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99–956 PDF 2016

REALIZING THE POTENTIAL OF 

HYDROPOWER AS A CLEAN, 

RENEWABLE AND DOMESTIC 

ENERGY RESOURCE 

OVERSIGHT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER, POWER AND OCEANS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

Wednesday, April 27, 2016 

Serial No. 114–40 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

or 

Committee address: http://naturalresources.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

ROB BISHOP, UT, Chairman 

RAU ́ L M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Ranking Democratic Member 

Don Young, AK 

Louie Gohmert, TX 

Doug Lamborn, CO 

Robert J. Wittman, VA 

John Fleming, LA 

Tom McClintock, CA 

Glenn Thompson, PA 

Cynthia M. Lummis, WY 

Dan Benishek, MI 

Jeff Duncan, SC 

Paul A. Gosar, AZ 

Rau ́l R. Labrador, ID 

Doug LaMalfa, CA 

Jeff Denham, CA 

Paul Cook, CA 

Bruce Westerman, AR 

Garret Graves, LA 

Dan Newhouse, WA 

Ryan K. Zinke, MT 

Jody B. Hice, GA 

Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS 

Thomas MacArthur, NJ 

Alexander X. Mooney, WV 

Cresent Hardy, NV 

Darin LaHood, IL 

Grace F. Napolitano, CA 

Madeleine Z. Bordallo, GU 

Jim Costa, CA 

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, CNMI 

Niki Tsongas, MA 

Pedro R. Pierluisi, PR 

Jared Huffman, CA 

Raul Ruiz, CA 

Alan S. Lowenthal, CA 

Matt Cartwright, PA 

Donald S. Beyer, Jr., VA 

Norma J. Torres, CA 

Debbie Dingell, MI 

Ruben Gallego, AZ 

Lois Capps, CA 

Jared Polis, CO 

Wm. Lacy Clay, MO 

Jason Knox, Chief of Staff 

Lisa Pittman, Chief Counsel 

David Watkins, Democratic Staff Director 

Sarah Lim, Democratic Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER, POWER AND OCEANS 

JOHN FLEMING, LA, Chairman 

JARED HUFFMAN, CA, Ranking Democratic Member 

Don Young, AK 

Robert J. Wittman, VA 

Tom McClintock, CA 

Cynthia M. Lummis, WY 

Jeff Duncan, SC 

Paul A. Gosar, AZ 

Doug LaMalfa, CA 

Jeff Denham, CA 

Garret Graves, LA 

Dan Newhouse, WA 

Thomas MacArthur, NJ 

Rob Bishop, UT, ex officio 

Grace F. Napolitano, CA 

Jim Costa, CA 

Ruben Gallego, AZ 

Madeleine Z. Bordallo, GU 

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, CNMI 

Raul Ruiz, CA 

Alan S. Lowenthal, CA 

Norma J. Torres, CA 

Debbie Dingell, MI 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio 

(III) 

CONTENTS 

Page 

Hearing held on Wednesday, April 27, 2016 ......................................................... 1 

Statement of Members: 

Fleming, Hon. John, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Louisiana ....................................................................................................... 1 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 2 

Gosar, Hon. Paul A., a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Arizona ........................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 7 

Huffman, Hon. Jared, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California ....................................................................................................... 3 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5 

Statement of Witnesses: 

Boyd, Steve, Director of Water Resources and Regulatory Affairs, Turlock 

Irrigation District, Turlock, California ........................................................ 14 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 16 

Questions submitted for the record ......................................................... 20 

Matlock, Jessica, Director of Government Relations, Snohomish County 

Public Utility District No. 1, Everett, Washington .................................... 29 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 31 

Questions submitted for the record ......................................................... 34 

Pavel, Mary, Attorney, Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Endreson & Perry, 

LLP, Washington, DC ................................................................................... 20 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 22 

Powell, Debbie, Senior Director of Power Generation Operations, Pacific 

Gas and Electric Company, San Francisco, California .............................. 9 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 10 

Questions submitted for the record ......................................................... 13 

(1) 

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON REALIZING THE 

POTENTIAL OF HYDROPOWER AS A CLEAN, 

RENEWABLE AND DOMESTIC ENERGY 

RESOURCE 

Wednesday, April 27, 2016 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans 

Committee on Natural Resources 

Washington, DC 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in room 

1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. John Fleming [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Fleming, Gosar, McClintock, LaMalfa, 

Denham, Newhouse; Huffman, Napolitano, Costa, and Torres. 

