The Trump administration has ended funding and protections for the Columbia River Basin.
President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of a Biden-era agreement that aimed to restore native salmon populations and clean energy production with two Pacific Northwest states and four tribal nations.
Tribal leaders quickly denounced the memorandum.
“The Yakama Nation is deeply disappointed by this unilateral decision to terminate the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, particularly without prior consultation,”said Yakama Tribal Council Chairman Gerald Lewis in a press release on June 12.
In his June 12 memorandum, Trump said he was protecting the American people from the “radical green agenda policies.”
In a press release on June 12 in response to Trump’s memorandum, Nez Perce Tribe chairman Shannon Wheeler said the memorandum only exacerbates the problem.
“This action tries to hide from the truth. The Nez Perce Tribe holds a duty to speak the truth for
the salmon, and the truth is that extinction of salmon populations is happening now,” he said. “People across the Northwest know this, and people across the nation have supported us in a vision for preventing salmon extinction that would at the same time create a stronger and better future for the Northwest.”
In 1855, the United States and four tribal nations of the basin entered into treaties specifying that those tribes have a right to harvest fish on their reservations and at all usual and accustomed places.
Since 1855, however, the federal government’s construction of dams has severely depleted fish populations.
On September 27, 2023, former president Joseph Biden issued a memorandum to restore healthy salmon populations in the Columbia River basin.
In his memorandum, Biden said it was a “priority” to honor federal trust and treaty responsibilities to tribal nations.
“This remains the shared vision of the states of Washington and Oregon, and the Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Nez Perce tribes, as set out in our Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative,” Wheeler said. “It is a vision we believe is supported, publicly or privately, by most people in the Northwest. And it is a vision underlaid by the treaties of our Northwest tribes, by the U.S. Constitution that protects those treaties, and by the federal statutes enacted by Congress to protect salmon and other species from extinction.”
Part of Trump’s memorandum cited a proposed plan by the Biden administration and Pacific Northwest tribes to potentially breach the four lower Snake River Dams.
Trump said there would be “no viable approach to replace the low-cost, baseload energy supplied” if this were to be completed.
According to actual generation data from 2010-2015, the lower Snake River dams generate 930 megawatts of power per year, vastly different from the 3,000 megawatts Trump said they produce in his memorandum.
The lower Snake River dams are “run of the river” dams, which means they rely entirely on snowpack and its rate of runoff. This makes them unreliable, especially with the onset of climate change and decreased snowpack.
“The Administration’s abrupt termination of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement jeopardizes not only tribal Treaty-reserved resources but also the stability of energy, transportation, and water resources essential to the region’s businesses, farms, and families,” Lewis said. “This agreement was designed to foster collaborative and informed resource management and energy development in the Pacific Northwest, including significant tribal energy initiatives. 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.”
The president’s memorandum can be seen as part of a larger plan of Trump’s Unleashing American Energy executive order, which aims to explore energy production on federal land through oil and rare-earth mineral drilling.
“The federal government’s historic river management approach is unsustainable and will lead to salmon extinction,” said Lewis. “Courtroom battles cannot provide the innovative, holistic solutions we need. This termination will severely disrupt vital fisheries restoration efforts, eliminate certainty for hydro operations, and likely result in increased energy costs and regional instability.”
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