[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 18 (Thursday, February 24, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S791-S792]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          DISMANTLING THE COLUMBIA-SNAKE HYDROELECTRIC SYSTEM

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, last Friday, Oregon governor John 
Kitzhaber announced his support for a radical Clinton-Gore 
administration proposal to begin dismantling the Columbia-Snake 
hydroelectric system by removing four hydroelectric dams in 
southeastern Washington. That same day, in Seattle, campaigning for 
president, Bill Bradley also announced his support for this proposal.
  Is support for destroying the Columbia hydro system now a litmus test 
for the Democratic Party and its candidates for public office? I hope 
not, because the importance of salmon recovery and the value of our 
Northwest hydro system is too important to every family and community 
in our region.
  The Clinton-Gore administration--most prominently through Interior 
Secretary Bruce Babbitt--has aggressively advocated dismantling dams. 
Specifically, the administration has devoted significant agency 
resources to study removal of the four Snake River dams in Washington. 
Even the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has publicly endorsed dam-
breaching. Several other agencies list it as a serious ``option'' to 
recovery Pacific Northwest salmon.

[[Page S792]]

  I will state here again--as I have many times already--no proposal to 
remove Snake or Columbia River dams will pass in Congress while I am 
Senator. I know that my colleagues, Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon, 
Senator Mike Crapo and Senator Larry Craig, as well as Governor Dirk 
Kempthorne of Idaho share my view.
  In addition, last year, Republican members in the House for 
Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Alaska--led by my friend Congressman Doc 
Hastings--co-sponsored a House resolution expressing opposition to the 
removal of dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Scores of Washington 
State Senators and state legislators appeared at a rally last year in 
support of the dams. And unlike the Democratic presidential candidates, 
my friend governor George W. Bush has stated that he would not approve 
of such a proposal.
  I particularly commend Governor Gary Locke for stating his opposition 
to this unwise position. Governor Locke has been especially courageous 
and thoughtful in representing the best interest of his constituents in 
spite of the criticism of many of his own supporters. Removing dams 
from the Columbia hydro system is bad policy. It is bad for people. It 
costs too much. And the value to salmon is highly questionable. What is 
certain is that dam removal will make the Northwest a dirtier place to 
live as it will put tens of thousands of added trucks on the road and 
as clean hydro power is replaced with coal or gas burning energy.
  The case against breaching the Snake River dams is bolstered by 
evidence found in the Corps of Engineers own feasibility study. The 
Corps found that with existing dam conditions, the average survival 
rate through all four dams and reservoirs on the Snake River for 
juvenile salmon is already over 80 percent, and for adult salmon is 88-
94 percent. In addition, in the dozens of appendices, summaries, 
charts, glossy brochures, and documents, there is little, if any, 
concrete, verifiable biological or scientific data in the Corps' study 
that shows that the removing even one inch of these dams would restore 
salmon runs.
  At the same time, much of the Corps' own evidence in the feasiblity 
study verifies that the economic and social effects caused by dam 
breaching would be devastating to the region. The Corps' cost 
estimates, which are unrealistically low, assume that the economic 
impact measured in lowered farmland values, pump modification costs, 
and irrigation wells would exceed $230 million.
  Replacing lost hydropower with other energy forms would increase 
electricity costs to local ratepayers by as much as $291 million per 
year. And increased highway and rail traffic costs would cost 
industries an additional $24 million per year, and $100 to $200 million 
a year to replace barging with trucking and rail. On top of that, the 
government, through your taxpayer dollars, would have to find an 
estimated $1 billion just to accomplish the job of removing the dams.
  Throughout the study, the Corps acknowledges that breaching the dams 
would have an adverse effect on the environment, resident fish and 
wildlife, clean air, higher water temperatures, specifically through 50 
to 75 million cubic yards of eroding sediment, increased dust and 
emissions from replacing hydroelectric power with natural gas, and 
increased annual pollution and safety concerns from highway and rail 
traffic.
  What the Corps didn't say in the study is that today, the Columbia 
and Snake Rivers provide a transportation corridor that moves more than 
$13 billion in cargo comprised of exports and imports to and from 43 
states. This system in 1997 alone handled 43 percent of all U.S. wheat 
exports and 11 percent of U.S. corn exports. That's a significant 
amount of food for the world that would have to be transported in other 
ways.
  All of this comes at a time when the Bonneville Power Administration 
is reporting impending energy shortages for the Pacific Northwest and 
the Secretary of the Energy is traveling to the Middle East to try for 
cheaper oil to counteract increasing gasoline and oil prices.
  Also lost on this administration and other dam removal advocates is 
the fact that salmon populations are declining everywhere including in 
watersheds where there are no dams. The National Academy of Sciences 
studied Northwest salmon issues and found that in river basins like the 
Chehalis basin and the Willapa basin where there are no dams, the 
decline of salmon populations, per capita, is identical to that of the 
Columbia River. Native salmon runs on the East Coast are in more 
serious decline than many in the Pacific Northwest and yet almost none 
of those salmon runs are from rivers containing hydroelectric dams. But 
are we still to believe that destroying the Columbia hydro system is 
necessary to save salmon?
  And let's be clear about one more thing. Today, the dam removal 
advocates focus only on four dams that generate power for BPA on the 
Snake River. But let nobody be fooled. They and their political allies 
among the national environmental groups mean to destroy more of the 
Columbia hydro system than just these four dams.
  If removing these four dams on the Snake River--dams containing fish 
passage facilities--is necessary to comply with the Endangered Species 
Act and other laws, then surely, Grand Coulee Dam without fish passage 
facilities blocking hundreds of miles of pristine salmon habitat must 
come down. Perhaps the Oregon Governor can explain why Oregon's Hells 
Canyon dam on the Snake River and with no fish passage capacity can 
survive under his criteria.
  This debate is about preserving or dismantling the Columbia River 
hydro system. I will fight to preserve this system and fight to restore 
salmon runs within the context of this system.
  I thank the Chair. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennett). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DODD. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Dodd pertaining to the submission of S. Con. Res. 
82 are located in today's Record under ``Submission of Concurrent and 
Senate Resolutions.'')

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