[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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