Press Releases

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, Chairman Dan Newhouse (WA-04) and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05) hosted a forum titled, “The Importance of Hydropower for Rural Communities.” The forum featured Western Caucus Executive Vice Chair Doug LaMalfa (CA-01), and Western Caucus Members Russ Fulcher (ID-01), Cliff Bentz (OR-02), and Jim Baird (IN-04).

“It’s perplexing to me why we have to spend so much energy defending some of the most important pieces of infrastructure that we have that took generations to develop and build and we've benefited from for so long, in fact so long that many people forget what life was like without the dams that provide us our way of life,” said Chairman Newhouse. “It seems to me that we should be spending our resources, our time, and our energy on even improving the technology we have. If we spent more energy doing that, we could continue to benefit from these from these dams for a long time to come.”

“The Columbia Snake River system serves as the beating heart of our region, and it helped transform our region from what was a dried, barren sagebrush to one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. And as a result, farmers in the Pacific Northwest are able to send their products: wheat, apples, potatoes all across America and to countries around the world,” said Chairwoman McMorris Rodgers. “It strengthens our energy grid, it’s lowered energy costs for families and businesses, transformed our entire region all while helping reduce carbon emissions.”

“Hydropower provides renewable, low-cost energy to our power grid around the clock while creating American jobs. I’m bewildered that that so-called environmental advocates are forcing dam removals across the West without the scientific evidence to back up their ideas, and no acknowledgement of the catastrophic consequences that could occur from these actions,” said Executive Vice Chair LaMalfa. “Residents in the Klamath Basin in Southern Oregon and Northern California know about this struggle better than most from the proposed Klamath River dam removal – the largest dam removal project in U.S. history. Removing hydroelectric dams from our energy grid will drive up energy costs, potentially destroy wildlife, and decimate local jobs, something everyone should be against.”

“The lower Snake River dams are a critical linchpin to North Idaho and for the Pacific Northwest, said Rep. Fulcher. “And the removal of those or breaching those would be economic devastation.”

“The amount of benefit from removing the dams, just as Congressman Fulcher indicated, would be extraordinarily modest. The number I understand that our witness is going to testify to on Monday is 0.01% would be the benefit to the fish,” said Rep. Bentz. “The damage to the community would be amazingly awful.”

These Members heard from industry experts and organizations who highlighted the importance of these pieces of infrastructure and how the Biden Administration is working to remove this carbon-free, baseload power from the Pacific Northwest.

• Mr. Scott Simms, CEO of Public Power Council
• Mr. Jim Horan, Executive Director of Mid-West Electric Consumers Association
• Mr. Ryan Holterhoff, Senior Policy Analyst of Grant County PUD
• Mr. Brian Edwards, Executive Vice President of Grand River Dam Authority
• Mr. Chandler Goule, CEO of National Association of Wheat Growers

“The Lower Snake River Dams regularly are the defining line between keeping the power flowing and parts of the West being plunged into rolling blackouts,” said Mr. Scott Simms.

“That value of hydropower isn't going away, in fact, again, increasing over time as we see more and more capacity of the system,” said Mr. Jim Horan. “The other benefit that we get from the hydropower system or the other benefit that you get as consumer-owned utilities is a transmission system that's really second to none.”

“These locally owned and operated hydroelectric resources have been the main engines powering Grant County's economy for six decades as they have enabled Grant PUD to provide our customers with some of the lowest cost and most reliable electricity in the entire country,” said Mr. Ryan Holterhoff.

“The lower Snake River dams are a critical infrastructure system required to move U.S.-grown wheat to high-value markets around the world,” said Mr. Chandler Goule. “To be more specific, more than 55% of all U.S wheat exports move through the Snake River system by barge or rail, specifically 10% of the wheat that is exported in the United States passes through the four locks and dams along the lower Snake River. This corridor is the third largest grain export corridor in the world and is the single largest Corridor for U.S. wheat exports.”

“The Pensacola Project, which many of your members came to visit several years ago, is the crown jewel and it's an ideal example of a multi-use project the federal power authority envisioned over 100 years ago,” said Mr. Brian Edwards. “It's been operating for over 80 years, we welcome over a million visitors each year including anglers from around the world, and it produces enough energy to produce a power 42,000 homes, but more importantly it's an economic driver for the four-state region.”

Click here to watch the forum.