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DeFazio and Bush bedfellows: Snake River dams must stand forever (Part 3). by onemuleteam One Mule Team (blog), March 5, 2008

As many of you know, Peter DeFazio, my congressional representative and landslide winner of his last two reelection bids is still having trouble finding the requisite courage to ask for a meaningful Columbia River BiOp (Salmon Recovery Plan) or to support the Salmon Economic Analysis and Planning Act. Fisheries scientists have concluded that removing the four lower Snake River dams is the best way to recover ESA listed spring/summer chinook in the basin.

I wrote a letter to Peter DeFazio explaining my position. He was kind enought to write back explaining why he could not see things my way. I then wrote him a letter rebutting his stated reasons for opposition. I've given you his first two reasons, my rebuttals and suggested that I hoped reason # 3 passes the smell test. Well, (spoiler alert) as the baby in Who Framed Roger Rabbit so succinctly put it "[t]he whole thing stinks like yesterday's diapers."

Reason #3: "We often hear that the lost power of the lower four dams on the Snake River can easily be made up for with alternative energy." (Paraphrasing now) it can't. Peter DeFazio, in an email dated June 15, 2007.

First of all, I never stated that it would be easy but quite doable. It basically comes down to a question of money, political will and public policy. The policy question is how supply electricity and recover ESA listed species. Oregon must meet this challenge in order to fulfill our obligation to future generations of Oregonians and Americans. All that aside, if the power can't be economically replaced, the study mandated by SEAPA would reach the same conclusion. If Representative DeFazio actually believed his own words it would be a reason to support the Act, not to opppose it.

His statement also infers that if something is not easy it should not be done -- he must not fish steelhead or salmon.

Related Pages:
DeFazio and Bush Bedfellows: Snake River Dams Must Stand Forever (Part 1) by Karl Mueller, One Mule Team (blog), 3/8
DeFazio and Bush Bedfellows: Snake River Dams Must Stand Forever (Part 2) by Karl Mueller, One Mule Team (blog), 3/8
DeFazio and Bush Bedfellows: Snake River Dams Must Stand Forever (Part 4) by Karl Mueller, One Mule Team (blog), 3/8
Geothermal, G-E-O-T-H-E-R-M-A-L, Geothermal by Karl Mueller, One Mule Team (blog), 3/14/8

March 6, 2008 at 12:07 pm

sierratrout

If he does fish for steelhead and salmon, he probably does so on private rivers and remote fly-in watersheds that are inaccessible to the masses. When is that bastard up for re-election again?