foremost because the Wright brothers, the very first pioneers of powered flight, were from Dayton, OH. It was in Dayton, OH, that they grew up. It was in Dayton, OH, that they had a print shop. It was in Dayton, OH, that they had the bicycle shop that was referred to a moment ago by Senator Helms. It was at Huffman Prairie, in Montgomery County, actually what is now enclosed in Wright Patterson Air Force Base, technically in Greene County, that the Wright brothers learned to fly. So, those of us from Ohio are very proud of the Wright brothers, as this whole country is. We are also proud in Ohio that ever since the time of the Wright brothers, Ohio has continued to build a proud aviation history. From the Wright brothers to World War I flying ace David Ingalls, to John Glenn who just walked on to the floor of the Senate, the first man, the first American to orbit the Earth, to Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, to the incredible research being done right now at NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, OH, has continually been a part of the great epic of aviation. This is, indeed, cause for celebration, and that is what this bill is all about. It would create a commission to coordinate the centennial of flight celebration in the year 2003. The commission will be composed of 21 members: the Secretaries of the Interior, Transportation, and Defense; the Director of the National Air and Space Museum; the Administrator of NASA; two people from North Carolina; the president and chairman of the First Flight Centennial Commission; and two people from the State of Ohio, the Governor and the chairman of the 2003 Committee, and 12 additional Presidential appointees. Madam President, this commission will help the United States take a leadership role in planning international celebrations of the centennial of flight, promoting participation and sponsorship by the aerospace industry, the commercial aviation industry, educational institutions, and State and local governments. The commission is going to distribute a calendar, a register of national and international programs and projects concerning the flight centennial. What I hope most of all is that these celebrations will recognize that the history of flight is not just the story about machines or about the triumph of technology. It is rather a story about people. It is a story of how human creativity overcame one of the most fundamental barriers that humans ever faced. For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings could not fly, but in this century, thanks to the freedom and spirit of creativity in this country, the human race broke the bonds of Earth. So, from Dayton to Kitty Hawk and beyond the limits of our solar system, this is a story to truly celebrate. Madam President, I see my distinguished senior Senator from the State of Ohio, the honorable John Glenn, is on the floor. I yield to Senator Glenn. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized. Mr. GLENN. Thank you, Madam President. I thank my distinguished colleague. I rise as a cosponsor of this legislation to establish a national Commission on the Centennial of Flight. We have been very proud through the years to have worked with the people of Dayton, OH, in an effort to recognize the very exceptional contribution of the two brothers who ran the bicycle shop and dreamed of flight. They watched the birds and dreamed of flight, not knowing whether it would ever be possible. In 1992, it was my privilege to sponsor the legislation that established the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park which commemorates the extraordinary lives of Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar, a black man, a poet, one of the finest poets, who was a close friend of the Wright brothers. That park and the memorial in North Carolina recall that on December 17, 1903, Orville Wright flew 120 feet in 12 seconds. Can we imagine that, 120 feet in 12 seconds? But it was under power. It was the airplane that is over in the Smithsonian now. It was under powered flight with an engine and propeller. It was the first sustained flight in a power-driven, heavier-than-air machine. There were three other flights that day. We don't often hear about those. There were three other flights that day, and Wilbur Wright set a new world record flying on one of those flights 352 feet in 59 seconds. It was more than the length of a football field. Very little attention was paid at that time. People were very doubtful. Octave Chanute reported the achievement in Popular Science Monthly in March 1904. But the first--I think this is very interesting--the first eyewitness report about those flights appeared in a publication called Gleanings in Bee Culture, and that was in January 1905. That was the first real eyewitness report of Orville and Wilbur Wright's flights. The work had begun in 1899 with a serious study of everything the Wrights could find on aeronautics. In 1900, to test their glider, they selected Kitty Hawk on the word of the weather bureau because of the steadiness of the winds and direction of the winds at that time. The test glider in 1900 and 1901 failed to achieve the lifting power that they thought they needed and anticipated. They went back to Dayton and built a 6-foot wind tunnel to conduct experiments with over 200 different wing models. They developed the first reliable tables on the effects of air pressure on curved surfaces, the principles that we use today and that you see on every airplane, whether it is a general aviation small light airplane or a giant 747 or whether it is the Concorde flying at supersonic speed across the Atlantic Ocean. They developed these 200 different wing models and experimented with them. They developed the first reliable tables on the effects of air pressure on curved surfaces. [[Page S11966]] In 1902, they conducted over almost 1,000 tests with a more promising glider. In 1903, the Wright brothers had completed the construction of a larger plane powered by their own lightweight gas-powered engine. Arriving in Kitty Hawk in September, storms and mechanical difficulties delayed trials until December. On the 17th, four men and a boy witnessed the very first flight, and a memorable photograph, fortunately, was captured. Four men and a boy witnessed that first flight. Back home in Dayton in 1904 and 1905, the Wright brothers continued testing their invention at Huffman Prairie, which is the area adjacent to what is today Wright Patterson Air Force Base where they first achieved maneuverable flight. In 1908, Wilbur and Orville signed a contract with the War