Republican lawmakers who were shut out of the Biden administration’s negotiations with plaintiffs in a lawsuit over lower Snake River dam operations grilled officials about the deal they made with plaintiffs during a Jan. 30 hearing.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, asked Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, if she agreed that only Congress has the authority to remove the dams.

Mallory agreed.

“Do you think it’s appropriate for the U.S. government to establish a new public policy in a confidential sue-and-settle negotiation?” McMorris Rodgers said.

“There was no sue-and-settle negotiation here, Congresswoman,” Mallory replied.

“A billion dollars to the plaintiffs, temporarily, no more lawsuits for five years … with the possibility of another five years,” McMorris Rodgers responded.

McMorris Rodgers asked Mallory how many of the hundreds of emails she has received from the public were opposed to the agreement.

Mallory said she has not gone through every one of her emails.

McMorris Rodgers held up a stack of 40 letters from stakeholder groups representing thousands of people in the Pacific Northwest.

McMorris Rodgers noted that four of 29 tribes in the state were involved in the agreement.

“CEQ cut a secret, back room deal to please radical environmentalists who are profiting from a campaign to tear out our dams,” McMorris Rodgers said. “You ignored the science, and the law, and there will be consequences for that.”

McMorris Rodgers recently joined Reps. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash.; Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore.; Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho; and Cliff Bentz, R-Ore., in introducing the Defending Against Manipulative Negotiators Act (DAMN ACT) to prohibit federal funds from being used in breaching or altering the dams and to prohibit the implementation of the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative.

Electricity rates

McMorris Rodgers asked John Hairston, administrator and CEO of the Bonneville Power Administration, what removing the dams would mean for the region’s electricity rates.

Hairston said they would likely go up. Removing baseload resources, and resources that allow more flexibility, could have a “diminishing” impact on grid reliability, he said. In response to McMorris Rodgers’ questions, Hairston said BPA would still be able to maintain its independence in keeping rates low for ratepayers and would not be forced to purchase power from a tribal energy program, as proposed in the agreement.

NOAAMcMorris Rodgers asked Janet Coit, assistant administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, if the agency had changed its policy regarding breaching the dams.

She asked Coit if NOAA had ever advocated breaching the dams before its 2022 report on rebuilding salmon and steelhead numbers.

“I don’t want to say anything inaccurate, so I would like to double-check, but I don’t believe so,” Coit said.

Coit said the agency looked at a regional consensus around a report the agency endorsed, goals different than under the Endangered Species Act, and released the 2022 report on “the best suite of actions that would provide the best chance of meeting those higher, healthy and harvestable goals.”

“Bottom line, it sounds to me like NOAA changed their position,” McMorris Rodgers said.

Salmon runs

Coit said all of the salmon runs on the lower Snake River dam are threatened or endangered. McMorris Rodgers asked which specifically are improving.

“In recent years, several of the runs have improved,” Coit said.

“What about the runs on Puget Sound?” McMorris Rodgers said. “Are they improving, or are they in decline? Are they in crisis?”

“Unfortunately, the threatened and endangered salmon across the Pacific Northwest are all not doing well, all the listed species,” Coit said. “We’re taking a multitude of actions in Puget Sound, as well as the Columbia River Basin.”

McMorris Rodgers displayed a graphic showing five salmon runs listed as in crisis in the state. Only one passes through the lower Snake River dams. She asked how NOAA determined the dams are the main source of the problem.

“I think what we’re saying is the lower Snake River dams are part of the factors that put salmon at risk, not that they are the one thing,” Coit said.

McMorris Rodgers pointed to rivers without dams along the West Coast that have similar salmon declines. She asked Coit if other factors — predation, pollution, habitat loss and ocean conditions — could be the main issue impacting the success of salmon, and not the dams.

“All of those things affect salmon during their life cycle, for sure, including the dams,” Coit said. “We’ve seen that … when you take out dams, salmon will return to places they haven’t been because of the impediments.”

McMorris Rodgers noted that fall chinook and steelhead salmon runs on the Snake River are approaching goals or progressing, while several runs in Puget Sound are “in crisis.”

“I have yet to see a plan to address those runs,” McMorris Rodgers said.

Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., chairman of the Energy, Climate and Grid Security Subcommittee, asked if the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was involved in the decision to remove the dams.

“There’s been no decision to remove dams,” said Mallory, the CEQ chair, before saying FERC was not a part of the interagency process “because it’s an independent agency.”

“There’s long-term implications there, they should have been — they’re involved on the front end of approving electric projects, reliability, energy costs, but they weren’t involved in removing dams that could ultimately affect energy prices for people in Washington state,” Duncan said.

“We are not removing dams,” Mallory said. “How many times am I going to say that?”

Secret meetings

Mallory and others involved in the development of the deal protested characterization of the mediation process as “secret.” They pointed to strict confidentiality requirements imposed by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

“We provided opportunities for public comment, …” Mallory said. “We created listening sessions, we created a mailbox, we did a request for information from CEQ so that folks would have a chance to voice their views on some of these issues — all of which was then made available to the people participating in the mediation.”

Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, argued that “Not a single person with the responsibility to keep the lights on was in the room when this deal was cut.”

Matheson said the settlement agreement is a way to force Congress’ hand and put lawmakers in a position where breaching is more likely.

“Important stakeholders were in fact left out of the important stages of the settlement agreement,” Matheson said. “Sure, everyone’s involved at the front end for some listening sessions and asked to provide some comments. Then, when the real conversations happened over the last several months, they were shut out of that process. The people whose job it is to keep the lights on were kept in the dark.”

Matheson said that the settlement process sets a “dangerous precedent” of exclusion.

“CEQ, the federal mediation team, the individuals given the privilege to negotiate shouldn’t be proud of this settlement,” he said. “It undermines trust in the federal government, it will invariably lead to more litigation and it’s going to harm electric reliability.”

Matheson, a Democrat, served as a congressman representing Utah from 2001 to 2015. He was on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

“I think part of the analysis that will go on over the next 10 years, which is what this agreement allows for, will look at what the energy needs are, what’s realistic and what’s practical,” said Mallory, of the CEQ.

Energy: Exposing Biden’s Plan to Dismantle the Snake River Dams and the Negative Impacts to the U.S. hearing