[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 107 (Thursday, June 23, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3153-S3154]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT

  Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss and express my 
support for the Columbia River Federal Power System. The federal dams 
on the Columbia River System are a boon to the Pacific Northwest and 
stands as an example to other hydropower projects across the country 
and the world. Its capacity to generate always-on, baseload carbon-free 
power is vital not just to the Northwest, but relied upon by our 
friends in surrounding regions as well. The dams also bring substantial 
benefits for flood control, local recreation, irrigation, navigation, 
wildlife conservation, and industry. Even Idaho, my landlocked home 
State, is able to have a working seaport because of the navigation 
benefits provided by these dams, sending Idaho's products all around 
the world in an efficient, cost-effective, and low-carbon manner. As 
additional challenges have risen, scientists and managers at the U.S. 
Army Corps of Engineers have adapted to ensure the dams are still 
beneficial to humans and our natural environment.
  In the Water Resources Development Act before the Senate today, there 
is a seemingly innocuous but rather consequential and far-reaching 
study directed at aquatic habitat restoration in the Columbia River 
Basin. Other studies in this section are small enough to be measured in 
acres or at largest, a portion of a state. The Columbia River Basin 
spans nearly 260,000 square miles and reaches into seven States. This 
is not a small, localized review but instead an authorization for a 
comprehensive study on anything relating to aquatic restoration in one 
of the largest basins in the country.
  This may sound benign to my colleagues who are not from the 
Northwest, but this issue is not a new or small one. I have been 
discussing the Columbia River System and salmon recovery since my early 
days in the Idaho Legislature. Improving salmon and steelhead 
populations in the Northwest is an important goal and one I have long 
supported. What I cannot, however, support are the constant efforts to 
remove the benefits provided by our hydropower system under the guise 
of salmon recovery. The fact of the matter is we have studied this 
river and these dams ad nauseam. Most recently, we completed the 
Columbia River System Operations review, which specifically considered 
whether dam breaching was necessary for fish recovery and determined 
the opposite. It is pointless and irresponsible to spend further 
taxpayer dollars considering dam breaching.
  This brings me back to the study in title II. I appreciate very much 
the chairman and ranking member working with me to place appropriate

[[Page S3154]]

sideboards to ensure this study will not consider any recommendations 
that would result in the removal or reduction of the federally 
authorized purposes of the system or any measures that would result in 
a reduction in services provided by those purposes. While I still 
believe that this study is far too large and untargeted to result in 
timely recommendations for anadromous fish recovery--and as such, 
wastes funding better used in the region than on yet another river 
study--with this important limitation, I am pleased to be able to 
support the overall WRDA bill and the many important priorities it 
encompasses for our water infrastructure. Should this study be signed 
into law, I expect and will pay careful mind that it meets the specific 
congressional intent of preserving our hydropower system and the many 
benefits it provides. I look forward to continue working with my 
colleagues to identify solutions to salmon recovery that do not inhibit 
the clean energy, flood control, navigation, agricultural, and 
recreation benefits of our Federal power system.

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