Department for the first military airplane. In September, Orville circled the parade ground at an altitude of 120 feet just across the Potomac River from us today, over at Fort Meyer in Virginia. When most people these days think of the Wright brothers, we tend to think of them as having lived a long, long time ago. We tend to think of the Wright brothers as being part of ancient history. We also think of their airplane, the Wright Flyer III, as being an incredibly primitive machine, at least by today's standards. And it was a primitive machine. There were no fancy guidance systems or high-tech controls. By swiveling their hips from one side to the other, Orville and Wilbur could steer the airplane. To this day, when young people come in, when school groups come to Washington and visit my office and they say they are going over to the Air and Space Museum, I always tell them to get up on the gallery level and look down on the Wright brothers' airplane and see how they controlled flight, because the person flying lay on the lower wing and had a wooden yoke around his hips. That wooden yoke slid back and forth and there was a wire that went to the trailing edge of the upper wing, and they would slide in the direction they wanted to go, slide their hips over, pull that wire and literally warp the trailing edge of the wing down and made more lift on the wing on that side and the airplane would turn in the direction their hips were slid toward. I am glad they developed later on in aviation a better means of control. We can imagine a 747 pilot today making an approach swiveling his hips back and forth. But that was the way the Wright brothers controlled those very early flights. The first flight at Kitty Hawk and Huffman Prairie seemed so far removed from what we did later on, from my own experience in orbital flight in 1962, or from the first lunar landing, or from living aboard the orbiting space station for weeks on end, as Shannon Lucid did. She was up there for 188 days. She will be honored at the Smithsonian this evening, as a matter of fact. Yet, all this occurred within a lifetime. I know we kid Senator Thurmond around here quite a lot about his age, but Senator Thurmond was born December 5, 1902. The Wright brothers did not fly until a year later, on December 7, 1903. So we have in this body right now a man whose lifetime spans all of manned flight, powered flight, from that first day at Kitty Hawk into space. Strom Thurmond has witnessed the complete history of flight. And we marvel at just how far we have come in an incredibly short period of time. We have literally gone from the Wright brothers to the Moon and beyond in a single lifetime. That is amazing. In that sense, I think it is fair to say that Orville and Wilbur Wright were our first astronauts, really, because they were the first who really did rise off the Earth's surface in a sustained way and make flight that then advanced to higher and higher altitudes until we are above the Earth's atmosphere now with different kinds of machines; though I think in some ways we could say that they were the first two who, as the poem goes, ``slipped the surly bonds of Earth''--slipped the surly bonds of Earth and ventured into the air under the power of a motor. Everything since then has just been going higher and going faster. I also think it is fair to say the Wright brothers personified something that is behind every single leap or advancement in science or human knowledge since the beginning of time. The one characteristic they had--we could lump it all together and say that is something that is in the heart of all human progress--is curiosity and an innate curiosity about how we can do things differently or whether we can explore and find new shores or whether we can do experiments and do research in new areas. Whether you look at the voyage of Christopher Columbus, who brought Europeans to the shore of North America, whether you look at the experiments of Alexander Fleming--you know what Alexander Fleming was curious about? It was plain old green mold on bread. He did not know why the patterns formed around the mold the way they did. The green mold, it was a particular pattern. He was curious about that. You know what that led to? His curiosity led to the discovery of penicillin and the development of modern antibiotics. That curiosity about green mold on bread has led to increased life expectancy of people all around this Earth. We have gone up in life expectancy more in the last 100 years than in the previous 2,000 years, I read in a magazine just a short time ago. So the discovery of penicillin and Alexander Fleming's curiosity about green bread mold that led to that, has really revolutionized this Earth. Or we go ahead with the unexpected circumstance in a small electronic switching device that led to the development of the first transistor and ultimately to today's incredibly sophisticated computer systems. It is clear to me that curiosity isn't what killed the cat. It is also the goose that laid the golden egg for all of humankind. That is going to be true in the future as well as the past. In field after field, in discipline after discipline, in industry after industry, it is curiosity, that insatiable, relentlessly questioning spirit that keeps asking ``why'' that has moved our species ahead. The irony, of course, is any time someone or a group such as the Wright brothers, or a group of people undertake an exploration or undertake to demonstrate a new idea, whether in a laboratory, a spaceship, a bicycle shop or on a production line, there are many who question the wisdom of it all. Those naysayers who wanted to know when their bike would be fixed with the Wright brothers believed that if we were to fly God would have given us feathers, they said. So there was a joke about the Wright brothers at that time. ``If God wanted us to fly, why don't we have feathers?" Well, they fortunately laughed along with everybody else, but at the same time went ahead with their work. They were not deterred. But if there is one thing we know for sure about research or any kind of exploration of the unknown, it is that it is impossible to know what we will see at the end or what it may lead to. I believe that today, as perhaps never before, we cannot afford to lose that kind of curiosity and questing spirit that the Wright brothers had. With it, we can continue to learn new things, first, for this Nation, putting them to practical application, staying ahead of global competition. That has been the story of this country's advancement. Without it, we will quickly become yesterday's leader, yesterday's