Background:

The Columbia River Basin was once the most productive salmon fishery in the continental United States, with as many as 18 million fish returning to spawn every year. In 1855, the four Lower Columbia River Treaty Tribes (the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, and the Nez Perce Tribe) explicitly reserved their right to fish at all their “usual and accustomed places” in treaties with the U.S. Government that ceded millions of acres of their traditional territory to the United States. However, dams built in the Columbia River Basin in the past century have pushed salmon, steelhead, and other native fish to the brink of extinction, threatening to upend the cultural practices, ecosystems, and regional economies that depend on them. Without urgent and comprehensive action to restore salmon to their once abundant levels, we will lose these species forever.  

In December 2023, the four lower Columbia River Treaty Tribes, the states of Washington and Oregon, nonprofit plaintiffs, and the Biden Administration reached an historic agreement to enter a long term stay of litigation over the operations of dams in the Columbia River Basin, implementing a set of federal commitments to restore salmon and other native fish populations and begin to honor Tribal treaty and trust obligations. A critical component of this agreement is a $300 million commitment over ten years from the BPA for fish restoration projects, which BPA agreed to as a legal party to the Columbia Basin Agreement.  

Unfortunately, the House’s Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2025 includes a poison pill policy rider (Sec. 513) that would drastically limit BPA funding for salmon restoration efforts. Attempts to cripple the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement with harmful, unnecessary language like this are especially unacceptable considering the Department of the Interior’s recent Tribal Circumstances Analysis that acknowledges the U.S. Government’s moral and legal responsibility to address the historic and ongoing devastating impacts to Tribes due to BPA and the Federal Government’s management of the Columbia River Basin.

The Senate unanimously passed the Energy & Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for FY25 without the anti-salmon BPA rider proposed by House Republicans and with funding increases for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation programs that benefit salmon and steelhead populations. TAKE ACTION: Thank Senator Murray for her leadership (Washington residents only) and urge your Members of Congress to oppose the poison pill policy rider in the House and any similar language that would drastically limit BPA funding for salmon restoration efforts (Washington, Oregon, and Idaho residents).