Cramer: House Passes Western Area Power Administration Reform

Press Release

Congressman Kevin Cramer supported legislation, which passed the House of Representatives today, directing the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) to establish a seven year pilot project to improve transparency for its customers.

H.R. 2371, the Western Area Power Administration Transparency Act, earlier approved by unanimous consent on July 26, 2017 before the House Natural Resources Committee, ensures certain information must be updated annually on WAPA's website. Beginning for information from the 2008 fiscal year, WAPA must publicly display on its website such information as rates charged by power systems to its customers for power and transmission services, amounts of energy or capacity sold by power systems, as well as a detailed accounting of functional and budget activity for each region as well as WAPA's headquarters office.

"Today's common sense reform, supported by the Western Area Power Administration themselves, is a great step towards addressing any questions there may be from WAPA's customers, as well as those of us tasked with its oversight--from rate increases to discrepancies between budgeted and executed dollar amounts. My hope is the Senate will adopt our bill so that these reforms can begin immediately."

WAPA is one of four power marketing administrations within the Department of Energy, tasked with marketing and transmitting wholesale electricity from multi-use water projects, such as the Garrison Dam in central North Dakota.

Before his election in 2012, Cramer was a member of the North Dakota Public Service Commission beginning in 2003, which included within its duties various roles of oversight of North Dakota's electricity grid.

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