leader, not tomorrow's leader but yesterday's leader, hopelessly trying to hold back the hands of the clock and to hold on to a past glory that can never be just retained or recaptured. So the spirit of the Wright brothers is needed as much today as before their very first flight. That is why today I am pleased to join with my colleagues--my colleague from Ohio, my colleagues from North Carolina--in introducing this legislation to establish a national commission to assist in the commemoration of the centennial of powered flight that will occur in 2003 and the achievements of the Wright brothers. Those who worked to build our national parks and memorials to the Wright brothers in Ohio and North Carolina where flight was born and first achieved will now work together to recall and remember the spirit of flight to be commemorated as we approach the centennial of flight in 2003. The spirit represented by the Wright brothers was captured in their own day by their good friend, Paul Lawrence [[Page S11967]] Dunbar, who captured in the prophetic verse which he penned the triumphs that are remembered at the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. One of his notations was: What dreams we have and how they fly like rosy clouds across the sky; of wealth, of fame of sure success . . . That is certainly what curiosity has brought us and what the Wright brothers brought us. Think of all that has occurred since that first flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Think of aviation today and all it entails and the giant industry. It has revised all the world's transportation, has revised our military, our security. All of that stemmed from that first flight in 1903. So we are happy to put in this legislation today. We hope that it is supported by all here, not just those from Ohio and North Carolina, because what started there in 1903 is something that affects everyone. It affects every State and every nation around the globe, even these days. And we look forward to this commission doing a great job in assisting in the commemoration of the centennial of powered flight and the achievements of the Wright brothers. Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of legislation being introduced by Senator Helms--the two Senators from Ohio--that would establish a National Commission to oversee the 100th anniversary of the first flight. Mr. President, on a cold, windy December morning in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Wright brothers changed the history of the world. Orville Wright flew for just 12 seconds--but it was the first manned flight. Today, many people take for granted what was accomplished by the Wright brothers that day, but at the time it was a historic achievement. Man had been thinking of flight for thousand of years--and yet the Wright brothers, here in the United States, were the first to do it. The development of flight grew rapidly. A little over a decade later, airplanes were used in the battles of World War I. Two decades after the 12-second first flight--Charles Lindbergh flew over the Atlantic. And of course, in 1962, in just a half century after the first 12- second flight, our distinguished colleague John Glenn was the first man to fly around the world in space. Seven years after that, we landed a man on the Moon. It is hard to believe that all of this has taken place in the span of less than 100 years. This is why the centennial anniversary of first flight is so significant to us, the sponsors of this legislation. The Commission will coordinate the plans for the celebration. The Wright brothers were from Ohio, of course, where they ran a bicycle shop. The State of North Carolina's license plates bear the slogan ``First in Flight''--so we are especially proud of this achievement in my State. To these two States, the celebration is important. But much more than that, I think the anniversary should be used to inspire students to learn more about the history of flight. Hopefully, it will remind people that this is a great nation inventors--and that American ingenuity has made us the greatest country in the history of the world. Finally, it should remind our citizens that America is a land of opportunity and freedom--where anyone's imagination can change the world. This is an entrepreneurial spirit that we must keep alive. I want to thank Senator Helms and Senators Glenn and DeWine for joining together today to introduce this legislation. I hope that the Senate will take it up soon. ______ By Mr. THOMAS (for himself, Mr. Kerrey, Mr. Enzi, and Mr. Hagel): S. 1398. A bill to extend certain contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and irrigation water contractors in Wyoming and Nebraska that receive water from Glendo Reservoir; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. THE IRRIGATION PROJECT CONTRACT EXTENSION ACT OF 1997 Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Irrigation Project Contract Extension Act of 1997. I am pleased to be joined in this endeavor by Senators Enzi, Kerrey, and Hagel. This legislation would extend, for a period of 3 years, certain water contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and irrigators in Wyoming and Nebraska that receive water from Glendo Reservoir. All contracts are subject to renewal on December 31, 1998. Extending these contracts is considered a major Federal action and, therefore, subject to review of the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] and the Endangered Species Act [ESA]. Without a short-term continuation agreement, the irrigators would be responsible for the costs of the analysis and other environmental documentation. Currently, the States of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado--and the Department of the Interior--are in the process of implementing a comprehensive ``Cooperative Agreement for Platte River Research and Other Efforts relating to Endangered Species Habitats along the Central Platte River, Nebraska.'' The term of this initiative is for 3 years, with an allowable 6-month extension. Upon completion of the cooperative agreement, efforts to enact the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program can begin. This basin wide, three-State plan will help to recover the endangered whooping crane, piping plover, and least stern, and improve critical habitats in the Central Platte River Basin. I believe it is important for Congress to act on this measure and extend these contracts for 3 years, or until the cooperative agreement is completed. In that time, the needed NEPA and ESA reviews will be fulfilled--clearing the way for the program to be initiated. It is important to remember that the program cannot be implemented until the environmental studies are completed and the parties have agreed to the results. Mr. President, this bill does not avoid environmental evaluation. It merely provides some relief to the water users, while allowing the NEPA and ESA documentation to take place through the cooperative agreement process. It is my understanding that once this agreement has expired, and if the Department of the Interior and the three States decide not to pursue the program, the contract renewal process would proceed as a separate Federal action at that time. This is good and fair legislation. It will benefit the environment and the water users. