KLAMATH BASIN AIP ANNOUNCEMENT
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Remarks by the Honorable Dirk Kempthorne, U. S. Secretary of the Interior
I appreciate the chance to be on this teleconference with Governor Kulongoski and California Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman on behalf of Governor Schwarzenegger to make an historic announcement that I have signed, on behalf of the United States, an agreement that fulfills the vision of peace, finally, in the Klamath Basin and sets in process the potential removal of four hydropower projects on the Klamath River.
When I was Governor of Idaho, we were shocked as the events unfolded with our western neighbors in the Klamath Basin. Images we thought we would never witness in our lifetime emerged from those horrible drought seasons.
The troubles - with farmers opposing fish - became the poster child of why, said some, the Endangered Species Act was dysfunctional.
The water shortage pitted neighbors – including Indian neighbors - against each other. The Federal Government was forced to shut off irrigated agriculture through a process of choosing winners and losers through litigation. And then we had the fish kill disaster.
But the announcement we make today will go a long way to ensure those images will not endure.
In the aftermath of those dark days, President Bush directed the Department of the Interior to lead a collaborative process to assess the issues in the Basin and develop a comprehensive approach to permanently solve these seemingly intractable problems.
After living through moments that would test the character of most mere mortals, the good people of the Basin came together in a process that took several years of challenging negotiations.
In January of this year, in an unprecedented effort in collaboration, the proposed Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement was released.
This moment was captured by the presence of those who stayed at the table, including agriculture, Tribal, and environmental representatives who joined together to offer the Agreement as a permanent path forward for water certainty, power reliability, and natural resource protection.
The January agreement called for additional discussions on the removal of the four hydropower projects owned by PacifiCorp.
Now, let me be clear.
As Governor Kulongoski and Governor Schwarzenegger know, I am a conspicuous opponent of eliminating Federal hydropower projects in the West. I spent considerable time as Governor of Idaho arguing for a balance of power generation and reliability with species conservation, and all without taking out any dams on the Snake and Columbia Rivers.
But here, we asked PacifiCorp to come to the table with us and explore how we could negotiate a good business decision for the company.
How could we make this a decision that would benefit the resources in California and Oregon and yet make business sense to the company? Most businesses don’t simply relinquish their profitable assets for some perceived greater good, especially in the area of renewable energy.
We worked tirelessly for months to achieve an agreement that calls for responsible review of the costs by the Federal Government to remove the projects, and provide appropriate liability protection for the company, California and Oregon.
If the data collected during the next four years shows that removing the hydropower facilities is environmentally prudent, the target for removing all four of the dams is the year 2020.
I appreciate the great leadership of Governors Schwarzenegger and Kulongoski in not only staying at the table for these negotiations, but also for providing a platform by which Californians and Oregonians will have a future in the Klamath Basin through the Restoration Agreement.
I want to acknowledge Governor Schwarzenegger’s team, including Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman and Louis Mauro of Legal Affairs in the Governor’s Office, who were instrumental in seeing us to this great day.
Governor Kulongoski, your team, including Mike Carrier from your office and Kurt Burkholder from the Attorney General’s Office, were essential in bringing us to this moment.
I also recognize the willingness of PacifiCorp to come to the table and enter into these discussions, and I applaud the leadership by the company’s Chairman and CEO Greg Abel, who is on this call, as well as Dean Brockbank and Andrea Kelly, who I have had the pleasure of visiting with on several occasions during this process.
I want to thank members of our team, including Steve Thompson, who tackled the tough job of leading the Klamath Basin Restoration discussions from his position as Regional Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento. I also want to acknowledge the superb work of Mike Guzman from the Justice Department and John Bezdek in our Interior Solicitor’s Office for their dedication and commitment to achieving this agreement.
This announcement today marks the first step in a future process, but it is a giant step.
We have some additional negotiations to be concluded in order to reach a final agreement, but we are assured that the fundamental framework to achieve our goal is captured in this extensive and robust document we have signed today.
We will ensure that this agreement is an indelible part of the larger vision of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement announced earlier this year.
President Bush is proud and grateful for the courage shown by all of the Klamath Basin parties who challenged themselves to make the tough compromises that are embodied in the KBRA. Without those compromises, this day would have never been achieved.
In closing, this hydropower agreement provides a new horizon to permanently solve the very difficult issues in the Klamath Basin.
The Tribes that were once on opposite sides of their neighbors now have hope for the future of their precious resources.
The hopes for certainty of irrigated agriculture in the Klamath Basin are now greatly advanced by this agreement.
Finally, we are all gratified at this moment for the bright future of these invaluable fisheries resources and the river which will sustain them.
May the work we have put into these agreements extinguish, once and for all, the powerful forces that once divided Californians and Oregonians.