[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 142 (Thursday, September 22, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H6350]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                    CALAMITY OVER KLAMATH AGREEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, this generation is facing spiraling 
electricity prices and increasingly scarce supplies. Californians have 
had to cut back to the point that their electricity consumption per 
capita is now lower than that of Guam, Luxembourg, and Aruba.
  What is the administration's solution? Interior Secretary Ken Salazar 
announced yesterday that the administration is moving forward with a 
plan to destroy four perfectly good hydroelectric dams on the Klamath 
River, capable of producing 155,000 megawatts of the cleanest and 
cheapest electricity on the planet, enough for about 155,000 homes.
  Now, why would the administration pursue such a ludicrous policy? 
Well, they say it's necessary to increase the salmon population. Well, 
the thing is, we did that a long time ago by building the Iron Gate 
Fish Hatchery. The Iron Gate Fish Hatchery produces 5 million salmon 
smolt every year--17,000 of which return annually as fully grown adults 
to spawn. The problem is, they don't include them in the population 
count. And to add insult to insanity, when they tear down the Iron Gate 
Dam, we will lose the Iron Gate Fish Hatchery and the 5 million salmon 
smolt it produces annually.
  Declining salmon runs are not unique to the Klamath. We have seen 
them up and down the Northwest Pacific coast over the last 10 years as 
a result of the naturally occurring Pacific decadal oscillation--cold 
water currents that fluctuate over a 10-year cycle between the Pacific 
Northwest and Alaska. In fact, during the same decade that salmon runs 
have declined throughout the Pacific Northwest, they have exploded in 
Alaska. We are now at the end of that cycle.
  The cost of this madness is currently pegged at a staggering $290 
million, all at the expense of ratepayers and taxpayers. But that's 
just the cost of removing the dams. Consumers will face permanently 
higher prices for replacement power, which, we're told, will be wind 
and solar.
  Well, not only are wind and solar many times more expensive; wind and 
solar require equal amounts of reliable standby power, which is 
precisely what the dams provide. We're told that, yes, this may be 
expensive, but it will cost less than retrofitting the dams to meet 
cost-prohibitive environmental requirements. Well, if that's the case, 
maybe we should rethink those requirements, not squander more than a 
quarter billion dollars to destroy desperately needed hydroelectric 
dams. Or here is a modest suggestion to address the salmon population--
count the hatchery fish.
  We're told that this is the result of a local agreement between 
farmers and stakeholders. Well, Mr. Speaker, everybody knows that the 
Klamath agreement was the result of local farmers succumbing to 
extortion by environmental groups that threatened lawsuits to shut off 
their water. And obviously the so-called ``stakeholders'' don't include 
the ratepayers and taxpayers who will pay dearly for the loss of these 
dams.
  Indeed, local voters have repeatedly and overwhelmingly repudiated 
the agreement and the politicians responsible for it. The locally 
elected Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors vigorously opposes it.

                              {time}  1030

  Finally, the administration boasts of 1,400 short-term jobs that will 
be created to tear down these dams. Just imagine how many jobs we could 
create if we tore down the Hoover Dam or Duluth, Minnesota.
  Madam Speaker, amidst a spending spree that threatens to bankrupt 
this Nation, amidst spiraling electricity prices and chronic shortages, 
to tear down four perfectly good hydroelectric dams at enormous cost is 
insane. And to claim that this is good for the economy gives us 
chilling insight into the breathtakingly bad judgment that is 
misguiding our Nation from the White House.
  The President was right about one thing when he spoke here several 
weeks ago. Fourteen months is a long time to wait to correct the 
problem. Fortunately, the administration will need congressional 
approval to move forward with this lunacy, and that's going to require 
action by this House.
  Earlier this year the House voted to put a stop to this nonsense. I 
trust it will exercise that same good judgment as the administration 
proceeds with its folly.

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