Calamity Over Klamath Agreement

Floor Speech

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.

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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