Dr. FLEMING. The Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans 

will come to order. 

The subcommittee meets today to hear testimony on an oversight 

hearing entitled, ‘‘Realizing the Potential of Hydropower as a 

Clean, Renewable and Domestic Energy Resource.’’ 

We will begin with opening statements, starting with myself. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOHN FLEMING, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA 

Dr. FLEMING. Today’s hearing will delve into the topic of 

America’s largest source of renewable energy: hydropower. 

Harnessing the power of moving water has been around since 

Greek civilization. But modern hydropower as we know it began in 

the 1880s with engineering innovations here in America. It helped 

transform our country by electrifying both urban and rural communities. Large-scale dams even helped us win World War II by 

powering the factories needed to build the armaments necessary to 

defeat our enemies. 

Even my home state of Louisiana benefits from hydropower, with 

rural communities continuing to receive hydropower generated regionally from Army Corps of Engineers dams and from other 

sources. There is vast potential for new hydropower facilities 

throughout Louisiana and the rest of the country. 

[Slide] 

Dr. FLEMING. According to this Oak Ridge National Laboratory 

2013 map depicted on the screen, up to an additional 12,100 

megawatts of hydropower on existing non-power dams alone could 

be added to our electricity mix. That is a 15 percent increase from 

our existing hydropower capacity. According to this map, much of 

that could come from the Mississippi watershed and east. That is 

not to say that all of these facilities could or should be built due 

to a number of factors, but we clearly have room to grow. 

2 

Despite all of this potential, the former director of the Federal 

Energy Regulatory Commission’s Energy Projects testified before 

this committee a few years ago that hydropower’s growth is 

‘‘stagnant.’’ He cited a non-partisan Energy Information Administration report that found that there was no net increase in hydropower capacity in the last decade. He compared this to the growth 

of natural gas facilities, even when gas prices were high, and noted 

that the market simply ignored hydropower. His extensive experience led him to conclude that ‘‘the issue of dispersed decisionmaking, as represented by multiple agencies with mandatory 

conditioning authority . . . should be considered as a primary reason for the complete lack of progress’’ in hydropower development. 

He was referring to the mandatory conditioning authorities used 

by the natural resources agencies in this committee’s jurisdiction 

and others. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA, the U.S. 

Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and others have 

the ability to impose conditions on any utility which wants to 

license or re-license hydropower facilities. Depending on the facility, these mandatory costs can be significant for ratepayers. As this 

committee heard, some of these conditions have no cost benefit 

analysis, and there is little transparency in how the resource 

agencies devise them. 

In addition, some of these conditions actually conflict with each 

other, which is a recurring theme we have heard time and time 

again in this committee. The Federal agencies can literally give the 

thumbs-up or thumbs-down on some of these projects by proposing 

unrealistic or uneconomic conditions. 

In today’s hearing, we will mostly hear from those who represent 

ratepayers who not only pay the regulations imposed on them by 

the agencies, but who pay for the agencies to regulate them. At 

some point later, as in past hearings on similar topics, our intent 

is to call the agencies before us to give their side of the story. 

Federal law was improved in 2005, but as we will hear today, further improvements are necessary. 

We have utilities before us who rely on hydropower and want to 

continue using this clean, renewable, and emissions-free resource 

at reasonable prices. The questions will be whether they can continue to do so in the current environment, and whether the hydropower resource can be a resource for the future or one that has 

passed its prime because Federal agencies helped suffocate it. We 

can help answer those questions today and have the power to steer 

this ship in a positive direction. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Fleming follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOHN FLEMING, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

WATER, POWER AND OCEANS

Today’s hearing will delve into the topic of America’s largest source of renewable 

energy: hydropower. 

Harnessing the power of moving water has been around since Greek civilization. 

But, modern hydropower as we know it began in the 1880s with engineering innovations here in America. It helped transform our country by electrifying both urban 

and rural communities. Large-scale dams even helped us win World War II by 

powering the factories needed to build the armaments necessary to defeat our 

enemies. 

3 

Even my home state of Louisiana benefits from hydropower, with rural communities continuing to receive hydropower generated regionally from Army Corps of 

Engineers dams and from other sources. 

