President Trump moved on Thursday to withdraw from a Biden administration agreement that had brokered a truce in a decades-long legal battle with tribes in the Pacific Northwest.
The federal government has been mired in legal battles for decades over the depletion of fish populations in the Columbia River Basin, caused by four hydroelectric dams in the lower Snake River. Native American tribes have argued in court that the federal government has violated longstanding treaties by failing to protect the salmon and other fish that have been prevented by the dams from spawning upstream of the river. That legal fight is now expected to resume, with no brokered agreement in place.
In its statement announcing the withdrawal, the White House made no mention of the affected tribes and portrayed the issue falsely as revolving around “speculative climate change concerns.”
The tribes had called for the dams to be breached as a way to restore the salmon population, a proposal that has faced intense pushback because of the potential costs. A study found that removing the four dams was the most promising approach to restoring the salmon population, but also reported that replacing the electricity generated by the dams, shipping routes and irrigation water would cost between $10.3 billion and $27.2 billion.
The 2023 agreement from the Biden administration, a memorandum of understanding with the tribes that brokered a 10-year truce in the legal battles, committed $300 million to Washington, Oregon and the tribes to restore the wild salmon population. The Biden administration allocated another $60 million to the effort last year.
But the Biden administration did not take a position on the most contentious proposal of breaching the dams. The agreement called for additional study of the proposal and committed to supporting clean energy projects that could replace the power generated by the dams. However, the Biden White House noted in a statement that any decision and authority to breach the dams “resides with Congress.”
In a statement explaining the withdrawal, the Trump White House characterized the agreement, and other executive actions by the Biden administration, as opening the door to breaching the dams. The Trump administration argued in effect that the agreement resulted in significant amounts of money being spent to ultimately close down the hydroelectric dams — as well as other adverse effects noted in studies of the proposal.
Tribal leaders and Democratic lawmakers in the Pacific Northwest immediately denounced the withdrawal, while Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho and a longtime opponent of the effort to breach the dams, praised Mr. Trump’s decision in a statement as “a return to sound science and common-sense.”
Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, said in a statement that the deal between the tribes and the federal government “was the result of years of painstaking work” and that “the Trump administration’s senseless decision to tear it up is a betrayal of our tribes and a tremendous setback for the entire Northwest.”
Gerald Lewis, the chairman of the tribal council of the Yakama Nation, said in a statement that his tribe was “deeply disappointed” by the decision, adding that the termination of the agreement also cancels the Biden administration’s investment in tribal energy projects.
“The administration’s decision to terminate these commitments,” Mr. Lewis said, “echoes the federal government’s historic pattern of broken promises to tribes, and is contrary to President Trump’s stated commitment to domestic energy development.”
Shannon Wheeler, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe, did not directly criticize Mr. Trump, saying instead in a statement that the agreement was “a vision for preventing salmon extinction” in the Columbia River Basin and that “it is a vision we believe is supported, publicly or privately, by most people in the Northwest.”
Fish populations in the region have fallen sharply since 15 tribes from the Columbia River Basin entered into legally binding treaties with the United States in the mid-19th century. Those treaties reserved sovereign and inherent rights, including the right to fish at traditional locations, on and off reservation lands, and to protect fish at those locations.
Chris Cameron is a Times reporter covering Washington, focusing on breaking news and the Trump administration.
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