Good afternoon, my name is Andrew A. Rosenberg and I am the Deputy Assistant Administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). I would like to thank Chairman Gordon and the Subcommittee for the opportunity to participate in your review of the Federal hydropower licensing process.
The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), through NOAA, engages in a wide variety of activities designed to protect, mitigate damages to, and restore living marine and anadromous resources and the habitats upon which they depend. We pursue these objectives under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, Federal Power Act (FPA), and other statutes. The FPA provides safeguards for fish and wildlife resources from potentially serious harm that could be caused by hydropower projects. The FPA directs DOC to:
The environmental impacts of dams are varied and complex. Although every watershed has a unique mix of land-use activities impacting anadromous fish, in some watersheds dams may cause up to 90 percent fish mortality. Dams may block access to and flood spawning areas, change the pattern of gravel movement and silt deposition, and disrupt in-stream flow levels necessary to maintain the integrity of aquatic ecosystems. Reservoirs created by dams may inundate mainstem spawning habitat, and impassable dams cut off upstream areas that historically provided important habitats. Reservoirs can also create habitat for predators and increase the time it takes for out migrants to complete downstream migrations. These factors can have cumulative, deleterious effects on the integrity of aquatic ecosystems upon which anadromous fish depend, and have contributed to the extinction of many fish stocks and the decline of many more. Efforts to mitigate the loss of anadromous fish production due to water development and hydropower projects often have consisted of hatchery supplements. Unfortunately, not all of these efforts have been productive.
Statutory mandates under the FPA provide important tools for protecting anadromous fish and mitigating damage to fish habitat. DOC and the U.S. Department of the Interior prescribe fishways to ensure that passage facilities are constructed where they are needed and that deficient fishways are improved. Fishways are necessary to minimize the impact of hydropower dams on the aquatic ecosystem. Without fishways, dams can divide a river system into isolated segments, and the viability and mobility of species requiring passage to and between different habitats within a river basin may diminish substantially, if not completely. Fish passageways serve a variety of resource objectives including, but not limited to, passage for healthy and depleted populations, passage for depleted populations as part of restoration programs, and passage as a means of providing access to under-utilized habitat areas.
To formulate effective fish passage prescriptions, NMFS and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have developed unique bioengineering capabilities and conduct significant research in the areas of ichthyomechanics, fluid dynamics, and other disciplines. Improving fish passage makes possible the ultimate success of the many regional and national large-scale planning initiatives to enhance fish habitat on U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and other Federal lands. Clearly, these efforts to improve the health of aquatic ecosystems will be frustrated if fish cannot gain access to these improved habitats.
To meet congressional purposes, including the protection of public trust resources from deleterious impacts, as well as public safety, the licensing process is by necessity a multi-faceted and time consuming process. Dams are licensed for very long periods of time and, therefore, have the potential to cause serious harm to public resources if careful planning is not part of the process. The licensing process is lengthy but it does provide safeguards for public resources. It is important to recognize, however, that the portion of the process that addresses fish protection and passage issues, for which DOC is responsible, is just a part of the overall licensing process. While regrettable, it is understandable that at times frustration on the part of industry is directed at fish and wildlife agencies because of the need to address fish passage and protection issues.
We agree with Senator Craig's objective of making the hydropower licensing process work more smoothly, but we disagree with the need for legislative changes. Senator Craig's introduction of a similar bill during the 105th Congress spurred the resource agencies and the Commission to a higher degree of coordination over the past year. During this time, we made great strides to collaboratively develop comprehensive administrative reforms designed to meet the Senator's challenge and our own concerns. Administrative reforms currently under development should achieve our mutual objectives of reducing inefficiencies in the development of mandatory and recommended conditions for fish and wildlife protection.
