fourth District U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R) just recently proposed an expense that would safeguard the Snake River Dams.
On March 23, Newhouse presented the Northwest Energy Security Act together with 5th District U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R).
Newhouse said this costs would go towards securing the dams while supporting fish healing and preservation efforts.
Newhouse says the dams offer hydropower and transport advantages which breaching the dams would break the administration’s objective of reaching their tidy energy objectives.
“If we’re trying to reach a clean, carbon-free environment in the next decade or two, there’s no way we’re going to do that if we eliminate the transportation route that the dams provide us with the river, let alone that clean energy that they produce,” Newhouse said. “How do you in any way replace the carbon free production of the hydroelectric dams at a low cost?”
Newhouse discussed Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson’s proposed $33.5 billion strategy to breach the dams and change the energy benefits the dam brings.
“Despite spending over $17 billion on fish recovery efforts, Idaho salmon and steelhead numbers are not improving and will continue to get worse,” Simpson composed. “Will we spend $20 billion more in the next 30 years only to have them go extinct anyway? The worse they get, the more we will spend.”
In 2022, Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray accepted purchase changing the advantages of the Snake River Dams, which breaching the dams are important to safeguard threatened salmon and steelhead types.
On March 21, President Joe Biden discussed strategies to deal with pacific northwest stakeholders on the Snake River Dam conversation at the Conservation in Action 2023 Summit.
“I’m also committed to working with the Tribal leaders here, as well as Senator Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell, and Representative Mike Simpson, to bring healthy and abundant salmon runs back to the [Columbia] River system.”
Newhouse said that his costs would continue supporting fish populations, mentioning that they are discovering imaginative services to make sure fish types flourish while keeping the dams.
“We continue to invest in many of the habitat resources, fish hatchery resources, are spending a lot of effort and resources improving the fish passage through the dams with safer turbines, improving the ability for them to to cross the dams.”