There is vast potential for new hydropower facilities throughout Louisiana and 

the rest of the country. According to this Oak Ridge National Laboratory 2013 map 

depicted on the screen, up to an additional 12,100 megawatts of hydropower on existing non-powered dams alone could be added to our electricity mix. That’s a 15 

percent increase from our existing hydropower capacity. According to this map, 

much of that could come from the Mississippi watershed and east. That’s not to say 

that all of these facilities could or should be built due to a number of factors, but 

we clearly have room to grow. 

Despite all of this potential, the former director of the Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission’s Energy Projects testified before this committee a few years ago that 

hydropower’s growth is ‘‘stagnant.’’ He cited a non-partisan Energy Information 

Administration report that found that there was no net increase in hydropower 

capacity in the last decade. He compared this to the growth of natural gas facilities—even when gas prices were high—and noted that the market simply ignored 

hydropower. His extensive experience led him to conclude that ‘‘the issue of dispersed decisionmaking, as represented by multiple agencies with mandatory conditioning authority . . . should be considered as a primary reason for the complete 

lack of progress’’ in hydropower development. 

He was referring to the mandatory conditioning authorities used by the natural 

resources agencies in this committee’s jurisdiction and others. The U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service, NOAA Fisheries, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land 

Management and others have the ability to impose conditions on any utility which 

wants license or re-license hydropower facilities. Depending on the facility, these 

mandatory costs can be significant for ratepayers. As this committee heard, some 

of these conditions have no cost-benefit analysis and there is little transparency in 

how the resource agencies devise them. In addition, some of these conditions actually conflict with each other, which is a recurring theme we’ve heard time and again 

in this subcommittee. 

The Federal agencies can literally give the thumbs-up or thumbs-down on some 

of these projects by proposing unrealistic or uneconomic conditions. In today’s hearing, we will mostly hear from those who represent ratepayers who not only pay the 

regulations imposed on them by the agencies but who pay for the agencies to regulate them. At some point later and as in past hearings, our intent is to call the 

agencies before us to give their side of the story. 

Federal law was improved in 2005, but as we will hear today, further improvements are necessary. We have utilities before us who rely on hydropower and want 

to continue using this clean, renewable and emissions-free resource at reasonable 

prices. The questions will be whether they can continue to do so in the current environment and whether the hydropower resource can be a resource for the future or 

one that has passed its prime because Federal agencies helped suffocate it. We can 

help answer those questions today and have the power to steer this ship in a 

positive direction. 

Dr. FLEMING. Before I recognize the Ranking Member, I will 

have to apologize. I have to excuse myself and ask Dr. Gosar to sit 

in for me, as I am in a markup with another committee. 

So with that, I recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Huffman. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. JARED HUFFMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. HUFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to our witnesses and everyone here for this important discussion. I think it 

is important because hydropower can be a source of inexpensive, 

relatively clean energy. I have long been a supporter of responsible 

hydropower development, as long as it is consistent with our landmark environmental protections, and the protection of tribal and 

recreational opportunities. 

In the last Congress, because I care about making the regulatory 

process work better, I supported both the Small Conduit HydroVerDate Mar 15 2010 09:33 Dec 15, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 J:\114TH CONGRESS\WATER, POWER & OCEANS\04-27-16\99956.TXT DARLEN
4 

power Act and the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act. These 

were bills that exempted some hydropower projects from licensing 

requirements, and they authorized non-Federal hydropower development at Bureau of Reclamation projects. I was glad to do this, 

because these bills promote private hydropower development, while 

also preserving public rivers that belong to all Americans. Both of 

these bills did not disrupt long-standing Federal protection of public land and tribal resources, and that is important because striking that balance has always been essential to making hydropower 

work, I believe. 

When hydropower is improperly sited or operated, it can have 

major impacts, and we need to bear that in mind. It can cause serious harm to fish and wildlife, water quality, recreational opportunities, and tribal lands. I am looking forward to hearing from all of 

our witnesses, but I am especially glad that we have on the panel 

Ms. Mary Pavel from the Skokomish Indian Tribe, who will talk to 

us about some of the harm that can be caused when we do not 

strike the right balance in licensing hydro projects. 

