(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday revoking an executive action taken by former President Joe Biden related to the lower Snake River dams in Washington state, a move that has drawn praise from those advocating for their continued operations while criticized by environmentalists.
Located in Eastern Washington, the four lower Snake River dams were built in the 1960s and 1970s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which also operates them. Combined, the dams produce about 1,000 megawatts of electricity on average.
For years, there have been political debates in Washington as to whether or not the lower Snake River dams should be breached or demolished to help endangered salmon subspecies recover. Opponents of breaching the dams have argued that improvements to the fish passages have increased their survival rates moving through the dams, while advocates believe those rates are not sufficient to help the subspecies regain healthy population levels.
In 2023, Biden signed a memo that ordered the dam operations to be conducted “in a manner that provides equitable treatment for fish and wildlife with the other purposes for which the Federal dams are managed and operated.”
The memo revoking Biden’s order claims that this “placed concerns about climate change above the Nation’s interests in reliable energy resources,” adding that it required “the Federal government to spend millions of dollars and comply with 36 pages of onerous commitments to dam operations on the Lower Snake River.”
In a statement, Washington Policy Center’s Vice President of Research Todd Myers wrote that “this is very good news not just for Washington’s economy and energy, but also for salmon. The memorandum is consistent with the science-based conclusions of the largest-ever environmental analysis released in 2020 by the federal scientific agencies that recommended keeping the dams in place.”
“Dam opponents have consistently claimed that Snake River salmon are on the verge of extinction,” Myers added. “They have been wrong consistently. Most recently, in 2021 dam opponents claimed that wild Spring Chinook on the Snake River would be ‘functionally extinct’ this year. In fact, returns this year are slightly above the 10-year average. Early estimates are that returns will be even higher next year.”
Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., wrote in a statement that Trump’s memo “reverses the efforts by the Biden administration and extreme environmental activists to remove the dams, which would have threatened the reliability of our power grid, raised energy prices, and decimated our ability to export grain to foreign markets.”
Reacting to Trump’s memo, EarthJustice Senior Attorney Amanda Goodin said in a statement that the 2023 agreement “the Trump administration is turning its back on an unprecedented opportunity to support a thriving Columbia Basin — and ignoring the extinction crisis facing our salmon. Unfortunately, this short-sighted decision to renege on this important agreement is just the latest in a series of anti-government and anti-science actions coming from the Trump administration. This administration may be giving up on our salmon, but we will keep fighting to prevent extinction and realize win-win solutions for the region.”
