Rob Bishop: “Here is the bottom line for this particular piece of legislation: States agree to it. There are nine Tribes in this…”

“Here is the bottom line for this particular piece of legislation: States agree to it. There are nine Tribes in this area. Eight of them totally support this particular bill. The Obama administration created a biological opinion which endorsed the ESA and was legal with the ESA. A judge decided to change all of that and ordered a spill with no apparent rationale to it. Mr. Speaker, there is no one over here who hates salmon. We are not trying to kill them all. Heaven knows, the only way I would like to kill salmon is if I am consuming them myself. However, in 2011, another spill took place on this particular river which had the process of actually killing this endangered species that was there. This judge's order, without any kind of rationale to it, could indeed be one of the situations that actually sterilizes this river and the species rather than protecting the river and the species. Let's allow river operators to operate the river. Let's allow scientists to conduct the science and let judges go back to granting divorces. Allowing a judge with no background in these issues to dictate river operations and subvert the science is totally irresponsible on our part. This is a piece of legislation that clearly is a win for the ratepayers to a tune of $40 million that they would have to do if this decision by the judge stands. It is also a win for taxpayers to the tune of about $16 million.…”