Mary’s tribe in Washington State was gravely impacted by a 

hydropower project that dried up part of the Skokomish River, 

completely destroyed the tribe’s salmon fishery, flooded nearly onethird of the reservation, and irreparably destroyed the tribe’s principal means of livelihood. Sadly, Mr. Chairman, this is just one of 

many examples of a poorly permitted hydro project and how it can 

cause serious damage to stakeholders. 

In the early 20th century, the Federal Government allowed hundreds of permits to build dams on the public’s rivers. The licensing 

process frequently did not take into account—seriously, at least— 

any of the effects of these facilities on fisheries, recreation, or tribal 

and public lands. Although the ingenuity and industriousness of 

our forebears was laudable, is laudable, today, thanks to science 

and real-world experience, we simply know that we can do better. 

And recognizing the damage caused by such a lax permitting 

process in the past, in recent decades Congress has redoubled efforts to strike that balance. In 1986, Congress passed a law called 

the Electric Consumer Protection Act, that required FERC to give 

equal consideration to recreation, fisheries, energy conservation, 

and energy generation when issuing hydropower licenses. 

The legislation limited FERC’s ability to simply reject expert advice from natural resource agencies and tribes concerning fish, 

wildlife, and tribal needs. And this was a consensus bipartisan bill 

supported by folks in both parties, signed into law by that extremist environmentalist, Ronald Reagan. 

Congress next amended the hydropower licensing process in 2005 

when it passed the Energy Policy Act. That legislation—again, 

bipartisan, signed by President Bush—included provisions that 

made the permitting process for hydropower licenses much easier, 

gave the hydro industry some additional procedural options in complying with environmental protections, but it did not compromise 

the fundamental integrity of the balancing system that the Federal 

Government has tried to maintain. 

Now, unfortunately, I am concerned that some of the provisions 

in H.R. 8, the recently passed House Energy bill, would undermine 

the ability of states and Federal natural resource agencies to place 

5 

reasonable conditions on hydropower licenses in order to strike that 

balance, and in order to protect tribal and public lands, safeguard 

water quality, and fishery resources. The legislation would also 

jeopardize industries that rely on healthy rivers, including the commercial and recreational fishing industry and the outdoor recreation industry. 

I certainly recognize that some hydropower licenses are currently 

facing permitting challenges. Many of these projects predated many 

of the environmental laws that they are now being asked to comply 

with for the first time, in what is famously a very long and expensive re-licensing process. I am very interested in working with all 

the stakeholders in finding ways to make that more efficient, to 

reduce the burden, but also, as we do that, to maintain that important balance. I will look forward to the testimony and the discussion we have today. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Huffman follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. JARED HUFFMAN, RANKING MEMBER, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER, POWER AND OCEANS

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to our witnesses and everyone here for 

this important discussion. 

I think it is important because hydropower can be a source of inexpensive, 

relatively clean energy. I have long been a supporter of responsible hydropower development as long as it’s consistent with our landmark environmental protections 

and the protection of tribal and recreational opportunities. In the last Congress— 

because I care about making the regulatory process work better—I supported both 

the Small Conduit Hydropower Act and the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act. 

These are bills that exempted some hydropower projects from licensing requirements and they authorized non-Federal hydropower development at Bureau of 

Reclamation projects. 

I was glad to do this because these bills promote private hydropower development 

while also preserving public rivers that belong to all Americans. Both of these bills 

did not disrupt long-standing Federal protection of public land and tribal resources 

and that’s important because striking that balance has always been essential to 

making hydropower work, I believe. When hydropower is improperly sited or operated, it can have major impacts and we need to bear that in mind. It can cause serious harm to fish and wildlife, water quality, recreational opportunities and tribal 

lands. 

I’m looking forward to hearing from all of our witnesses but I’m especially glad 

that we have on the panel Ms. Mary Pavel from the Skokomish Indian Tribe who 

will talk to us about some of the harm that can be caused when we don’t strike 

the right balance in licensing hydro projects. Mary’s tribe in Washington State was 

gravely impacted by a hydropower project that dried up part of the Skokomish 

River, completely destroyed the tribe’s salmon fishery, flooded nearly one-third of 

the reservation, and irreparably destroyed the tribe’s principal means of livelihood. 