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and House to secure its passage. ______ By Mr. BOND: S. 1399. A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Army to carry out a project to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat of the Missouri River and the middle Mississippi River; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. THE FISH AND WILDLIFE HABITAT ACT OF 1997 Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation to enhance, preserve and protect habitat for fish and wildlife on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. This new 5-year $50 million authorization is a win-win approach that will implement and expand the use of new and innovative measures developed by the Corps of Engineers to improve habitat conservation without impacting adversely private property and other water-related needs of the rivers including navigation, flood control and water supply. As I have always maintained, fish and wildlife conservation and commercial activity are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, we cannot afford to abandon either river commerce or the species that live in and on the river. This new approach is a win for man, for nature and for the river. This legislation is supported by Missouri Farm Bureau, MARC2000, American Rivers, the Missouri Soybean Association, the Missouri Corngrowers Association, and Farmland Industries. While these groups have not always agreed on river policy, that should not preclude us from seeking common ground and working together to address the questions of resource management and I am delighted that we can all come together in support of this commonsense approach. Without specific authorization and only scarce dollars, the St. Louis Corps of Engineers has been developing and [[Page S11968]] testing ways in which navigation structures used to guide the river and maintain the channel may be modified to meet environmental as well as navigation goals. These innovations have proven successful earning wide acclaim including a Presidential Design Award and Federal Design Achievement Award. This legislation seeks to put these successful innovations to work on the Missouri River and expand their use on the middle Mississippi by providing a specific authorization and a dedicated and substantial source of funds. In other words, we are giving the corps the tools they need to put their ideas to work to improve the rivers to benefit fish and wildlife. The legislation authorizes $10 million per year to protect, create and enhance side channels, island habitat, sand bars, and other riverine habitat. For example, by notching rock dikes that run perpendicular to the shoreline, sandbars develop between the dikes which has been provided nesting habitat for the endangered least tern and valuable spawning ground for the endangered pallid sturgeon. The Missouri Department of Conservation has run tests validating an increase in diversity and numbers of microinvertebrates surrounding the notched dikes. Chevron dikes have been developed to improve river habitat and to create beneficial uses of dredge material. These structures are placed in the shallow side of the river channel pointing upstream which improves the river channel while serving as small islands. These islands encourage the development of all four primary river ecosystem habitats and additionally, various micro-organisms cling to the underwater rock structures, providing a food source for fish. Changing the gradation of rock revetments, used to stabilize eroding riverbanks, has proved to provide greater bank stability and precluded the need to remove bank vegetation so that, for the first time, trees and rock revetment could coexist providing greater habitat diversity. The draft legislation authorizes $10 million per year over 5 years to develop and implement a plan including the following activities: Modification and improvement of navigation training structures to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat; creation of side channels to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat; restoration and creation of island fish and wildlife habitat; creation of riverine fish and wildlife habitat; establishment of criteria to prioritize based on cost-effectiveness and likelihood of success; and physical and biological monitoring for evaluating the success of the project. The draft provides that the project be coordinated with other related Federal and State activities and that there be public participation in the development and implementation of the project. It requires a 25- percent non-Federal cost share and limits the Federal cost of any single project to $5 million. Finally, the draft legislation confers no new regulatory authority and requires compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The legislation is designed to work between the banks of the river and forbids expressly any adverse impacts on private lands and water- related activities including flood control, navigation, and water supply. Additionally, it is designed to compliment other existing programs such as the Missouri River Mitigation project and the Environmental Management Program on the Mississippi River. I intend to work with the administration and with other Senators and interested groups to build the broad support necessary to enact this legislation in an omnibus Water Resources Development Act the Senate is expected to consider in 1998. Mr. President, the problems experienced in the Midwest and elsewhere with railroad bottlenecks highlight the need for diverse transportation options. As the fall harvest proceeds, there are reports of grain being piled on the ground in neighboring Kansas and Nebraska. Notwithstanding that I must continue working on behalf of Missouri to preserve river navigation as a transportation option, our joint efforts to pursue this new legislation is a strong indicator that we may be experiencing