Progress Made On Salmon Funding White House Indicates Willingness To Use Federal Money To Help Pay For Changes At Hydropower Dams

White House officials meeting with Northwest Democrats on Thursday indicated a willingness to help the region’s electric ratepayers pay for changes at hydropower dams to save endangered salmon, the lawmakers said.

White House chief of staff Leon Panetta and White House Budget Director Alice Rivlin made no promises but agreed to meet with the Northwesterners again next week to specify how much federal money and in what way they would help, said Rep. Elizabeth Furse, D-Ore.

“They definitely indicated a willingness to help. That’s a big step,” Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., said after the meeting.

“We’re meeting with higher-level people now. In December, we were meeting with people who didn’t think there was a problem and that the (federal) government didn’t have to help,” he said.

“There were no dissenters in the room today. There wasn’t anybody representing the administration who felt they do not have an obligation to help fund the salmon mitigation effort. The question is how far and how much,” DeFazio said.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., was host of the meeting. He said Panetta committed to work with him to find a solution.

“My message to the Clinton administration is that Montana ratepayers are tapped out,” Baucus said. “We cannot afford another unfunded mandate that the salmon recovery effort represents.”

“Recovering salmon in the Columbia River basin is important. But it must be a national effort and not at the expense of the 600 men and women who work at Columbia Falls (Mont.) Aluminum Co.,” the senator said.

Others attending the meeting Thursday were Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.; Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash.; and Rep. Pat Williams, D-Mont.

“Investing in salmon recovery will bring back the billion-dollar salmon industry and the 60,000 jobs it supports,” said Furse, who represents Oregon’s northern coast region.

“Any way you look at it, the benefit truly outweighs the cost,” she said.

The National Marine Fisheries Service issued a draft biological opinion earlier this month that indicates an additional $160 million will have to be spent annually to modify dams and alter water flows to save some Snake River salmon from extinction.

Customers of Bonneville Power Administration already are paying about $300 million a year, much of it in the form of the cost of forgone power, to benefit endangered fish and wildlife in the river basin.

DeFazio is urging the administration to require federal agencies other than BPA, such as the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, to assume some of the costs of salmon restoration.

He also said BPA should be granted credits in its debt payments to the U.S. treasury when the power wholesaler foots the bill for salmon recovery efforts more directly tied to flood control, irrigation and recreation uses of the hydropower dams.