And sadly, Mr. Chairman, this is just one of many examples of a poorly permitted 

hydro project and how it can cause serious damage to stakeholders. In the early 

20th century, the Federal Government allowed hundreds of permits to build dams 

on the public’s rivers. The licensing process frequently did not take into account, seriously at least, any of the effects of these facilities on fisheries, recreation, or tribal 

and public lands. And although the ingenuity and industriousness of our forebears 

was laudable, is laudable, today, thanks to science and real world experience, we 

simply know that we can do better. 

Now recognizing the damage caused by such a lax permitting process, in the past, 

in recent decades Congress redoubled its efforts to strike that balance. In 1986, 

Congress passed a law called the Electric Consumer Protection Act that required 

FERC to give equal consideration to recreation, fisheries, energy conservation, and 

energy generation when issuing hydropower licenses. The legislation limited FERC’s 

ability to simply reject expert advice of natural resource agencies and tribes concerning fish, wildlife, and tribal needs. And this was a consensus, bipartisan bill 

supported by folks on both parties signed into law by that extremist environmentalist Ronald Reagan. 

6 

Congress next amended the hydropower licensing process in 2005 when it passed 

the Energy Policy Act. And that legislation—again, bipartisan—signed by President 

Bush, included provisions that made the permitting process for hydropower licenses 

easier. It gave the hydro industry some additional procedural options in complying 

with environmental protections, but it did not compromise the fundamental integrity of the balancing system that the Federal Government has tried to maintain. 

Now unfortunately, I’m concerned that some of the provisions in H.R. 8, the 

recently passed House Energy bill, would undermine the ability of states and 

Federal natural resource agencies to place reasonable conditions on hydropower licenses in order to strike that balance and in order to protect tribal and public lands, 

safeguard water quality, and fishery resources. Legislation would also jeopardize 

industries that rely on healthy rivers, including the commercial and recreational 

fishing industry and the outdoor recreation industry. 

Now, I certainly recognize that some hydropower licensees are currently facing 

permitting challenges. Many of these projects are predated. Many of the environmental laws that they’re being asked to comply with for the first time, in what is 

famously a very long and expensive relicensing process. I’m very interested in working with all the stakeholders in finding ways to make that more efficient, to reduce 

the burden, but also as we do that to maintain that important balance and I look 

forward to the testimony that we have today. 

Thank you. 

Dr. GOSAR [presiding]. I thank the gentleman. 

I now recognize myself as both the Acting Chair and Vice Chair, 

for my opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. PAUL A. GOSAR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA 

Dr. GOSAR. Hydropower may not be the most exciting or new 

energy out there, maybe because it was old news for so long. 

Hydropower is a hidden resource. Its blades are often covered by 

concrete. They do not spin on mountaintops and they do not look 

like giant mirrors. But they have a proven track record of keeping 

the lights on and they actually enable other renewable technologies 

by acting as their backup battery. Hydropower has been good for 

the western United States, which wouldn’t be what it is today 

without it. 

The Bureau of Reclamation’s Colorado River flagship dams, the 

Glen Canyon and Hoover, provide clean power for millions, including Arizonans. Customer funding helped keep these facilities up to 

date, and they will continue into the future. 

But, hydropower deserves a renaissance. There is a vast potential to produce more hydropower through existing powered and 

non-powered dams, there are opportunities to build new dams, and 

to encourage investment in pumped storage, tidal and conduit hydropower projects, just to name a few. New turbine designs and 

technologies improve hydropower efficiency and protect more fish 

every year. 

This should be a target-rich environment. Entrepreneurs and 

utilities want Hydropower 2.0 in the 21st century. But will Federal 

agencies let them have it? So far, at least to me, the answer is no, 

or a close maybe. The Federal Government is way behind the 

curve. 

The Bureau of Reclamation is one such example. In 2013, two 

bipartisan laws encouraging hydropower construction through regulatory simplification on thousands of miles of Federal and nonFederal canals and pipes were supposed to unleash development. 

7 

It is succeeding on non-Federal canals, but there is little to show 

on Bureau of Reclamation conduits, other than new Federal rules. 

The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management collectively have non-Federal hydropower projects that generate almost 

23,000 megawatts on their lands. That is the installed generating 

capacity of 11 Hoover Dams. Yet, they both come into constant conflict with utilities, and even another Federal partner, as was the 

case with the C.C. Cragin pipeline in northern Arizona. The Forest 

Service is in the midst of resurrecting its Groundwater Directive 

through planning documents that would only make it harder to 

build and re-license projects. 

