07/29/06 BPA Cuts Rate

BPA Cuts Rate. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. For the fourth year in a row, the Bonneville Power Administration announced it expects to cut wholesale power rates. BPA Administrator Steve Wright cited extraordinary collaboration among BPA's utility customers and others as a key factor in the rate decrease. Wright said. "This rate case has been a great example of how, when we choose to work together, good things result for the Pacific Northwest." The new rate for power sold to BPA's preference utility customers is expected to be down about 3 percent from existing rates. This is about 10 percent lower than the draft rates proposed for 2007 eight months ago in BPA's initial rate proposal. Final rates will be announced in September and go into effect Oct. 1, 2006. BPA is a not-for-profit federal agency that markets about 40 percent of the electricity consumed in the Pacific Northwest. The power is produced at 31 federal dams in the Northwest and one nuclear plant and is sold to over 140 Northwest utilities. It operates a high-voltage transmission grid comprising more than 15,000 miles of lines and associated substations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Wright also added, "We are committed to building on these partnerships as we take on new challenges to ensure an adequate power supply for the Pacific Northwest in the long term." Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. Schools can ban soda and candy machines, fast food outlets can add apple slices and salad to their menus and pediatricians can preach until they are blue in the face about the perils of childhood obesity but researchers have concluded something most of us have suspected all along, unless healthy dining practices begin at home, there isn't much hope of changing adolescent dining behavior. This fact is reiterated in recent results of a online study created by dietitians and nutritionists who feel certain that they have discovered the key ingredient that helps adolescents make healthier food choices. Their family. The team from University of California poised societal and psychological behavioral questions to 878 kids from ages 11-15 and concluded that family dining habits played the biggest role in whether young people selected fruits and veggies or opted for junk food. Diligent parents can establish lifelong healthy dining patterns even during adolescents by adhering to household eating rules that incorporated healthy snacks and correct portion size. Thanks Susan. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.