Democrats control Congress. That’s the opening this Idaho Republican sees to save salmon

The first time someone approached Rep. Mike Simpson with the idea of breaching dams on the Snake River to save Idaho’s salmon, he started laughing.

“I thought, that’s just crazy,” Simpson recalled. “I said at the time, ‘You need to do everything you can to try to restore salmon runs, every alternative, before you look at taking out dams.’ “

That was about 25 years ago, when the Republican lawmaker was serving as speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives. Over the more than two decades since he was elected to represent the eastern half of the state in Congress, Simpson gradually came to what he describes as a clear-eyed conclusion.

“The reality,” he said in an interview with The Spokesman-Review, “is we’ve tried everything else.”

After three years and more than 300 meetings with stakeholders in the region, Simpson unveiled a proposal Feb. 6 to end the decades-long “salmon wars” between tribes, farmers, conservationists, businesses and electric utilities over the fish and the dams that threaten their continued existence.

While reactions from the region’s congressional Democrats have so far been lukewarm — with key senators calling for more deliberation — Simpson insists there is no time for further delay. In a curious set of political circumstances, the veteran GOP lawmaker is planning to hitch his wagon to a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure package President Joe Biden and his allies plan to move forward in a matter of weeks.

Simpson seeks billions in Biden infrastructure proposal

“Simpson’s plan clearly banks on a big federal infrastructure package,” said Justin Hayes, executive director of the Idaho Conservation League. “The region has gotten together and talked about this for years, but the region has never had the resources to do this. Never has the region said, ‘Let’s go find $33.5 billion.’ “

Simpson’s proposal outlines $33.5 billion in federal spending to breach four dams on the lower Snake River in 2030 — removing earthen berms to restore the river’s flow — and to replace the transportation, irrigation and power generation the dams provide.

“It’s the first proposal that looks at the big picture,” Simpson said. “Not just the question of ‘take dams out’ or ‘don’t take dams out,’ but if you take dams out, what are the consequences? We’re the first to admit those dams are valuable, and so if you’re going to take them out, how are you going to make the stakeholders whole?”

Other provisions in his plan would give agriculture a bigger role in watershed improvement and transfer fish management responsibility from the Bonneville Power Administration to a joint council of states and tribes. The remaining major dams in the Columbia River Basin would get license extensions of 35 to 50 years, along with a 35-year moratorium on lawsuits related to the dams. Simpson cites $17 billion from taxpayers and BPA ratepayers spent on fish recovery efforts since Idaho’s salmon and steelhead were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1991.

“A judge can’t order you to take the dams out — only Congress can do that,” Simpson said. “But the reality is a judge can make it so damned expensive to keep the dams that the only alternative is to remove them.”

After a federal study recommended against breaching the four lower Snake River dams last year, a coalition of environmental and fishing groups went to court in January to ask a judge to intervene.

Four dams on the Klamath River along the Oregon-California border are slated for removal after years of litigation over dwindling salmon runs. Pointing to the lack of compensation for those on the losing side of that legal fight, Simpson said his plan aims to ensure a fair resolution for all the region’s stakeholders.

In addition to keeping those stakeholders whole, a fundamental part of Simpson’s plan is a recognition of what the dams already have taken from tribes throughout the Columbia Basin.

“The impacts of the dams as a whole have affected our people economically, culturally, spiritually and physically as well,” said Shannon Wheeler, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe.

Nez Perce Tribe treaty gives Nimiipuu right of taking fish

Wheeler said the Nimiipuu people — the members of the Nez Perce Tribe — traditionally followed the salmon runs upstream, relying on the fish for food and developing their culture around the seasonal migration. In the 1855 Treaty of Walla Walla, they ceded most of their land to the United States in exchange for “the exclusive right of taking fish in the streams running through and bordering” the Nez Perce Reservation.

“If you look throughout history,” Simpson said, “the United States has not always kept its treaty obligations with tribes. In fact, you could say we rarely have kept our treaty obligations. One of the treaty obligations we have with tribes is to maintain the fishing rights that they have. You can’t do that if you don’t have fish.”

Wheeler points to Article VI, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution — known as the Supremacy Clause — which stipulates that treaties “shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby.”

“We made a bargain,” Wheeler said. “It secured our way of life and granted the United States rights in our areas, and that’s enshrined in the Constitution. ... We’re confident that we would be successful in court, but we would rather have this issue solved by everyone that’s involved in it.”

Other tribes in the region have hailed Simpson’s proposal, including the Spokane and Shoshone-Bannock tribes and the confederated tribes of the Colville Reservation, Yakama Nation and Umatilla Reservation. Conservationist and fishing groups have similarly welcomed it, but so far Simpson hasn’t received the support from other members of Congress he will likely need for his plan to succeed.

In a joint statement released Feb. 5, a day before Simpson even unveiled his plan, GOP Reps. Russ Fulcher of Idaho and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Dan Newhouse and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington endorsed the region’s hydroelectric dams and issued a dire warning.