[Slide] 

Dr. GOSAR. The Chairman rightly pointed to this map earlier. A 

lot of development could occur on Federal land. In fact, as the next 

chart says, almost 900 megawatts—this is one of those eyechallenging charts. 

[Laughter.] 

Dr. GOSAR. It is constantly an eye test in this committee. 

Nine hundred megawatts could be generated at non-powered 

dams that are on lands managed by the Who’s Who of Agencies, 

well known by this committee. That is a large coal plant—not that 

there is anything wrong with coal, especially Navajo and Hopi coal. 

Given what we have heard in years past, and some of the issues 

presented today, the chances of new, wide-scale development on 

those lands is about as good as getting a foot of snow in Phoenix 

in August, or anytime for that matter. 

At some point, we will hear from the Federal agencies, and they 

will crow about the inter-agency memoranda they have signed in 

an effort to boost hydropower. Yet so far, those efforts have proven 

relatively hollow. 

Let’s not forget about modernizing our existing facilities. Over 24 

percent of existing non-Federal facilities are up for re-licensing 

over the next 5 years. 

[Slide] 

Dr. GOSAR. This map shows the facilities that are on the bubble 

for re-licensing before 2023. This is staggering, when you think 

about it, given the issues facing many of these utilities and 

ratepayers. 

We can do better. The Federal Government needs to adapt to the 

times and catch up with the proactive attitude of those who have 

done and want to do something. An improved, transparent relicensing process that yields timely results can be a win-win for 

ratepayers and the environment. 

I want to thank the witnesses who have traveled here today from 

across the country to help improve this process in a productive and 

positive way. You are leaders in the hydropower world, and we 

stand ready to work with you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Gosar follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. PAUL GOSAR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS

FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA

Thank you for holding this hearing. 

Hydropower may not be the most exciting or new energy out there; maybe because 

it was old news for so long. Hydropower is a hidden resource—its blades are often 

covered by concrete; they don’t spin on mountaintops and they don’t look like giant 

8 

mirrors, but they have a proven track record of keeping the lights on and actually 

enable other renewable technologies by acting as their backup battery. 

Hydropower has been good for the western United States, which wouldn’t be what 

it is today without it. The Bureau of Reclamation’s Colorado River flagship dams— 

Glen Canyon and Hoover—provide clean power for millions—including Arizonans. 

Customer funding helps keep these facilities up to date and they will continue into 

the future. 

But, hydropower deserves a renaissance. There is vast potential to produce more 

hydropower through existing powered and non-powered dams and opportunities to 

build new dams and encourage investment in pumped storage, tidal and conduit hydropower projects to name a few. New turbine designs and technologies improve 

hydropower efficiency protect more fish every year. 

This should be a target rich environment. Entrepreneurs and utilities want hydropower 2.0 in the 21st century but will Federal agencies let them have it? So far, 

at least to me, the answer is no or maybe. The Federal Government is way behind 

the curve. 

The Bureau of Reclamation is one such example. In 2013, two bipartisan laws encouraging hydropower construction through regulatory simplification on thousands 

of miles of Federal and non-Federal canals and pipes were supposed to unleash development. It’s succeeding on non-Federal canals but there’s little to show on 

Bureau of Reclamation conduits other than new Federal rules. 

The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management collectively have nonFederal hydropower projects that generate almost 23,000 megawatts on their 

lands—that’s the installed generating capacity of 11 Hoover Dams Yet, they both 

come in constant conflict with utilities and even another Federal partner, as was 

the case with the CC Cragin pipeline in northern Arizona. The Forest Service is in 

the midst of resurrecting its Groundwater Directive through planning documents 

that would only make it harder to build and re-license projects. 

The Chairman rightly pointed to this map on the screen earlier. A lot of development could occur on Federal land. In fact as the next chart on the screen says, almost 900 megawatts could be generated at non-powered dams that are on lands 

managed by the Who’s Who of the agencies well known by this committee. That’s 

a large coal plant—not that there’s anything wrong with coal, especially Navajo and 

Hopi coal. 