To expedite the reforms the Commission and the resource agencies have convened the Interagency Task Force to Improve Hydroelectric Licensing Processes (ITF). The ITF has been addressing a broad array of issues within four primary areas: the coordination of diverse Federal mandates in the relicensing process, the new collaborative process, ex parte rules, and economics. The ITF initiative is producing important results, including documents addressing NEPA procedures and noticing procedures that should be finalized shortly. The NEPA report provides solutions to issues that have been a source of disagreement between participants in the licensing process; defining the purpose and need of the proposed action, developing an appropriate range of alternatives, describing environmental consequences, assessing cumulative impacts, formulating appropriate mitigation measures, responding to agency comments, and identifying ways to expedite the process. The ITF has also developed draft guidelines for the collaborative process to help applicants and other potential participants chose whether to support the use of an alternative pre-filing consultation process, also known as the collaborative process. The guidelines also provide a set of suggested issues for a collaborative process group to address before they begin working on the licensing. DOC is committed to making the collaborative process work whenever possible because it encourages participants to be flexible and creative in attaining their objectives and provides participants a vehicle for reconciling different interests and concerns.
Under development are guidelines for addressing ESA issues in the context of licensing, and other issues of interest to industry. Most importantly, the ITF process has provided a forum between the Commission and the resource agency staffs that has significantly improved communication, coordination, and the resolve to improve the licensing process. To ensure review and comment on these products by all stakeholders, the ITF has convened an advisory committee comprised of industry, non-governmental organizations, tribes, and local, state, and Federal Government agencies.
Concurrently, DOC and our Federal partners are also participating in an industry-led effort, sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), to develop mutually acceptable means for improving the licensing process. The ITF and the EPRI initiatives both provide industry and other stakeholders with access to agency discussions on the changes necessary to improve the licensing process, and the means to work cooperatively toward mutually agreeable means to increase efficiency in the licensing process.
In sum, DOC and our Federal partners are deeply involved in, and committed to, a major effort to administratively restructure the licensing process to improve agency coordination, reduce delays, and increase the participation of all stakeholders. We readily agree with the need for administrative reforms but do not believe that legislative action is required to achieve the necessary changes. We believe that the ongoing, comprehensive, efforts of the ITF and EPRI to streamline the licensing process via administrative reforms will improve the licensing process while still preserving the necessary environmental protections of the FPA. Until this process reaches completion, and ITF and EPRI recommendations can be implemented and assessed,
legislative changes to the FPA should be held in abeyance.
As we enter the next millennium, DOC will continue to support the use and development of clean energy sources. Although hydroelectricity generally is a good, clean source of power for the Nation, it is not free from adverse environmental effects. As we have learned, dams can cause significant environmental harm, particularly to fish and wildlife resources. Efforts to reduce environmental problems associated with hydropower operations, such as providing safe fish passage and improving water flow and quality, have received considerable attention in the past decade at non-Federal facilities licensed by the Commission, and at Federal facilities.
The FPA requires that licensing be conducted in accordance with the laws and regulations in effect at the time of licensing. Consequently, relicensing provides the opportunity for the hundreds of dams licensed with inadequate or no fish passage to now come into compliance with amendments to the FPA, as well as other environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act (ESA). To be considered "green" power, an energy source must achieve compliance with all existing environmental laws.
Hundreds of projects involving many thousands of megawatts of generation capacity will be before the Commission for relicensing over the next 15 years. We cannot ignore the environmental impacts associated with these projects. The licensing process provides an unparalleled opportunity to reconfigure inadequate fishways and to prescribe fishways for projects that have existed without them for decades. It also affords the opportunity to ensure adequate stream flow for fish and their habitats. By bringing these projects into compliance with current laws, we can continue to use an important energy source, hydropower, in a manner that is environmentally friendly.
Now is the time to ensure that the Nation's fishery resources receive necessary protections, including those provided by the FPA with its key protections for anadromous fish across the Nation. By including effective fishways during relicensing, we can provide anadromous fish stocks with long denied access to historically important habitats. By combining this preventative approach under the FPA with the important curative measures under the ESA, we can decrease the decline in other populations and decrease the likelihood of additional listings under the ESA.
If changes to the FPA diminish our ability to protect anadromous fish, it would decrease our ability to meet our statutory mandate to ensure the sustainability of those stocks at healthy levels.
As currently written, the FPA mandates the Commission to make licensing decisions in the public interest, balancing our Nation's need for hydropower and the need for protection of important natural resources. DOC will continue our collaborative efforts with the Commission, industry, non-governmental organizations, tribes, and other interested entities to ensure that the hydropower licensing process provides a sound basis for the balancing of societal priorities, including the need for healthy habitats and productive fisheries.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.