{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://newhouse.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/newhouse-blitzes-biden-administrations-dam-breaching-efforts", "Newhouse Blitzes Biden Administration\u2019s Dam-Breaching Efforts", "2022-03-15", "2022", "2022-03", "Republican", "House", "WA", "Dan Newhouse", "N000189", "newhouse.house.gov", "newhouse", "https://newhouse.house.gov/media-center/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Today, Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) joined Senators Jim Risch (R-ID), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and Steve Daines (R-MT) and Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Russ Fulcher (R-ID), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), and Cliff Bentz (R-OR), in sending letters to 10 agencies within the Biden Administration requesting information on the agencies\u2019 involvement in the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)\u2019s efforts to breach the lower Snake River dams.\n\nThe series of letters presses CEQ for answers on their current stakeholder engagement sessions and asks federal agencies that have a stake in Lower Snake River dam operations about their role in CEQ\u2019s process.\n\n\u201cThe Federal Columbia River Power System comprises 31 hydroelectric projects in the Columbia River Basin and provides approximately one third of the electricity used in the Pacific Northwest, as well as critical flood risk management, irrigation, and navigation benefits,\u201d wrote the lawmakers. \u201cThe Lower Snake River Dams are not only critical to grid reliability in the Pacific Northwest, through fish passage adaptations, they achieve 96 percent passage survival for juvenile yearling Chinook salmon and steelhead smolts at each dam.\u201d\n\nThey continued, \u201cWe share the goal of recovering threatened and endangered fish species in the Columbia River Basin, and we should be encouraged by recent returns on the Lower Snake River. Snake River Spring Chinook returns have increased since 2019, with 2020 returns up 55 percent and 2021 returns up 27 percent.\u201d\n\nThe lawmakers concluded, \u201cGiven the critical role the entire Federal Columbia River Power System plays in powering the Pacific Northwest, providing flood risk management, irrigation, and navigation benefits, as well as CEQ\u2019s focus on how breaching the Lower Snake River Dams may aid in fish recovery, we request answers in writing by no later than May 1, 2022.\u201d\n\nYou can read the letters and view the questions to each agency at the following links:", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T02:06:17Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://newhouse.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/newhouse-blitzes-biden-administrations-dam-breaching-efforts"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.78947888687253, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}