Jeffords Says H-Q Effort Is A "Reach"
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Published: November 12, 1999
By FREDERICK BEVER
Vermont Press Bureau
MONTPELIER - While the Senate has accepted a proposal by Sen. James M. Jeffords, R-Vt., to throw out Hydro-Quebec's high-priced electricity contract with Vermont utilities, Jeffords acknowledged on Thursday the initiative could die in the course of the legislative process.
"It is a reach," Jeffords said of his amendment, which would terminate the $4 billion Hydro-Quebec contract in six months. "The purpose of it is to get people to negotiate."
Noting that the idea of government interference in private contracts was not a small matter, Jeffords said there were both procedural and constitutional hurdles that would have to be overcome. But he also said the proposal still had a chance of enactment.
"This is a shot across their bow and it may well fall short," Jeffords said. "But it'll let them know we're not just blowing smoke here."
The contract is now considered bad for Vermont because it has locked state utilities into paying electricity prices that are more than twice the going rate on the open market.
Next year, Vermont will have the highest electricity rates in the country, according to the Department of Energy, and the financial survival of the state's largest utilities may be at stake.
Vermont players said they believed consideration of the issue at the highest levels of U.S. government could not fail to get the company's close attention. But Hydro-Quebec officials said on Thursday Jeffords' latest move would not push them back to the negotiating table any time soon.
Jeffords has been trying for weeks to get Hydro-Quebec officials to sit down with Vermont utilities to discuss the $4 billion contract.
The amendment he tacked onto a bankruptcy bill this week would give Hydro-Quebec six months to negotiate better terms for the contract, or else suffer its termination.
The Senate never actually took a roll-call vote - or even a voice vote - on Jeffords' measure, but gave it "unanimous consent." Under that procedure, the managers of any particular bill (in this case, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., was a manager) may accept proposed amendments without debate or discussion on the Senate floor.
The managers do check with leading members of committees that might have jurisdiction over the issue to make sure they have no immediate objection.
If not, the managers take the amendment to the floor and ask for unanimous consent - as happened with Jeffords' amendment Wednesday night - and if no opponent pipes up from the floor, the proposal is included in the bill.
The bankruptcy bill was passed by the House earlier this fall, and is still under consideration in the Senate. Once the Senate passes its version, the bill goes to a conference committee, where compromise over differences is attempted before a final package is brought to both houses for a vote.
Jeffords said on Thursday the prospects for his amendment to gain ultimate support from a majority of lawmakers (not to mention the president) were uncertain at best. Ideally, he said, Hydro-Quebec would begin negotiations before the question was put to a test.
"They (Senate colleagues) know that our goal is to get action going, and that when it comes time to get in conference some circumstances may change and it'll probably be dropped," Jeffords said. "Nothing is certain once you've passed the Senate - you've got the veto threat and you've got the House votes still to go."
But Jeffords' latest move has apparently left Hydro-Quebec unswayed: A company spokeswoman said Hydro-Quebec would not reopen negotiations with Vermont utilities until after completion of arbitration proceedings that began this summer.
In that forum, a panel of international arbitrators will determine whether Hydro-Quebec violated the contract when it failed to deliver power after the ice storm of 1998 downed its transmission lines.
"We will see what the arbitration tribunal has to say before we take another step," said Claudine Aucuit, a Hydro-Quebec press officer. "Of course we're very interested in the developments that are happening (in the U.S.), but for the time being we're in the arbitration mode."
Vermont utility officials were hopeful that Jeffords' actions would goad Hydro-Quebec officials into action. "His goal is to hit them between the eyes and make them take notice," said Robert Rogan, an executive at Central Vermont Public Service Corp. and a spokesman for the "Vermont Joint Owners" - the 15 Vermont utilities that signed the Hydro-Quebec deal in 1991.
"There wasn't a roll-call vote, but when the entire U.S. Senate addresses this, you would think they'd be concerned," Rogan said.
The rest of Vermont's congressional delegation said they supported Jeffords' actions. David Carle, spokesman for Sen. Leahy, said Leahy was happy to have played a role in bringing the measure forward.
"Senator Leahy has been pleased to be in a position to advance the bill to the next level of discussion," Carle said.
Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., would support the Jeffords amendment, according to Sanders' wife and spokeswoman, Jane Sanders.
"He is of course going to support any and all efforts to lower electricity rates in Vermont," Sanders said. "So he commends Senator Jeffords for his work in the area and will support it in the conference committee."
Threatening federal action to terminate the contract was only the latest of several ultimatums by Jeffords. He has also promised to make it harder for the company to sell electricity to U.S. customers in the future, and to ask the president to investigate whether he can take administrative action against the company.
Jeffords offered to take the threats off the table if Hydro-Quebec would agree to renegotiate the contract and meet a timetable for its reform.
When Hydro-Quebec officials did not respond by Wednesday, Jeffords said, the time had come to start making good on his threats.
"We sat by the phone waiting for the call saying they were going to negotiate and it didn't come and it wasn't going to come," Jeffords said.
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