Draft Sixth Power Plan Comment

Dear Sirs: The Draft Sixth Power Plan needs to establish targets that will greatly reduce our region's CO2 emissions, thereby doing our part to mitigate climate change due to greenhouse gases. One proposal I support for reducing CO2 is to begin phasing out our existing coal-fired power plants. We can make up for the loss of these plants through a combination of energy efficiency and conservation, along with increased use of renewables, especially wind and solar energy. If coal has an economic advantage over renewable sources of energy, it's only because we subsidize coal by ignoring its environmental costs. We need to include these costs when comparing the true costs of our energy sources. We must establish a strong preference for energy sources having the least environmental impact. Also, please restore your staff’s projected cost for carbon emissions in the draft 6th Plan, along with staff analyses showing relatively minor rate impacts from shedding coal power by 2020, as well as the staff study showing only a modest cost for replacing the power from the four lower Snake River dams in order to restore our wild salmon.