‘Clean, renewable power ... is critical’

“The hydropower developed in the Pacific Northwest benefits every resident, family, and business in our region,” the Republicans wrote. “The clean, renewable power generated by the dams along the Columbia and Snake Rivers supplies half of the Pacific Northwest’s energy and is critical for a reliable power grid. Without it, life as we know it in our region would cease to exist.”

Simpson is quick to point out his plan aims to shore up the bulk of the region’s hydropower generation, ensuring the most productive dams continue to operate. The four lower Snake River dams together generate less than one-tenth of the Columbia Basin dams’ power output, and dam-breaching proponents argue the electricity they generate is getting increasingly costly relative to other energy sources.

Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said he has been hearing from farmers, ranchers and other Idahoans who staunchly oppose Simpson’s proposal.

“To his credit, Simpson has said that he doesn’t know if doing this is going to save the salmon,” Risch said in an interview. “I’m not chiding Congressman Simpson for doing this. He’s doing it in good faith. He strongly, strongly believes he wants to save the salmon, and I think we all do.”

“But if you’re going to do that, what you really ought to do is pursue something where you can stand up, beat your chest and say, ‘Look, do this with me and we’re going to save the salmon.’ And he starts off from the proposition that, yeah, there’s a lot of pain here, but it still might not save the salmon.”

Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, has expressed skepticism while welcoming Simpson’s proposal as a catalyst for ongoing regional talks over saving anadromous fish like salmon and steelhead. As the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, the Idaho senator could play a key role in deciding what ends up in the infrastructure package.

“I commend Mike for trying to bring people to the table to discuss this and find these solutions,” Crapo told Idaho radio host Neal Larson on Feb. 24. “But we haven’t got that kind of consensus yet. I think that we should use Mike’s suggestion here to jump-start and maybe give some additional fuel to the efforts to build that kind of collaborative solution.”

Simpson: Time to end debating, pass a compromise

Simpson said all he asks is that his fellow Northwest lawmakers read his whole proposal before forming an opinion.

“I knew when we did it that there would be the ‘hell no’ people,” he said, “and there would be people who think that they had reached nirvana and this was the solution to everything. It’s neither of those things. It’s a compromise that we think will save salmon and make the stakeholders whole.”

In response to Simpson’s proposal, four Democratic senators who will play key roles in crafting the infrastructure package — Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington, and Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon — released a joint statement calling for a measured approach.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, said in a statement that breaching the dams is not “a silver bullet for salmon recovery” and “would have devastating impacts on Idahoans and vital segments of Idaho’s economy.”

All three governors pointed to an October 2020 agreement between Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana “to define a future collaborative framework to rebuild salmon and steelhead stocks.” Simpson said the time for those plodding deliberations has passed.

“We’ve been debating this for 25 years,” he said.

The key to Simpson’s plan for swifter action is the infrastructure package the White House has dubbed the “Build Back Better” plan, borrowing a Biden campaign slogan.

Biden has said he wants Congress to craft a bipartisan infrastructure package, but prospects for wide GOP support are grim. Democrats see the legislation as a chance to enact Biden’s campaign promise of a massive investment to create jobs in clean energy industries.

The White House has so far declined to say how expensive the infrastructure package will be, but Simpson said he has heard rumors of $2 to $3 trillion. Even at the low end of that range, he pointed out, his $33.5 billion proposal would account for less than 2% of the total cost.

“I don’t think that’s too much to ask for the Pacific Northwest,” he said.

Lower Snake ‘not a river’ but ‘a series of pools ... ever-warming’

Asked how he feels about the prospect of funding his proposal through a Senate process likely to have no Republican support, Simpson said, “Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. ... It’s important to me, I think it’s important to the Pacific Northwest, and it’s important to my district, that’s for sure.”

While Simpson’s proposal had been in the works for years, he saw an opening when Democrats gained a narrow majority in the Senate after two unlikely victories in Georgia’s runoff election in January. While budget bills take shape in the House, a GOP-controlled Senate would have been likely to block most of Biden’s spending priorities.

Several Northwest lawmakers are also in key positions. Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the top Democrat on the House Transportation Committee, will play a lead role in crafting the infrastructure package. Cantwell chairs the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Wyden and Crapo are the top Democrat and Republican, respectively, on the Senate Finance Committee, and Murray is the third-ranking member of Senate Democratic leadership.

“The stars are kind of aligning,” Simpson said. “We’re probably stronger as a Pacific Northwest delegation than we’ve ever been.”

Simpson said he is asking everyone to get past their first impressions of his proposal and “think outside the box.”

“Think about not just what we currently do, but what do we want the Pacific Northwest to look like in 20 or 30 or 50 years,” he said. “Everything we do on the lower Snake and Columbia rivers we can do differently. It’s our choice.”

“The lower Snake River is not a river anymore, it is just a series of pools that are ever-warming, that endanger the salmon, and they’re going to go extinct if we don’t do something. To some people, that’s OK. It’s not to me.”

This story was originally published March 23, 2021 at 4:00 AM.