From Watts Up With That?

By Charles Rotter

In a long-overdue course correction, President Trump has pulled the plug on one of the Biden administration’s more outlandish energy-environment stunts—the so-called Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement. Heralded by green activists and their political patrons as a bold step for salmon recovery and “climate justice,” the agreement was, in fact, a $1 billion bureaucratic boondoggle that prioritized speculative ecological fears over the concrete energy, economic, and strategic needs of millions of Americans.

“I have worked for more than 30 years to protect the irreplaceable Columbia River hydropower electrical system. The Biden Administration did its best to initiate the destruction of that system through improper manipulation of environmental laws and policies. This manipulation was reflected in a memorandum of understanding. Thankfully, President Trump has revoked the Biden Administration’s “Restoring Healthy and Abundant Salmon, Steelhead, and Other Native Fish Populations in the Columbia River Basin” Memorandum. This was exactly the right thing to do and provides a foundation for protection of the Four Lower Snake River dams. The President’s order is totally consistent with our nation’s fight to win the race for artificial intelligence, superiority, and energy dominance. The people of nation and especially the rate payers of the Northwest are incredibly grateful for this action.”

U.S. Representative Cliff Bentz (OR-02)

The plan’s centerpiece? The eventual removal of four major hydroelectric dams on the Snake River—Ice Harbor, Little Goose, Lower Monumental, and Lower Granite. These aren’t rickety relics of a bygone era. These are robust energy producers churning out more than 3,000 megawatts of clean, reliable hydroelectric power—enough to electrify 2.5 million homes. They also underpin irrigation systems, enable low-cost grain shipments to global markets, and provide flood control. But in Biden’s reality, all of that was apparently disposable if it meant pleasing a few vocal environmental lobbies and checking another box on the Net Zero checklist.

To sell this demolition job, the administration leaned heavily on emotional appeals about salmon runs and tribal rights, while offering precious little in terms of clear, causal science. As usual, the numbers tell a less convenient story. Salmon populations in the Columbia Basin have been under pressure from numerous factors for over a century: overfishing, ocean conditions, predation, and pollution—not just dams. Yet in the media spin cycle, four hydroelectric facilities became scapegoats for a problem that is far more complex than activists care to admit.

That didn’t stop Biden’s team from pressing forward with a top-down, $1 billion effort, framed as a multi-stakeholder “consensus.” In truth, it was little more than the latest chapter in the green technocrat playbook: make sweeping promises, ignore economic consequences, and paper over objections from the majority who would be stuck with the bill.

President Trump’s June 12 memorandum brought long-overdue sanity back into the picture. As the White House explained, the move “revokes radical environmental orders that could risk energy security and agriculture for the sake of speculative climate change concerns.” That’s not hyperbole. It’s a concise summary of the cost-benefit imbalance plaguing most modern climate policy.

Environmental groups immediately cried foul, decrying the revocation as a betrayal of salmon and tribal rights. But one must ask: since when did dam demolition become a prerequisite for honoring treaty obligations? The federal government has ample tools at its disposal to support tribal communities and ecological restoration—none of which require gutting the energy backbone of the Pacific Northwest.

“The Snake River Dams have been tremendous assets to the Pacific Northwest for decades, providing high-value electricity to millions of American families and businesses. With this action, President Trump is bringing back common sense, reversing the dangerous and costly energy subtraction policies pursued by the last administration. American taxpayer dollars will not be spent dismantling critical infrastructure, reducing our energy-generating capacity or on radical nonsense policies that dramatically raise prices on the American people.”

Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright

What the climate policy evangelists routinely ignore—perhaps willfully—is the indispensable role these dams play in stabilizing the very electric grid they so desperately want to “decarbonize.” While their eyes remain glued to spreadsheets full of levelized cost of energy figures and computer-modeled salmon migrations, the laws of physics quietly keep the lights on.

Hydroelectric dams don’t just generate electricity; they provide inertia—a foundational property of any stable power grid. Inertia refers to the resistance of the grid to sudden changes in frequency. When a major load drops off or generation falters, it’s the spinning mass of turbines in hydro plants that helps absorb the shock and prevent cascading blackouts. Without inertia, you don’t just lose power—you risk catastrophic grid failure.

Unlike intermittent sources such as wind and solar—which must be propped up by batteries, peaker plants, or magical thinking—hydro dams supply electricity with near-instantaneous responsiveness. When demand spikes or a transmission line falters, hydro units can ramp up or down within seconds. They act as the grid’s shock absorbers and throttle controls. Remove them, and you’re not just reducing capacity; you’re gutting the system’s operational backbone.

Consider the Pacific Northwest, where these dams serve as the beating heart of a regional power grid that spans multiple states and interties with California and Canada. Take those dams offline, and suddenly every renewable energy forecast in the region becomes a high-stakes gamble. You can’t balance a modern grid on spreadsheets and solar panels alone. Someone, somewhere, has to keep the electrons flowing now—not ten minutes from now when the wind decides to pick up.

“President Trump’s announcement smartly helps preserve affordable, reliable electricity for families and businesses across the Pacific Northwest,” Matheson said. “Hydroelectric power is the reason the lights stay on in the region. And as demand for electricity surges across the nation, preserving access to always-available energy resources like hydropower is absolutely crucial. We appreciate the administration’s continuing commitment to smart energy policies and unleashing American energy.”

National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Jim Matheson, CEO

The Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement had no credible plan for replacing this critical function. It offered vague gestures at new clean energy investments, which is shorthand for more subsidies to solar developers and consultants who’ve never had to keep a grid stable through an ice storm. The idea that we can simply swap out inertia-rich hydro plants for battery banks and hope for the best is not just naive—it’s reckless.

Yet this kind of reckless planning is endemic in climate policy circles, where energy is treated as a public relations problem instead of a complex, physical system. Politicians promise transformation without understanding thermodynamics. Activists chant slogans about “saving the salmon” while remaining blissfully unaware of how real-time balancing works in a high-voltage network.

President Trump’s decision to preserve these dams isn’t just a win for common sense—it’s a defense of operational integrity in our power systems. It reflects an understanding that energy policy cannot be governed by sentimentality, nor dictated by activist coalitions that mistake complexity for conspiracy.

The Columbia River Basin remains a vital artery for America’s energy and agricultural future. To gamble that away on the basis of activist pressure and incomplete science would be not just foolish, but dangerous. For once, a president has drawn a line—and the country will be stronger for it.