[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 100 (Thursday, July 27, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7793-S7794]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BREACHING COLUMBIA AND SNAKE RIVER DAMS
Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, on a third and separate subject, during
the course of this past week, four Northwest Governors, two Republicans
and two Democrats--the Governors of Montana, Idaho, Washington, and
Oregon--released a framework that shows great promise toward the
recovery of endangered salmon on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. They
have done so without recommending that any dams on the Columbia and
Snake Rivers be breached and destroyed. I agree wholeheartedly with the
following statement from their plan:
The region must be prepared in the near term to recover
salmon and meet its larger fish and wildlife restoration
obligations by acting now in areas of agreement without
resorting to breaching the four Snake River dams.
That is a reasonable statement. Unfortunately, it is not one which
Vice President Gore and the Federal agencies now concerned with salmon
enhancement endorse in their countervailing recommendations of today to
keep moving forward with plans to destroy those dams.
I agree with the bipartisan Governors' plan in many of its elements,
including the principle that performance standards must be
scientifically based, subject to scientific peer review, reasonably
obtainable, and measurable. I agree with the Governors that the
National Marine Fisheries Service should work together with local,
State, and tribal governments and private landowners on what specific
improvements are needed for recovery. I agree with the Governors that
we need real leadership and that the President of the United States
should appoint one official in the region who will be accountable and
who will efficiently oversee Federal agency fish recovery efforts.
Over the past decade, we have squandered more than a billion dollars
and commissioned dozens of studies that have done little to promote a
consensus on how best to save salmon. The Governors and I agree that
local salmon recovery plans that avoid Federal methods of duplication
and top-down planning are a much more effective method of saving
salmon. I agree with the Governors that States should move ahead to
designate priority watersheds for salmon and steelhead plans that are
to be developed within 1 year and that the Federal agencies should have
clear numerical goals so that success may be measured in those
watersheds.
The appropriations subcommittee of this Congress last year directed
the National Marine Fisheries Service to provide numerical goals for
all of the listed fish in the Puget Sound and Columbia River regions
and a schedule for all other areas and to provide this information to
Congress by July 1 of this year. Instead of fulfilling this request,
those agencies have said they will not have any goals until the fall of
2001 and that they have only begun the technical recovery planning for
any species of fish they seek to recover. In other words, once again
the administration says what we ought to do without knowing what those
steps are designed to accomplish.
I agree with the Governors and their recommendation that the Army
Corps
[[Page S7794]]
of Engineers, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service must develop a long-term management plan to
address predation by fish-eating birds and marine mammals, including
seals and sea lions, and do so by the end of the year. I agree with the
Governors that the National Marine Fisheries Service should work with
the region to conduct an intensive study to address the role of the
ocean in fish recovery and ask that the management of fish and fresh
water reflect new information about the ocean as it is developed.
In short, I believe the Governors have a plan that will work. I have
supported millions of dollars in salmon recovery money to be given to
the States and to local volunteer groups and will work with them.
On the other hand, today the National Marine Fisheries Service has
come out with its top-down recommendations, recommendations that, I
want to point out, once again call for very specific measures and steps
to be taken but do not state any goals for recovery and do not allow us
to know what they believe success will be or how that success will be
measured.
In the course of the last week or 10 days, the newspapers in the
Pacific Northwest have been filled with statements that the Federal
Government had abandoned the idea of dam removal as an element in
salmon recovery at least for a decade. And the implication was that
they had abandoned it forever.
Not so, Mr. President. What does the biological opinion that was
issued today say in that respect?
It says:
The reasonable and prudent alternative requires that
further development of breaches as an option is necessary,
and it requires the Corps of Engineers by fiscal year 2002 to
seek appropriations to complete preliminary engineering and
design work by 2005 for potential removal of the four lower
Snake River dams.
It does that in spite of the fact that:
There is considerable uncertainty in assessing the status
of listed fish under current conditions, and the alternative
of breaching dams is highly dependent on the degree to which
there is delayed mortality associated with juvenile fish
passage at the dams and whether breaching would help even to
answer these uncertainties.
Well, we have a set of Federal agencies that have disagreed with one
another. The Corps of Engineers, a year ago, reached the conclusion
that dam removal was a poor idea. It did so in spite of vastly
underestimating, according to the General Accounting Administration,
the adverse impacts on the society, the economy, and the environment of
the Pacific Northwest. That recommendation was deleted from its formal
opinion by orders of the White House.
Vice President Gore has visited the State of Washington on three or
four occasions during the course of this year. Each time he has been
asked to state his opinion on dam removal, including a specific request
by one of his supporters, the Governor of Oregon. He has ducked,
dodged, and defied any attempt to get him to reach a conclusion on that
particular subject. But I think this biological opinion released by the
administration today shows what that opinion is. It is very simple: We
will fool the people of the Pacific Northwest by saying we have
probably abandoned the idea between now and the 8th of November, and
then under these recommendations we can change our mind very rapidly
when they won't have a direct say over who will manage the next
national administration.
Contrast that position with the forthright and unconditional pledge
of Governor Bush that the removal of our dams, the destruction of our
physical infrastructure, is not an option; that we can and will recover
the salmon resources in the Pacific Northwest by the use of our
imaginations and by following the advice of the people whose lives are
affected by these decisions--a view that I believe is entirely
consistent with the recommendations this week of the four Governors--
two Republicans and two Democrats, as I have already pointed out--from
the Pacific Northwest itself.
Well, we do have something to say about this issue. I pledge I will
do everything I can between now and the adjournment of this Congress in
late September or early October to see to it this administration is not
allowed to waste any more money--not a single dollar--on further
studies to remove dams on the Columbia-Snake River system. We will call
them to account for their own policies. Their own policies now say this
decision should be moved down the road. Fine. We will move the whole
decision down the road and hope that we will have a President who will
be mindful of the views of the people of the Pacific Northwest and, in
the meantime, we are not going to let them waste money to build a case
for removing dams that ought to stay in place.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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