March 12, 2003

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing and for coordinating with the minority on witness participation. I wish this Subcommittee were afforded more time to consider this issue, since we were unable to arrange for the full panoply of witnesses this important subject warrants within the time afforded for planning the hearing. But I understand you are under severe time constraints imposed by your leadership, and regrettably we will have to do the best we can under the circumstances.

Mr. Chairman, I also note with regret that your decision to include section 3001 in your draft energy bill sends a pretty clear signal that you are not inclined to advance the compromise hydropower language developed in Committee during the 107th Congress. That is a shame, since that compromise arose from a process involving give and take by all the relevant parties, something not to be lightly thrown away.

In fact, I would like to request that the Subcommittee accept for the record a letter to you dated July 9, 2001, signed by the Hydroelectric Licensing Reform Task Force, the National Hydropower Association, the Edison Electric Institute, and the American Public Power Association indicating support for last year’s compromise, recognizing that while it does not represent their ideal bill it nonetheless is a positive step. I also would like to introduce into the record a letter to you dated July 10, 2001, signed by American Rivers, the Hydropower Reform Coalition, and Trout Unlimited indicating support for the same provisions.

It is regrettable that the draft bill upends this compromise, and seems in fact to abandon the hope for a consensus on hydropower policy. Section 3001 tips the procedural and substantive balance to the hydropower industry, undercutting the resource agencies’ ability to impose necessary conditions on hydropower projects and giving license applicant’s "super party" status in license proceeding. The language would give to industry alone procedural rights not available to other parties – something I am not aware has been done in other statutes bearing on public health and safety. Specifically, it allows industry proposals that conflict with resource agency decisions an unprecedented advantage. It allows an applicant’s proposal for resource protection to trump the agencies’ proposals unless the Secretary of the Interior can show in court that the industry proposal is inadequate.

Mr. Chairman, I hope you will listen closely to the testimony today and be persuaded to return to the compromise we worked out together during the last Congress with the participation of all the relevant parties. The hydroelectric provisions before us today will undercut the prospects for bipartisan support of this important energy bill.