an episode of domestic detente on river policy between groups that have pursued differing approaches in the past. This legislation offers a significant boost for our need to make the various river uses compatible and an important step toward unifying the river's stakeholders behind a realistic approach for the future. I thank and congratulate the various groups who have come together behind this legislation and look forward to enacting this consensus legislation. ______ By Mr. BUMPERS (for himself and Mr. Gorton): S. 1401. A bill to provide for the transition to competition around electric energy suppliers for the benefit and protection of consumers, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. the transition to electric competition act of 1997 Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I rise to day to introduce the Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997 along with my colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Gorton. This bill provides for the transition toward deregulation and competition in the electric utility industry. While few people find a discussion of the electric utility industry and the many laws and regulations governing the industry exciting, the fact is that electricity is an extremely important commodity which affects everyone on a daily basis. Any event that increases or reduces electric rates can impact: First, the lives of the poor and those on fixed incomes that depend on electricity to heat their homes in the winter and cool them in the summer; second, the price of goods we buy every day; as well as third, the competitiveness of our factories. In addition, decisions made by electric generators often have a direct effect on our environment as well as our energy security. It is not at all inconsequential that the electric utility industry, which has remained relatively static for the last 60 years, is undergoing a fundamental change. Instead of the traditional vertically integrated local utility, which generates power at its own plants, transmits that power over its own lines and sells that power to all consumers in a particular area, consumers in some States are starting to be bombarded with all sorts of offers from companies competing to become their power supplier, and other entrepreneurs will be seeking to buy large blocks of power to serve certain kinds of consumers. Naturally, these changes are bound to create considerable apprehension among both utilities and consumers. Mr. President, in January I introduced S. 237, the Electric Consumers Protection Act, because I believed that retail electric competition was inevitable and Federal legislation was necessary to ensure that certain consumers were not disadvantaged in the process. Several States were proceeding to introduce competition in their jurisdictions and a number of others were examining the matter. Since that time I have become even more convinced that competition is on the horizon. Eleven States have now enacted legislation or issued regulations requiring retail competition by a time certain. Almost every other State currently has the matter under review. Some argue that there is no need for the Federal Government to intervene; that the States are doing just fine on their own and they should decide when and how to proceed with retail electric competition. Mr. President, I couldn't disagree more. A State-by-State approach will likely produce a lot of unintended consequences which will limit the benefits associated with retail competition and could disadvantage certain consumers. Electric generation markets are becoming increasingly regional and even multi- regional. What happens in one State can have direct and indirect impacts on consumers and utilities located in another State. Utilities operating in more than one State can be subjected to conflicting regulatory regimes which could impact the way they operate their systems and the electric rates paid by consumers. This phenomenon is best illustrated by the multistate utility holding companies registered under the Public Utility Holding Company [PUHCA]. I have had a lot of experience with registered holding companies because two of them serve my home State of Arkansas. These holding companies generally plan for and operate generating facilities on a system-wide basis for the benefit of customers in the entire region [[Page S11969]] served by the company. If restructuring proceeds on a State-by-State basis, these holding companies would find themselves subjected to different requirements which could negatively impact consumers. A State-by-State approach to retail competition also present problems where utilities operate entirely within a single State. It would make no sense for a utility in a State that does not require retail competition, to be able to sell power at retail in an adjoining State that requires retail competition, while a utility subjected to retail competition is unable to mitigate its losses by competing for customers in the adjoining State. Such a result both increases stranded costs and distorts the generation marketplace. Moreover, the States can't adequately address issues associated with the use of transmission lines that provide for the transportation across a number of States or the ability of a utility with significant market power to dominate electricity generation in an entire region. Clearly these are issues that need to be resolved at the Federal level. When I introduced S. 237 there weren't many calling for Federal action. However, interested observers are increasingly coming to the conclusion that Federal electric restructuring legislation is not only helpful, but is necessary. Even some of the States are calling on the Federal Government to act. The legislation we are introducing today is an updated version of S. 237. The bill includes the following provisions: All consumers would have the right to choose their power supplier by January 1, 2002. States could choose an earlier date for their residents if they wish. Utilities would be able to recover their legitimate, prudent and verifiable costs that they would have been able to recover from ratepayers if retail competition had not been implemented. Consumers located in States that currently have low cost electricity would be protected from rate increases by ensuring that utilities can't use their existing assets to sell power in more lucrative markets to the disadvantage of their existing customers. All utilities selling retail power would be required to generate a portion of that power using renewable resources. All of the interstate transmission facilities throughout the