Given what we’ve heard in years past and some of the issues presented today, the 

chances of new wide-scale development on those lands is about as good as getting 

a foot of snow in Phoenix in August, or anytime for that matter. At some point, we 

will hear from the Federal agencies and they will crow about the inter-agency 

memoranda they have signed in an effort to boost hydropower. Yet, so far those 

efforts have proven relatively hollow. 

Let’s not forget about modernizing our existing facilities. Over 24 percent of existing non-Federal facilities are up for re-licensing over the next 5 years. This map 

shows the facilities that are on the bubble for re-licensing before 2023. This is staggering when you think about it given the issues facing many of these utilities and 

ratepayers. 

We can do better. The Federal Government needs to adapt to the times and catch 

up with the proactive attitude of those who have done and want to do something. 

An improved, transparent re-licensing process that yields timely results can be a 

win-win for ratepayers and the environment. 

I want to thank the witnesses who have traveled here today from across the country to help improve this process in a productive and positive way. You are leaders 

in the hydropower world and we stand ready to work with you. 

Dr. GOSAR. We will now hear from our panel of witnesses. Each 

witness’ written testimony will appear in full in the hearing record. 

So, I ask that the witnesses keep their oral statements to 

5 minutes, as outlined in our invitation letter to you, and under 

Committee Rule 4(a). 

I also want to explain our timing lights, and how they work. 

When you begin to speak, our clerk will start the timer. You will 

see this right here go to a green light. After 4 minutes, a yellow 

light will appear. At that time, you should begin to try to conclude 

9 

your statement. At 5 minutes, the light will turn red. I ask you to 

complete your sentence, but we may ask you to stop thereafter. 

Now, here are today’s witnesses. First, Ms. Debbie Powell, Senior 

Director of Power Generation Operations for the Pacific Gas and 

Electric Company, which is based out of San Francisco, California, 

and covers much of California; Mr. Steve Boyd, Director of Water 

Resources and Regulatory Affairs for Turlock Irrigation District, 

based in Turlock, California. Two Californians, wow, that is good. 

Mr. HUFFMAN. It is looking up around here. 

Dr. GOSAR. Yes. 

[Laughter.] 

Dr. GOSAR. Ms. Mary Pavel, Attorney for Sonosky, Chambers, 

Sachse, Endreson & Perry LLP, based in Washington, DC; and Ms. 

Jessica Matlock, Director of Government Relations for the 

Snohomish County Public Utility—did I say it right? 

Ms. MATLOCK. Yes. 

Dr. GOSAR. OK. District Number 1 in Everett, Washington. 

Hey, where are the Arizona witnesses? 

[Laughter.] 

Dr. GOSAR. I now recognize Ms. Powell for her testimony. 

You have 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DEBBIE POWELL, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF 

POWER GENERATION OPERATIONS, PACIFIC GAS AND 

ELECTRIC COMPANY, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 

Ms. POWELL. Good afternoon and thank you. I am Debbie Powell, 

Senior Director of Power Generation Operations at Pacific Gas and 

Electric Company. PG&E is one of the Nation’s largest utilities. We 

are also the owner and operator of America’s largest investorowned hydroelectric system, with 26 FERC licenses. This means we 

are regularly in the process of re-licensing multiple FERC projects. 

Our system generates nearly 3,900 megawatts of clean power for 

millions of Americans and Californians. Hydropower is safe, clean, 

reliable, and affordable. It is a greenhouse gas resource of energy 

that provides important benefits to the overall power system, 

particularly systems with significant amounts of intermittent renewable generation. 

PG&E is encouraged that Federal legislation is advancing in 

both Houses of Congress to promote hydropower development, including modest improvements to the licensing processes. We remain hopeful that the House and Senate bills can eventually be 

reconciled between leaders of both chambers, and presented to the 

President for his signature in 2016. Congress now has an important opportunity to build on that progress by further improving the 

hydropower licensing and re-licensing processes. Common sense 

and basic reforms can make these processes more efficient, while 

keeping in place the environmental protections, stakeholder engagement, community improvements, and facility upgrades we all 

agree are necessary and critical. 

PG&E places a priority on using collaborative processes to navigate a hydroelectric facility through re-licensing. But as it stands 

today, the prescribed processes are overly complex, unnecessarily 

prolonged, insufficiently coordinated, and needlessly expensive. To 

put this in perspective, PG&E’s recent experience is that it takes 

10 

more than 7 years and often more than 10 years to renew a FERC 

license for an existing fully operational project. 

