Oregon Congressman Bentz to hold hearing on plan to remove Lower Snake River Dams
By Joe Hathaway on Tuesday, December 12th, 2023 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. Cliff Bentz is fighting back on what he says is the Biden Administration’s “deindustrialization of America.”
Bentz, who serves Oregon’s 2nd District (which covers all of eastern Oregon and parts of central and southern Oregon) is leading a Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries Subcommittee Hearing next Tuesday on the long-simmering issue over whether to remove the Lower Snake River Dams.
“The Biden Administration’s ongoing attempt to remove the Lower Snake River Dams is a direct attack on our clean energy production in the Northwest,” Bentz said in a release. “These dams are essential to our energy production, navigation on the Snake River into Idaho, and the agricultural industry. Removing them would be devastating. This hearing will expose the Administration’s reckless and destructive policies and give the people most impacted by them an opportunity to be heard”.
In an interview with Elkhorn Media Group, Bentz says this hearing was caused by the leak of a document from the Biden Administration, that aims to move forward with the dams removal. He says his panel will probe the Administration’s negotiations with eco groups trying to tear down the dams.
“We very much want folks to understand that those dams are in danger of being dismantled or operationally changed so that they’re not functional any longer, either to produce power or to allow navigation up the river to Idaho,” said Bentz. “The Administration and Council on Environmental Quality want to move forward and leave out the millions of people in the Northwest who will actually have to pay the bill.”
You can read a copy of the report here
The dams were built in the early 1960s and 1970s by the federal government and were designed to aid the migration of juvenile and adult fish, with new technologies adopted in the past 25 years to maximize survival, according to information from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who state an overall positive impact on fisheries.
But proponents of removing the dams say installing those dams are contributing to warmer water that is killing the fish during migration, recently causing lower returns than the 10-year average.
By law, it takes an act of Congress to remove any federal dam, but Bentz says people have to be careful with that concept.
“Congress has to act to breach the dams, but I’ve seen legal memos that call out the fact that a federal judge perhaps could order the dams to operate in a fashion that would render them basically just rocks in the river around which the water flows,” says Bentz. “They wouldn’t be removed, they wouldn’t be breached. They would still be there. But, a court order could render them disabled for purposes of navigation and power generation and the dams would still be on the river.”
Bentz said the hearing will feature expert testimony on the economic, environmental, legal and inequitable impacts that would occur if these four dams were removed. Bentz added that witnesses will also discuss what he believes is the Biden Administration’s abuse of power in making this decision.
“I want to expose the fact that the federal government is working in the dark on a process that they have no business in trying to force upon the millions of people in my district and the Northwest that pay for electricity,” said Bentz. “These policies are reflective of progressive policies and not for the purpose of power generation, which is to make sure your lights come on when you turn on the switch.”
If you would like to watch the hearing, it begins at 11:00am on Tuesday, December 12. Click here for the link.