country would be managed by independent system operators to ensure that electricity flows in an efficient manner and that markets are competitive. FERC would be given greater authority to protect against the use of market power by utilities to inhibit competition. Both the Public Utility Holding Company Act [PUHCA] and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act [PURPA] would be repealed in conjunction with the implementation of retail electric competition. In addition, Mr. President, the legislation attempts to address some of the issues that relate to the impact of retail electric competition on two Federal entities--the Bonneville Power Administration [BPA] and the Tennessee Valley Authority [TVA]. Senator Gorton is especially knowledgeable about the special problems facing BPA and I expect that he will work closely with the other Members of the Senate from the Pacific Northwest in developing a consensus approach. With regard to TVA, our bill attempts to develop an approach that will enable retail competition to be smoothly introduced in the Tennessee Valley and will help TVA pay off its tremendous debt. The bill also requires the TVA board to prepare a study examining whether TVA should be privatized. I know that some observers may be concerned that this could be a first step toward the privatization of the Federal Power Marketing Administration [PMA's]. Mr. President, there is no connection whatsoever between TVA and the PMA's. The PMA's market power generated at hydroelectric facilities located at Federal dams. These dams perform a variety of public services and cannot be privatized. TVA, on the other hand, generates the bulk of its power from coal and nuclear plants that serve no public purposes. In addition, the Federal PMA's pay for themselves through power sales. TVA, on the other hand, has an enormous level of privately held debt which it must find a way to pay off, since the Federal Government is not responsible for it. Mr. President, I am especially pleased that Senator Gorton has decided to join with me in the effort to enact comprehensive electric restructuring legislation. He has a reputation as a very bright and thoughtful Member of this body and is a distinguished member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the matter. I know that he shares my desire to move this legislation through Congress quickly next year. Senator Murkowski, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, recently indicated that he expects the committee to mark up electric restructuring legislation next year. Both Senator Gorton and I want to work with him and the other members of the committee in moving forward. I look forward to undertaking this important task. Mr. President, I want to say how honored I am to have one of our most distinguished Senators, Senator Gorton of Washington, as my chief cosponsor on this bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a section-by-section analysis of the Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997 be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: S. 1401 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. (a) Short title. This Act may be cited as the ``Transition to Electric Competition Act of 1997''. (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents is as follows: Sec. 1. Short title and table of contents. Sec. 2. Findings. Sec. 3. Definitions. Sec. 4. Severability. Sec. 5. Enforcement. TITLE I--RETAIL COMPETITION Sec. 101. Mandatory retail access. Sec. 102. Aggregation. Sec. 103. Prior implementation. Sec. 104. State regulation. Sec. 105. Retail stranded cost recovery. Sec. 106. Wholesale stranded cost recovery. Sec. 107. Lost retail benefits. Sec. 108. Universal service. Sec. 109. Public benefits. Sec. 110. Renewable energy. Sec. 111. Determination of local distribution facilities. Sec. 112. Transmission. Sec. 113. Competitive generation markets. Sec. 114. Nuclear decommissioning costs. Sec. 115. Right to know. Sec. 116. Exemption of Alaska and Hawaii. TITLE II--PUBLIC UTILITY HOLDING COMPANIES Sec. 201. Repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Sec. 202. Exemptions. Sec. 203. Federal access to books and records. Sec. 204. State access to books and records. Sec. 205. Affiliate transactions. Sec. 206. Clarification of regulatory authority. Sec. 207. Effect on other regulation. Sec. 208. Enforcement. Sec. 209. Savings provision. Sec. 210. Implementation. Sec. 211. Resources. TITLE III--PUBLIC UTILITY REGULATORY POLICIES ACT Sec. 301. Definition. Sec. 302. Facilities. Sec. 303. Contracts. Sec. 304. Savings clause. Sec. 305. Effective date. TITLE IV--ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Sec. 401. Study. TITLE V--BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION Sec. 501. Findings and purposes. Sec. 502. Columbia River fish and wildlife coordination and governance. Sec. 503. Pacific Northwest federal transmission access. Sec. 504. Transition cost mechanism. Sec. 505. Independent system operator participation. Sec. 506. Financial obligations. Sec. 507. Prohibition on retail sales. Sec. 508. Clarification of Commission authority. Sec. 509. Repealed statute. TITLE VI--TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY Sec. 601. Competition in service territory. Sec. 602. Ability to sell electric energy. Sec. 603. Termination of contracts. Sec. 604. Rates for electric energy. Sec. 605. Privatization study. SEC. 2. FINDINGS. The Congress finds that: (a) Congress has the authority to enact laws, under the Commerce Clause of the [[Page S11970]] United States Constitution, regarding the wholesale and retail generation, transmission, distribution, and sale of electric energy in interstate commerce. (b) Several States have taken steps to require competition among retail electric supplies and a large number of other States are expected to act. (c) It has been the policy of Congress and the Commission to promote competition among wholesale electric suppliers. (d) It is in the public interest that the transition towards competition in electric service ensures that all consumers receive reliable and competitively-priced electric service. (e) Electric utility companies that prudently incurred costs pursuant to a regulatory structure that required them to provide electricity to consumers should not be penalized during the transition to competition. (f) Consumers will not benefit from the introduction of competition among electric energy suppliers if certain suppliers have undue market power. (g) It is important to encourage conservation and the use of renewable resources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, promote