Newhouse Denounces Inslee-Murray Goal of Breaching Lower Snake River Dams

WASHINGTON, D.C. –– Today, Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) released a statement pushing back on Governor Inslee and Senator Murray’s final report which maintains their calls to breach the Four Lower Snake River Dams.

“Governor Inslee and Senator Murray are trying to have their cake and eat it too with their recommendation released this afternoon calling for a plan to replace the benefits of the Lower Snake River Dams to enable breaching to move forward. This report outlines what Central Washington has known all along: there is no reasonable replacement for the Lower Snake River Dams. 

The fact of the matter is, even if they were able to replace the 66% of the state’s energy which is currently provided by the clean, renewable, and affordable hydroelectric dams, the loss of the dams would still devastate our communities: prices would rise, crops would perish, jobs would be eliminated, and the environment would be threatened. Not to mention, we have the science to prove these dams are not threatening our salmon population—a population that is already seeing record levels of recovery with the dams in place.

Taxpayers should no longer be responsible for paying for duplicative, unnecessary reports like the one issued by Senator Murray and Governor Inslee. Instead, we should be focusing time and money towards more support for salmon recovery and habitat restoration efforts. The only silver lining here is that it still requires an act of Congress to remove these dams, and as the duly elected member serving Washington’s 4th Congressional District and representing the communities who would be most impacted by such an action, I will do everything in my power to prevent that from happening.”

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