[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 26254]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 26254]]

                          SAVE OUR WILD SALMON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr.Nethercutt) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, today the Sierra Club, a group called 
American Rivers, a group called Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the 
clothing company, Patagonia, paid thousands of dollars for a full-page 
ad in the New York Times promoting dam removal on the Snake River in my 
district, the eastern side of the State of Washington, the fifth 
congressional district. We in the State of Washington and in the 
Pacific Northwest have tried our best to face up to the issue of 
restoring fish runs on our river systems so that we could have a 
healthy fishery, but also have a healthy economy. The ad that appeared 
today is run by these same groups that earlier this summer asked the 
President to look at all options for salmon recovery and fish recovery 
in the Pacific Northwest.
  Mr. Speaker, it is not even Halloween yet, and these groups have now 
taken off their masks of rational and reasonable parties to this debate 
by exposing their true intentions, which is dam removal on the lower 
Snake River.

                              {time}  1930

  Mr. Speaker, we face a serious issue of fish recovery, and no one, 
including this Member of Congress, wants to see wild salmon go extinct.
  So for those of us who represent the Pacific Northwest who are 
concerned about recovery of these runs, we are going to work very hard 
at looking at all options and all impacts on the decline of wild 
salmon. But I also believe, Mr. Speaker, that the regional interests 
have recognized that there is no magic solution to restoring these wild 
runs.
  This is a big puzzle with lots of pieces, and we have to see how each 
one fits in, to be sure that the economy of our State and our region is 
not destroyed at the expense, or at the interest of trying to restore 
wild salmon. These groups, with all respect to these groups, are doing 
their very, very best to jam one piece into the puzzle to try to solve 
it and make it all fit together. It does not. The dam removal issue is 
wrong for salmon; it is wrong for the Pacific Northwest; it is wrong 
for eastern Washington, and I am one who intends to oppose it at every 
opportunity.
  These groups will tell us that we have to keep all of our options 
open, but their one option for recovery of salmon is to tear out these 
hydroelectric dams that are the cleanest source of power generation in 
our region. The river system provides barging of young juvenile fish 
down the river system to go out into the Pacific Ocean and grow and 
then come back and spawn. There is an agriculture economy that would be 
destroyed by the destruction of the Lower Snake River dams. There is 
recreation that would be destroyed. There is energy production that 
would be destroyed. There is flood control that would be destroyed. In 
other words, a lot of bad consequences to an idea that is simplistic in 
its nature, but ineffective in its imposition.
  First of all, Congress has an obligation to decide whether this 
happens or not and allocate and provide the funding to do such an 
extreme action that these groups want to impose. So this is a fund-
raising effort, I suspect, for these groups to try to raise money from 
people who could not care less about what happens in the Pacific 
Northwest, which really is a solution without a scientific basis.
  We have to look at all the science in this situation, to look to see 
what works and what does not and what interests are injured and what 
interests are benefited by extreme actions that are seeking to be taken 
by these particular extremist groups.
  Mr. Speaker, those of us who live in this region appreciate the need 
to have a healthy fishery. We also appreciate the need to have a 
healthy economy. We have to look at sensible science, not junk science 
that I think is being proposed by these groups of extremists, but by 
healthy science, by sensible science that takes into consideration all 
of the benefits and all of the detriments of a particular action. We 
have Indian treaties which allow the Indian tribes to take fish from 
our river systems. We have a Caspian tern problem that exists near the 
mouth of the Columbia where millions of smolts are eaten every year.
  So I must say, Mr. Speaker, in closing that we have to be careful 
about the extremist actions that are being taken by these extremist 
groups and look for a sensible solution to this problem.

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