Trump administration pulls US out of agreement to help restore salmon in the Columbia River
SEATTLE (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday pulled the U.S. out of an agreement with Washington, Oregon and four American Indian tribes to work together to restore salmon populations and boost tribal clean energy development in the Pacific Northwest, deriding the plan as 'radical environmentalism' that could have resulted in the breaching of four controversial dams on the Snake River.
The deal, known as the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, was reached in late 2023 and heralded by the Biden administration, tribes and conservationists as historic. It allowed for a pause in decades of litigation over the harm the federal government's operation of dams in the Northwest has done to the fish.
Under it, the federal government said it planned to spend more than $1 billion over a decade to help recover depleted salmon runs. The government also said that it would build enough new clean energy projects in the Pacific Northwest to replace the hydropower generated by the Lower Snake River dams — the Ice Harbor, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Lower Granite — should Congress ever agree to remove them.
In a statement, the White House said former President Joe Biden's decision to sign the agreement 'placed concerns about climate change above the Nation's interests in reliable energy sources.'
Conservations groups, Democratic members of Congress and the Northwest tribes criticized Trump's action.
'Donald Trump doesn't know the first thing about the Northwest and our way of life — so of course, he is abruptly and unilaterally upending a historic agreement that finally put us on a path to salmon recovery, while preserving stable dam operations for growers and producers, public utilities, river users, ports and others throughout the Northwest,' Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in a written statement. 'This decision is grievously wrong and couldn't be more shortsighted.'
Basin was once world's greatest salmon-producing river system
The Columbia River Basin, an area roughly the size of Texas, was once the world's greatest salmon-producing river system, with at least 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act. Another iconic but endangered Northwest species, a population of killer whales, also depend on the salmon.
The construction of the first dams on the main Columbia River, including the Grand Coulee and Bonneville dams in the 1930s, provided jobs during the Great Depression, as well as hydropower and navigation. The dams made the town of Lewiston, Idaho, the most inland seaport on the West Coast, and many farmers in the region rely on barges to ship their crops.
But the dams are also main culprit behind the salmon's decline, and fisheries scientists have concluded that breaching the dams in eastern Washington on the Snake River, the largest tributary of the Columbia, would be the best hope for recovering them, providing the fish with access to hundreds of miles of pristine habitat and spawning grounds in Idaho.
The tribes, which reserved the right to fish in their usual and accustomed grounds when they ceded vast amounts of land in their 19th century treaties with the U.S., warned as far back as the late 1930s that the salmon runs could disappear, with the fish no longer able to access spawning grounds upstream.
'This agreement was designed to foster collaborative and informed resource management and energy development in the Pacific Northwest, including significant tribal energy initiatives,' Yakama Tribal Council Chairman Gerald Lewis said in a written statement. 'The Administration's decision to terminate these commitments echoes the federal government's historic pattern of broken promises to tribes, and is contrary to President Trump's stated commitment to domestic energy development.'
Republicans in region opposed agreement
Northwestern Republicans in Congress had largely opposed the agreement, warning that it would hurt the region's economy, though in 2021 Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho proposed removing the earthen berms on either side of the four Lower Snake River dams to let the river flow freely, and to spend $33 billion to replace the benefits of the dams.
'Today's action by President Trump 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,' Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington, said in a news release.
Tribes, environmentalists vow to fight for salmon
The tribes and the environmental law firm Earthjustice, which represents conservation, clean energy and fishing groups in litigation against the federal government, said they would continue working to rebuild salmon stocks.
'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,' Earthjustice Senior Attorney Amanda Goodin said. '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.'
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Hegseth, testifying at three congressional hearings this week, sought to highlight the president's 'peace through strength' agenda, casting the moves as popular with many who serve while rejecting the blowback he and the president have received from Democrats and within the military for injecting politics into the historically nonpartisan institution. Hegseth, to the approval of Trump's supporters on Capitol Hill, argued that it was the Biden administration that politicized the military first with its promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and extending opportunities to transgender troops. 'We are restoring the warrior ethos,' Hegseth said at a House Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday. 'President Trump charged me to focus relentlessly on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness, and that is exactly what we've done since day one.' 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There is no requirement for the president to choose an Army general for any of those positions, and all of those nominated are considered credible selections. But in the aggregate, people familiar with internal deliberations said, it looks like an effort by the president to punish leaders associated with the tumultuous fall of Afghanistan, even though they were required to carry out decisions made by the Biden administration. During the presidential campaign, Trump pledged to fire any general who had a role at the end of the 20-year war, which occurred months after Biden, rejecting senior military leaders' advice, ordered the full withdrawal of U.S. troops as Trump himself agreed to do in a pact he made with the Taliban before his first term ended. Though Trump has not followed through on his threat, among those bypassed for advancement are two Army officers who had key roles in the evacuation of Kabul: Gen. Christopher Donahue and Gen. James Mingus. Neither could be reached for comment. Donahue, a Special Operations veteran with time in the elite Delta Force, was dispatched to the Afghan capital after the crisis erupted to manage security operations at the airport. More than 120,000 people were airlifted to safety, but scenes of desperation and violence were common. He was promoted late last year to four-star general but only after an extended hold on his nomination by Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma). Mingus was director of operations on the Pentagon's Joint Staff, reporting to Gen. Mark A. Milley, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Milley and Trump have a contentious history dating to Trump's first term, and the now retired general has criticized the president on several occasions, making him a singular target of the MAGA movement's ire. Donahue was seen as a rising star and a leading contender to become the next commander of U.S. European Command, while Mingus was the Biden administration's planned choice to lead U.S. Central Command, both among the military's most high-profile postings. Kelly, the White House spokeswoman, noted the fall of Afghanistan when asked for comment about the two generals being bypassed. The Defense Department under Biden, she said, 'was fraught with one disaster after another, including the failed Afghanistan withdrawal, which was the most embarrassing day in American history.' Parnell, the Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that the Trump administration's oft-stated goal of 'restoring the warrior ethos' requires 'a class of senior military leadership that puts warfighting first.' 'Under the previous administration, our senior military leaders were asked to put ideology before mission and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives before merit,' Parnell said. 'You saw the deadly cost of that distraction play out during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. That nonsense ends now.' Trump, Hegseth and Caine are working closely on each senior military nomination, and Hegseth has 'complete confidence' in each one so far, Parnell said. Heidi Urben, a retired Army colonel and Georgetown University professor, said it is not clear to her whether the Army getting bypassed for top assignment, continued scrutiny of the fall of Afghanistan, and the restructuring and consolidation in the service all are related. But some Army officials may see connections, she said, and there are comparable periods in recent history 'when a particular service felt it couldn't get out of the crosshairs' of the defense secretary or felt like it was falling behind in terms of influence. 'While there may always be a few kernels of truth there, each of the services tend to be very sensitive to any perception that they're losing standing, resources, or influence vis-à-vis the other services,' Urben said. Jason Dempsey, an Army veteran who studies civil military affairs for the Center for a New American Security, said he has been struck by what he called Hegseth and his team's negativity as they explain personnel decisions. Their 'bombastic' tone, Dempsey said, 'implies that there is more there than meets the eye, and this is a very political move.' 'It reveals that this has less to do with lethality than with retribution,' he said. 'Over time, this is the kind of stuff that actually degrades military responsiveness.'