domestic energy security and protect the environment. (h) Competition among electric energy suppliers should not degrade reliability nor cause consumers to lose electric service. SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. For purposes of this Act: (a) The term ``affiliate'' of a specific company means any company 5 percent or more of whose outstanding voting securities are owned, controlled, or held with power to vote, directly or indirectly, by such specific company. (b) The term ``aggregator'' means any person that purchases or acquires retail electric energy on behalf of two or more consumers. (c) The term ``ancillary services'' shall have the same meaning assigned to it by the Commission. (d) The term ``associate company'' of a company means any company in the same holding company system with such company. (e) The term ``Commission'' means the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (f) The term ``company'' means a corporation, joint stock company, partnership, association, business trust, organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, or a receiver or receivers, trustee or trustees of any of the foregoing. (g) The term ``corporation'' means any corporation, joint- stock company, partnership, association, rural electric cooperative, municipal utility, business trust, organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not, or a receiver or receivers, trustee or trustees of any of the foregoing. (h) The term ``electric utility company'' means any company that owns or operates facilities used for the generation, transmission or distribution of electric energy for sale. (i) The term ``gas utility company'' means any company that owns or operates facilities used for distribution at retail (other than the distribution only in enclosed portable containers) of natural or manufactured gas for heat, light or power. (j) The term ``holding company system'' means a holding company together with its subsidiary companies. (k) The term ``large hydroelectric facility'' means a facility which has a power production capacity which, together with any other facilities located at the same site, is greater than 80 megawatts. (l) The term ``local distribution facilities'' means facilities used to provide retail electric energy for ultimate consumption. (m) The term ``lost retail benefits'' means the increased cost of retail electric energy in a retail electric energy provider's service territory resulting from the sale subsequent to the implementation of retail electric competition, outside such service territory, of electric energy generated at facilities the cost of which were included in the retail rate base of the retail electric energy provider prior to the implementation of retail electric competition. (n) The term ``mitigation'' means any widely accepted business practice used by an electric utility company to dispose of or reduce uneconomic assets or costs. (o) The term ``municipal utility'' means a city, county, irrigation district, drainage district, or other political subdivision or agency of a State competent under the laws thereof to carry on the business of a retail electric energy provider and/or a retail electric energy supplier. (p) The term ``person'' means an individual or corporation. (q) The term ``public utility company'' means an electric utility company or gas utility company but does not mean a qualifying facility as defined in the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, or an exempt wholesale generator or a foreign utility company defined in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. (r) The term ``public utility holding company'' means (A) any company that directly or indirectly owns, controls, or holds with power to vote, 10 percent or more of the outstanding voting securities of a public utility company or of a holding company of any public utility company; and (B) any person, determined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, to exercise directly or indirectly (either alone or pursuant to an arrangement or understanding with one or more persons) such a controlling influence over the management or policies of any public utility or holding company as to make it necessary or appropriate for the protection of consumers with respect to rates that such person be subject to the obligations, duties, and liabilities imposed in this title upon holding companies. (s) The term ``renewable energy'' means electricity generated from solar, wind, waste, including municipal solid waste, biomass, hydroelectric or geothermal resources. (t) The term ``Renewable Energy Credit'' means a tradable certificate of proof that one unit (as determined by the Commission) of renewable energy was generated by any person. (u) The term ``retail electric competition'' means the ability of each consumer in a particular State to purchase retail electric energy from any person seeking to sell electric energy to such consumer. (v) The term ``retail electric energy'' means electric energy and ancillary services sold for ultimate consumption. (w) The term ``retail electric energy provider'' means any person who distributes retail electric energy to consumers regardless of whether the consumers purchase such energy from the provider or an alternative supplier. A retail electric energy provider may also be a retail electric energy supplier. (x) The term ``retail electric energy supplier'' means any person which sells retail electric energy to consumers. (y) The term ``retail stranded costs'' means all legitimate, prudent, verifiable and non-mitigatable costs incurred by an electric utility company in all of its generation assets which would have been recoverable in retail rates but for the implementation of retail electric competition, less the total market value of these assets after retail electric competition is implemented. Binding power purchase contracts and regulatory assets, the costs of which would have been recovered but for the implementation of retail electric competition, shall be considered generation assets for purposes of this subsection. (z) The term ``rural electric cooperative'' means a corporation that is currently paying off a loan for the purposes of providing electric service from the Administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration or the Rural Utilities Service under the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. (aa) The term ``State'' means any State or the District of Columbia. (bb) The term ``State regulatory authority'' means the regulatory body of a State or municipality having sole jurisdiction to regulate rates and