The municipalities are now empowered to own and operate electric distribution systems to serve their citizens, inhabitants, and customers by providing them electricity for all purposes. To assure that the municipalities may have alternative sources of bulk electric power and energy, in addition to those presently available, to operate their electric distribution systems in a dependable, efficient, and economical manner, it is desirable that the municipalities acting through the authority be empowered to engage in joint action for the generation, transmission, and distribution of bulk electric power and energy for sale to the municipalities for resale and for the sale, purchase, exchange and transmission of bulk electric power and energy with other electric suppliers. The Legislature finds and declares that the provision of alternative sources of bulk electric power and energy to the municipalities through joint action in the fields of generation, transmission, and distribution is in the public interest; that the creation of the authority as a non-profit public corporation is desirable to aid in the continued viability of the electric distribution systems operated by the municipalities and to provide for a means by which the municipalities may act jointly in all ways possible for the purpose of coordinated bulk electric power and energy supply programs; and that the necessity in the public interest for the provisions herein enacted is declared as a matter of legislative determination.