In a fireside chat between U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse and NFIB Washington State Director Patrick Connor, the Congressman discussed how critical preserving the four Lower Snake River Dams is to the entire Northwest economy and the clear and present danger facing them. (See 17-minute video below.)

“We are facing the strongest opposition that I’ve ever seen in the movement toward breaching the dams,” said Newhouse. “We’ve really got to step up and take seriously the cases that are being made against them. This is probably the biggest, most serious issue we face, I would say, in the entire Northwest as it relates to our economic environment. I am concerned about our ability to preserve the dams.”

What we have now is not a given, warned the Congressman. “All of us are younger than the first dam on the Columbia River. Most of us do not know what life was like without low-cost hydroelectricity in the Pacific Northwest … To me, it seems very hypocritical that on one hand, we want to go to a carbon-free future by removing the most efficient, cleanest, renewable, baseload source of electricity known … and most cost effective. That to me it is trying to have it both ways.”

Newhouse said policymakers need to hear from NFIB members. A lot of decisions are being made, said the Congressman, without the voices from many of the people who depend on that river system heard. NFIB members should “engage in telling the story of what the dams offers our region … over and over again until we’re tired of hearing it.”

McMorris Rodgers Retirement

Because Congress has the sole authority over the operation of the river system, Newhouse called the recently announced retirement from Congress by neighboring U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a huge loss in the fight for preserving the dams and called on NFIB members to educate all the candidates seeking to replace her in the Fifth Congressional District on the importance of preserving the dams.

Final Note

NFIB thanks Congressman Newhouse, a small-business owner and former Director of the Washington State Department of Agriculture, for once again taking the time to apprise his fellow Main Street entrepreneurs of a very vital and complicated environmental issue, which he did three years ago with the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule. See related articles, Most Overreaching Federal Regulation Ever is Back and Watch NFIB’s Virtual Briefing on What Landowners Need to Know About WOTUS.