Tester urges CFAC to work with BPA

Montana Sen. Jon Tester said he urged Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. officials  to continue talks with the Bonneville Power Administration on a power agreement.

Tester said last week he “had a nice discussion” with CFAC officials and he pushed to have the two entities “get together and find common ground.”

But Tester also admitted that low aluminum prices and low demand for aluminum was also a factor in the plant’s future.

CFAC announced it was shutting down its aluminum smelter in Columbia Falls completely by February. The company blamed low aluminum prices and power prices for its decision. Adding to the power price equation was a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the BPA had improperly “monetized”  power for the company. BPA was giving CFAC and aluminum producer Alcoa cash payments in lieu of actually providing power.

The court found, however, that those cash payments were too much and actually subsidized the power at a rate lower than what many other customers, including the cooperatives that challenged the agreement, paid.

So a $17 million payment that CFAC was due to get this month wasn’t made and the two parties are now back at the negotiating table and the plant, which employed 200, is now ready for shutdown in February.

Tester also talked about an upcoming President Obama stimulus plan. Everyone has a wish list for how the money can or will be spent, but Tester said he strongly favored infrastructure developments, including further funding Glacier’s Going-to-the-Sun Road and for the Kalispell Highway 93 bypass.

He said he has spoken to the Obama transition team to lobby for more Park Service funding.

Tester said the Park Service was “underfunded miserably.”

But he also cautioned that there were no earmarks in the stimulus plan, as the plan is designed right now, the money would be funneled to states that would determine what projects would and wouldn’t get funding.

Locally, a couple of projects have popped up on the state’s wish list, including upgrading Columbia Falls sewer and work on U.S. Highway 2.