Next week, members of the House Committee on Natural Resources will be coming to Central Washington to learn about and see the Snake River Dams and hold a field hearing to discuss the critical role they play in the Pacific Northwest. Weekly Column - June 22, 2023 Welcoming my Congressional Colleagues to See the Unyielding Importance of the Snake River Dams Next week, members of the House Committee on Natural Resources will be coming to Central Washington to learn about and see the Snake River Dams and hold a field hearing to discuss the critical role they play in the Pacific Northwest’s river commerce, agricultural productivity, and energy production. This visit provides our community with a significant opportunity to expose the fallacies of those who seek to undermine the importance of the Snake River Dams to our region under the guise of environmentalism. Let me be clear: the four Lower Snake River Dams are the lifeblood of Central Washington and the Pacific Northwest. They provide the foundation for energy generation, flood control, navigation, irrigation, agriculture, recreation, and more. To breach these dams would be an act of sheer folly, inflicting irreparable harm upon our communities. The benefits of the Snake River Dams are immeasurable. The hydroelectric generators that hum within their structures provide us with clean, renewable, safe, and affordable energy for our homes and businesses. Their capacity to power over 800,000 homes is a testament to their unparalleled importance. To replace this generation capacity with another renewable energy source: solar power, our community would need an expanse of over 6,000 acres smothered with three million solar panels, which only generate power when the sun shines. The dams account for approximately 8% of Washington's electricity and 4% of the region's power supply. It is worth noting that this surpasses the output of wind and solar energy in our state combined. Breaching the dams would plunge us into a precarious position: to replace the reliable power that sustains our economy and quality of life, our region would be forced to turn to traditional sources of energy, such as coal or natural gas. But the extreme environmentalists in favor of breaching these dams don’t want to talk about that. The proponents of dam removal conveniently ignore the devastating consequences such action would have on our food supply chains. Over 50% of our nation's exported wheat travels through this river system via barge, benefitting from the river's navigability facilitated by these dams. Breaching the dams and thereby eliminating these ship passages would force this valuable commodity onto our already congested roads and railways, resulting in an additional 201 freight-train loads and a staggering 23 million miles of new trucking annually. This shift would inevitably lead to a surge in carbon emissions—a move entirely contrary to the environmentally conscious goals we should all be striving for. The extreme environmentalists don’t want to talk about that either. It is disheartening to witness the misguided efforts of the Biden Administration and extreme environmentalists who espouse baseless claims about salmon populations to push their political agenda. Salmon returns have been increasing, serving as a testament to the diligent work of our fish biologists, local conservation partners, tribal neighbors, and federal agencies. Their combined efforts have yielded significant progress, laying false to the claim that rebuilding salmon stocks necessitates sacrificing electrical power. Salmon and dams do coexist harmoniously. The doom-and-gloom scenarios peddled by the "studies" predicting the extinction of Wild Chinook populations by 2025 have been thoroughly debunked. The number of Wild Chinook has more than doubled, and last year witnessed the highest salmon returns since 2016. Our focus should not solely be on fish going upstream, but also on their safe passage downstream when they are most vulnerable. Thanks to the invaluable research from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the dams now employ techniques that allow 96-98% of young salmon to pass each dam successfully. Destroying the dams would yield marginal—if any—improvements, and we must not jeopardize the well-being of our communities for such a minuscule gain. The good news is Congress alone has the authority to preserve or breach these critical infrastructure projects. And as a steadfast advocate for the interests of Central Washington and the Pacific Northwest, I am resolute in my commitment to protect the Lower Snake River Dams. Next week’s field hearing with the House Committee on Natural Resources will convene experts in fish and science, power and transmission, navigation and transportation, and food, irrigation, and trade to educate Members of Congress and the public about the importance of protecting these dams. I look forward to welcoming my colleagues in Congress to hear the invaluable insights from these experts. I encourage all community members to join us at 1:00 PM on Monday, June 26th at Richland High School to learn about the immense benefits our dams bestow upon our region. Let us not be swayed by the emotional pleas of the ill-informed, but rather embrace the truth, grounded in science and sound policy, to safeguard the future prosperity of the Pacific Northwest. View on My Website ‌ ‌ ‌ newhouse.house.gov Congressman Dan Newhouse | 504 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 Unsubscribe [email protected] Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by [email protected]