Klamath Basin Water Agreement Support Act of 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. BENTZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7938, as amended.

This long overdue legislation is necessary if the Federal Government is to honor critical commitments it has made to farmers and ranchers in my district in Oregon and Mr. LaMalfa's district in northern California.

For generations, farmers and ranchers receiving water delivered from the Klamath River and Klamath Lake have assumed the risk of weather, skyrocketing costs of production, wildly fluctuating markets, while playing by the rules, conserving more and more water, and continuing to do their best to provide high-quality food for our Nation.

However, over the past 25 years, they have done so under the additional burden of federally mandated drastic reductions in the amount of water they have State certified rights to use. These reductions dictated federally, coupled with increasing drought, threaten farmers' and ranchers' livelihoods, the communities that rely upon them, and ultimately our Nation's food supply.

The reason this legislation is needed now is because earlier this year, the four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River in Oregon and California were dismantled and removed. This leaves operation of instream structures, located upriver from the now removed four hydroelectric dams, at legal risk through no fault or action of or by the farmers.

As context, Mr. Speaker, for over 100 years, there were four hydroelectric facilities on the Klamath River. These facilities were located downstream from the Klamath Reclamation Project diversion structures. The four hydroelectric dams generated low-cost, clean, renewable energy for over a century. Although they were built by a local company, they were eventually acquired by PacifiCorp, a nationally operating investor-owned electrical utility.

In recent years, State and Federal regulators decided they wanted the four lower dams on the Klamath River removed. Regulations and litigation drove the cost of relicensing these dams through the roof, leading their owner, PacifiCorp, to the not-too-surprising conclusion that disposing of rather than relicensing the dams was the best path forward.

Based on this, PacifiCorp agreed the dams could be removed, but only if someone else assumed all legal responsibility and paid for all the work.

In addition, as a condition of allowing the four hydroelectric dams to be removed, PacifiCorp demanded that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation assume ownership of all remaining water infrastructure previously owned by PacifiCorp, including the Link River and Keno Dams, regardless of their condition, shifting all and whatever liabilities, known and unknown, that might burden them to the Bureau of Reclamation.

In the 15 years before removal of the hydroelectric dams, farmers and ranchers on the Klamath Project were promised that they would not have to bear the cost of retrofitting and updating this upstream infrastructure. This legislation will finally deliver on those promises.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Congressional Record a link to this copy of the 2016 Klamath Power and Facilities Agreement, which reflects some of these promises: https://bentz.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/ bentz.house. gov/files/evo-media-document/OR02Sharp__20241217__150611- compressed.pdf

In addition, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 7938 partially addresses another consequence of the destruction of these dams. The major reason for their removal was to allow salmon, steelhead, and other fish to migrate up rivers and streams to new areas. However, accompanying these returning fish are regulations and regulators anxious to make sure that the fish have appropriate means of passage, but the Klamath Project's irrigation infrastructure was not built or designed to deal with the needs of these species.

Over the past 15 years, irrigators in the Klamath Project have been repeatedly assured that there would not be any significant new regulatory burden or costs imposed upon them associated with removal of the four dams and the resultant arrival of fish, yet here we are.

Fortunately, this legislation would give the Bureau of Reclamation some of the authority and tools needed to keep that promise.

I thank my colleagues, Mr. LaMalfa, Ranking Member Huffman, and the Natural Resources Committee for supporting and working with me on this important bill. I also thank Chair Westerman.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on H.R. 7938.

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