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Less than two years ago,the governance of President Joe Biden announced what tribal
leaders hailed as an
unprecedented commitment to the Native tribes whose ways of life had been devastated by federal dam-building
along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.
The deal, which took two years to negotiate, halted
decades of lawsuits over the harm federal dams had caused to the salmon that had sustained those tribes
culturally and economically for thousands of years. To enable the removal of four hydroelectric dams considered
especially harmful to salmon, the government promised to invest billions of dollars in alternative energy sources to be
created by the tribes.
It was a remarkable step following repeated failures by the government to uphold the tribal
fishing rights it swore in treaties to preserve.
The agreement is now just another of those broken promises.
President Donald Trump signed a memorandum
on Thursday pulling the federal government out of the deal. Trump’s decision halted a government-wide initiative
to restore abundant salmon runs in the Columbia and Snake rivers and signaled an end to the government’s willingness
to consider removing dams that blocked their free flow.
Thursday’s move drew immediate condemnation from tribes and from environmental groups
that have fought to protect salmon.
“The Administration’s decision to terminate these commitments echoes the federal
government’s historic pattern of broken promises to tribes,” Yakama Nation Tribal Council Chair Gerald Lewis said in
a statement. “This termination will severely disrupt vital fisheries restoration efforts, eliminate certainty for hydro
operations, and likely result in increased energy costs and regional instability.”
The government’s commitment to tribes, though, had been unraveling as almost when
the deal was inked.
Key provisions were already languishing under Biden. After Trump won the presidency,
his administration spiked most of the studies called for in the agreement, held up millions of dollars in funding and
cut most of the staff working to implement salmon recovery. Biden’s promise to seriously consider the removal of dams
gained little traction before it was replaced by what trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, called “passionate
support” for keeping them in place.
The chair of the White House task force to implement the agreement quit in April
because of what he saw as trump’s efforts to eliminate nearly everything he was working on.
“Federal agencies who were on the hook to do the work were being destroyed through
untargeted, inefficient and costly purges of federal employees,” Nik Blosser, the former Columbia River Task Force
chair, told ProPublica and OPB. “What I saw was a systematic dismantling of the federal government’s ability to
deliver on its commitments.”
Blosser said the Trump administration‘s actions were a “betrayal” of the tribes.
“The tribes negotiated in good faith, and the federal government is now walking away
from the table,” he said.
The agreement was intended to resolve decades of legal battles over the operation of
the Columbia River hydropower system, which includes 14 federal dams. The dams provide electricity, irrigation and
navigation, but they also block salmon migration and alter river flows, harming salmon habitat.
For decades, tribes and environmental groups have sued the federal government, arguing
that the dams violate federal laws protecting endangered species and tribal treaty rights. The lawsuits have forced
the government to spend billions of dollars on measures to mitigate the harm to salmon, such as fish hatcheries,
habitat restoration and improved fish passage at dams.
But the lawsuits have not stopped the decline of salmon populations, which are now at
historic lows. Many salmon runs are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
The agreement was intended to provide a more extensive and collaborative approach
to salmon recovery, one that would involve tribes, states, federal agencies and other stakeholders. It called for
the government to study the feasibility of removing four dams on the Lower Snake river, a major tributary of the
Columbia, and to invest in alternative energy sources to replace the power generated by the dams.
The agreement also included measures to improve fish passage at dams, restore salmon
habitat and increase funding for tribal salmon recovery programs.
But the agreement faced opposition from some Republicans and some business groups, who
argued that dam removal would harm the economy and threaten the reliability of the power grid.
“I am deeply disappointed by the Biden Administration’s continued efforts to breach our
dams,” rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Eastern Washington, said in a statement in December. “These
dams are the lifeblood of our communities, providing clean, affordable, reliable energy, and supporting our
agricultural economy.”
Rodgers and other Republicans have introduced legislation to block dam removal and to
promote hydropower growth.
Trump’s decision to pull out of the agreement is likely to reignite the legal battles
over the dams and to further polarize the debate over salmon recovery.
“This is a tragic day for salmon and for the tribes who have fought so hard to protect
them,” said Earthjustice attorney Steve Mashuda, who represents several tribal and environmental groups in the
litigation. “The Trump administration is putting politics ahead of science and is jeopardizing the future of these
iconic fish.”
mashuda said his clients would continue to fight for salmon recovery in court.
The Biden administration did not instantly respond to a request for comment.
The agreement was not legally binding, but it represented a political commitment from
the federal government to work with tribes and states to find a solution to the salmon crisis.
“Withdrawing from the agreement sends a clear message that the Trump administration is
not interested in working with tribes or in protecting salmon,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer,a Democrat from Oregon,in
a statement. “This is a shortsighted and destructive decision that will harm our economy and our environment.”
Republicans praised the move.
“I applaud President Trump’s leadership in prioritizing affordable and reliable
hydropower and rejecting the calls to breach our dams,” Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Central Washington, said
in a statement on Thursday. He said the Biden administration and “extreme environmental activists” would have
threatened the reliability of the power grid and raised energy prices with dam removal.
Even critics of the Biden deal, however, acknowledge they do not want the issue to
return to court, where judges’ orders have driven up electricity rates. When Bonneville can’t generate as much
hydropower to sell, but still has to pay for hatcheries and habitat fixes for salmon, it has to charge utilities more
for its electricity.
“I’m hoping that we avoid dam operations by injunction, because that doesn’t help
anybody in the region,” said Scott Simms, executive director of the Public Power Council, a nonprofit representing
utilities that purchase federal hydropower.
Earthjustice attorney Amanda Goodin, who represents the environmental advocates who
signed the agreement, said the Trump administration’s actions would force a return to courts.
“The agreement formed the basis for the stay of litigation,” Goodin said, “so without
the agreement there is no longer any basis for a stay.”
More Fish Will Die
The White House said that Trump’s revoking of the Columbia river deal shows that he
“continues to prioritize our Nation’s energy infrastructure and use of natural resources to lower the cost of living
for all Americans over speculative climate change concerns.”
Shannon Wheeler, chair of the Nez Perce Tribe, said the damage on the Columbia River
is anything but speculative.
“This action tries to hide from the truth,” Wheeler said in a statement. “The Nez
Perce Tribe holds a duty to speak the truth for the salmon, and the truth is that extinction of salmon populations is
happening now.”
Wild salmon populations on the Columbia and its largest tributary,the Snake River,
have been so sparse for decades that commercial,recreational and tribal subsistence fishing are only possible
because of fish hatcheries,which raise millions of baby salmon in pens and release them into the wild when they’re
old enough to swim to the ocean.
In some years, an estimated half of all the Chinook salmon commercial fishermen
catch in Southeast Alaska are from Columbia River hatcheries, making them critical for “restoring American seafood
competitiveness” as Trump aimed to do.
But some columbia River hatcheries are nearly a century old. Others have been so
badly underfunded that equipment failures have killed thousands of baby fish.
As ProPublica and OPB previously
reported, the number of hatchery salmon surviving to adulthood is now so low that hatcheries have struggled to
collect enough fish for breeding, putting future fishing seasons in jeopardy.
The Biden administration promised roughly $500 million to improve hatcheries across
the Northwest. His administration never delivered it, and trump halted all the funds before eventually canceling them
with this week’s order.