charges for the distribution of electric energy to consumers within the State or municipality. (cc) The term ``subsidiary company'' of a holding company means-- (1) any company 10 percent or more of the outstanding voting securities of which are directly or indirectly owned, controlled, or held with power to vote, by such holding company; and (2) any person the management or policies of which the Securities and Exchange Commission, after notice and opportunity for hearing, determines to be subject to a controlling influence, directly or indirectly, by such holding company (either alone or pursuant to an arrangement or understanding with one or more other persons) so as to make it necessary for the protection of consumers that such person be subject to the obligations, duties, and liabilities imposed upon subsidiary companies of public utility holding companies. (dd) The term ``transmission system'' means all facilities, including federally-owned facilities, transmitting electricity in interstate commerce in a particular region, including all facilities transmitting electricity in the State of Texas and those providing international interconnections, but does not include local distribution facilities as determined by the Commission. (ee) The term ``wholesale electric energy'' means electric energy and ancillary services sold for resale. (ff) The term ``wholesale electric energy supplier'' means any person which sells wholesale electric energy. (gg) The term ``wholesale stranded costs'' shall have the same meaning as in the Commission's Order No. 888. (hh) The term ``voting security'' means any security presently entitling the owner or holder thereof to vote in the direction or management of the affairs of a company. SEC. 4. SEVERABILITY. If any provision of this Act, or the application of such provision to any person or circumstance, shall be held invalid, the remainder of the Act, and the application of such provision to persons or circumstances other than those as to which it is held invalid, shall not be affected thereby. SEC. 5. ENFORCEMENT. (a) Violation of the Act.--If any individual or corporation or any other retail electric energy supplier or provider fails to comply with the requirements of this Act, any aggrieved person may bring an action against such entity to enforce the requirements of this Act in the appropriate Federal district court. (b) State or Commission Action.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person seeking redress from an action taken by a State regulatory authority, the Commission or a regulatory board pursuant to this Act shall bring such action in the appropriate circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. [[Page S11971]] TITLE I--ELECTRIC COMPETITION SEC. 101. MANDATORY RETAIL ACCESS. (a) Customer Choice.--Beginning on January 1, 2002, each consumer shall have the right to purchase retail electric energy from any person offering to sell retail electric energy to such consumer, subject to any limitations imposed pursuant to section 104(a) of this Act. (b) Local Distribution and Retail Transmission Facilities.--Beginning on January 1, 2002, all persons seeking to sell retail electric energy shall have reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to the local distribution and retail transmission facilities of all retail electric energy providers and all ancillary services. SEC. 102. AGGREGATION. Subject to any limitations imposed pursuant to section 104(a) of this Act, a group of consumers or any person acting on behalf of such group may purchase or acquire retail electric energy for the members of the group if they are located in a State or States where there is retail electric competition. SEC. 103. PRIOR IMPLEMENTATION. (a) State Action.--Nothing in the Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 824 et seq.) shall be deemed to prohibit a State or State regulatory authority, if authorized under State law, from requiring retail electric energy providers selling retail electric energy to consumers in such State to provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to its local distribution facilities and all ancillary services to any retail electric energy supplier prior to January 1, 2002. (b) Grandfather.--Legislation enacted by a State or a regulation issued by a State regulatory authority which has the effect of providing all consumers in such State the opportunity to purchase retail electric energy from any retail electric energy supplier by January 1, 2002 and provides electric utility companies with the opportunity to recover their retail stranded costs as defined by this Act (unless there is an agreement between a State or State regulatory authority and a retail electric energy provider which provides for a different level of recovery), shall be deemed to be in compliance with the requirements of sections 101 and 105 of this Act. (c) Reciprocity.--A State or State regulatory authority that provides for retail electric competition may preclude any retail electric energy provider selling retail electric energy to consumers in another State and their affiliates from selling retail electric energy to consumers in the State with retail electric competition if the retail electric energy provider does not provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory access, on an unbundled basis, to its local distribution facilities to any retail electric energy supplier. SEC. 104. STATE REGULATION. (a) State Requirements.--A State or a State regulatory authority may impose requirements on persons seeking to sell retail electric energy to consumers in that State which are intended to promote the public interest, including requirements related to generation reliability and the provision of information to consumers and other retail electric energy suppliers. Any such requirements must be applied on a nondiscriminatory basis and may not be used to exclude any class of potential suppliers, such as retail electric energy providers, from the opportunity to sell retail electric energy. (b) Maintenance of State Authority.--Nothing in this Act is intended to prohibit a State from enacting laws or imposing regulations related to retail electric energy service that are consistent with the requirements of this Act. (c) Continued State Authority Over Distribution.--A State or State regulatory authority may continue to regulate local distribution service currently subject to State regulation, including billing and metering in any manner consistent with this Act. SEC. 105. RETAIL STRANDED COST RECOVERY. (a) Application

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