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Idaho's U.S. Sen. Frank Church Wrote BPA's Rulebook It Demands Reliable Power, too. by Will Hart and Kurt Miller Idaho Capital Sun, May 7, 2026

The act requires an "adequate, efficient, economical, and reliable"
power supply, alongside fish and wildlife protections

Frank Church's conservation legacy deserves respect. But the federal law that Frank Church and his U.S. Senate colleagues passed -- the Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act of 1980 -- does not ask the region to choose salmon over reliable power. It requires an "adequate, efficient, economical, and reliable" power supply, alongside fish and wildlife protection under the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.

Forty-five years later, the harder question is whether either half of that mandate can still be met. Salmon returns are struggling across Western North America, including in undammed rivers, due to predators, ocean conditions, habitat loss and warming waters. This is not only a Snake River problem -- it is a coastal problem.

Even so, investments in hatcheries and passage have produced gains. Average salmon and steelhead returns over the past 15 years have more than quadrupled at Lower Granite Dam, compared with the dam's first year of operation in 1975.

The power picture is going in the opposite direction. Jim Robb, president of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, warned last fall that the U.S. grid is in a "five-alarm fire" condition, with dependable supply retiring faster than replacement resources arrive. The Western Electricity Coordinating Council reached a similar conclusion in its January 2026 assessment, finding blackout risk rising across the decade and flagging the Northwest as among the West's most exposed regions.

That risk is no abstraction. During the January 2024 cold snap, the Northwest came close to cutting power to homes and businesses. Federal dams were running hard, wind and solar output had dropped sharply, and the region had little margin left.

Idaho may not have a statutory clean energy mandate, but it is not insulated from these pressures. Load is growing, winter peaks are tightening, and the region is increasingly dependent on coordinated operations and imports during extreme conditions. When the margin narrows in the Northwest, Idaho is part of that system.

In an April 23 Idaho Capital Sun commentary, Stephen Pfeiffer made the case for removing the lower Snake River dams, arguing they represent "just 4 percent" of the region's power and can be replaced with "shovel-ready" clean energy.

That argument was strained five years ago. It does not survive today's power-system reality.

A recent E3 analysis, commissioned by the Public Generating Pool and 14 utility and power sector sponsors, and conducted by Energy + Environmental Economics, an independent energy consulting firm, projects the Northwest will be short 9 gigawatts of dependable capacity by 2030 and 14 to 18 gigawatts by 2035 -- a gap larger than Oregon's average demand before any dam is removed.

A second phase, released last month, projects retail rates running 36 to 47 percent above inflation from rising demand and insufficient supply alone. Meeting the West Coast's clean energy mandates -- alongside rising demand and tightening supply across the region -- would nearly triple today's retail rates.

E3's conclusion is direct: the transition is infeasible without at least one clean, firm, long-duration, dispatchable resource at commercial scale. Only one currently exists. It is hydropower.

That brings us back to the "4 percent" claim. It measures average energy in normal water years. It does not measure reserves, voltage support or the ability to respond when demand spikes and other resources underperform. And it does not measure winter peak capacity -- the lower Snake River dams can deliver up to 3,000 megawatts of flexible, carbon-free output, precisely the resource type the Northwest is already short on.

Idaho is not a bystander to this arithmetic. The state's municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives rely on Bonneville Power Administration hydropower for most of their supply -- among the lowest-cost wholesale electricity in the country. Even with the federal system in place, a typical Idaho public power household faces roughly $400 to $550 more per year in today's dollars at the lower end of E3's rate trajectory.

Now imagine that math without the lower Snake River dams.

None of this is an argument against salmon recovery. Pacific Northwest identity and tribal heritage are inseparable from the rivers, and Idaho has some of the finest remaining salmon habitat in the lower 48. But a serious basin debate requires the full arithmetic.

That math must include what reducing dispatchable, carbon-free capacity actually costs in reliability, in rates, and in the clean-energy transition regional policymakers have already committed to.

The Northwest Power Act's mandate was for both salmon and power. Honoring it today means treating the power obligation as seriously as the salmon obligation -- and recognizing that neither has been solved.