||| FROM THE BEND BULLETIN |||
The January 2024 subject of the Central Oregon Electric Coop’s journal ‘Ruralite’ featured a full-page letter by CEO Brad Wilson. Wilson mentioned that “special interest groups” had used litigation to get the 4 Lower Snake River Dams (LSRD’s) eliminated. He mentioned that the White House Council on Environmental Quality had “injected itself” into the method, “participating in confidential mediation with only select stakeholders” and that solely when “details leaked from the secret negotiations” did the coop study of an settlement that “fails to protect the Bonneville Power Authority (BPA) and exposes its customers to new costs, … translating into billions of dollars of new expenses.”
Gee, sinister “special interests” behind a “secret” conspiracy that imperils “system reliability” sounds fairly severe, doesn’t it? None of that’s true.
When the LSRD’S had been constructed 60 years in the past, scientists feared that they might result in extinction of Snake River salmon. See the eye-opening 1971 movie “Struggle for the Snake.” Sadly, over time, these predictions had been confirmed. All Snake River salmon populations at the moment are both extinct or on the endangered species checklist.
Twenty years in the past, a gaggle of events sued the federal authorities to save lots of the salmon from doom. The plaintiffs, had been: 1) the state of Oregon, 2) the Nez Perce Tribe, and three) Conservation teams together with the National Wildlife Federation. Are these “special interests?” Over 20 years, the plaintiffs gained in court docket seven instances. Each time, the federal government mentioned it will repair the issue however every time it failed to take action.
In 2022, the plaintiffs agreed to a year-long ‘stay’ within the litigation to offer the Biden administration an opportunity produce a plan. The events agreed to mediation overseen by the federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
The service will not be a secret society, a conspiracy, or a political act of White House meddling. It is a nonpartisan federal company established to settle lawsuits by way of confidential mediation. The negotiations weren’t “secret”, however they had been between events within the lawsuit — as any court docket case could be. The results of that negotiation was launched to the general public on December 15 offering an advanced path ahead (too lengthy for dialogue right here).
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