The cost just to complete the re-licensing process for the continued operation of a facility has ranged from tens of millions to over 

$50 million. And implementing the requirements of the new license 

often ranges from several million to over $100 million. All of these 

costs are ultimately shouldered by the energy consumer. 

The re-licensing process involves numerous Federal and state 

agencies and other stakeholders with interests that may not always 

align. Therefore, we believe the process should be improved to focus 

on the following: assure environmental protections and preserve 

hydropower; achieve the benefits of re-licensing sooner; reduce cost 

and improved predictability of outcomes; and enhance the collaborative process to be results- and solutions-oriented. 

Furthermore, we recommend a number of specific improvements 

to address these licensing matters, including improved coordination 

between Federal and state environmental reviews, to include imposing a controlled schedule for all parties involved; better definition of the extent of authorities of the Federal agencies; improved 

Federal and state agency coordination and transparency; and establish a process for a single challenge opportunity before FERC to 

resolve issues. 

For example, in California we are working to help make our 

state environmental review follow a parallel path with the Federal 

reviews, including relying on the same data and studies. To date, 

this process has generally been sequential and separate, at times 

resulting in conflicting licensing conditions. And such conditions 

sometimes have extended to private lands, where there is no clear 

nexus to the project. 

Regarding land use, we clearly recognize the right of Federal 

agencies, as landlords, to place conditions on the lands they manage, if a license is using them for hydropower. However, we do not 

believe these agencies should have unilateral authority to condition 

private land associated with the project. Moreover, Congress should 

remain in the position to define the extent of that authority, not 

the courts or endless litigation. 

We also understand that agencies have different missions and 

perspectives on what license conditions are appropriate, but there 

can and should be better coordination to avoid duplication of effort 

and confusing or conflicting requirements being issued by multiple 

agencies. These are all common-sense improvements. 

We know that Congress has an important opportunity to modernize the hydropower licensing processes. PG&E looks forward to 

working with you to advance these long-overdue measures in 2016 

and beyond. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Powell follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DEBBIE POWELL, SENIOR DIRECTOR, POWER GENERATION

OPERATIONS, PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY

Good afternoon Chairman Fleming, Ranking Member Huffman, and members of 

the Water, Power and Oceans Subcommittee. My name is Debbie Powell, and I 

serve as Senior Director of Power Generation Operations at Pacific Gas and Electric 

Company (PG&E). 

I am pleased to appear before the subcommittee on the issue of ‘‘Realizing the 

Potential of Hydropower as a Clean, Renewable and Domestic Energy Resource.’’ 

PG&E appreciates the time and consideration the Natural Resources Committee 

11 

and Congress are giving to the need to invest in and modernize our Nation’s energy 

infrastructure to make it more reliable, more resilient and better able to support 

the 21st century economy. Hydropower licensing reform is a critical component of 

this effort, given the important role that water plays in energy production and consumption, combating climate change, renewable energy integration, habitat restoration, and recreation, to name just a few. 

PG&E is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric utilities in the 

United States. Based in San Francisco, with more than 23,000 employees, the company delivers some of the Nation’s cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people—or 

1 in 20 Americans—throughout a 70,000-square-mile service area in Northern and 

Central California. 

PG&E also owns and operates one of the Nation’s largest investor-owned hydroelectric systems, which is built along 16 river basins and stretches more than 500 

miles. PG&E’s 67 powerhouses, including a pumped storage facility, have a total 

generating capacity of 3,888 megawatts (MW)—enough to meet the needs of nearly 

4 million homes with carbon-free energy. The system relies on approximately 100 

reservoirs located primarily in the higher elevations of California’s Sierra Nevada 

and Southern Cascade mountain ranges. 

PG&E’s hydroelectric system consists of 26 federally licensed projects. Since 2000, 

PG&E has completed 10 hydropower re-licensing proceedings representing 1,140 

MW. PG&E has seven ‘‘active’’ hydropower re-licensing proceedings, which represent 

an additional 1,131 MW. 

PG&E actively manages its hydroelectric system to ensure the safety of the public 

and our workforce; protect wildlife habitat and sensitive species; and maintain access to popular recreation areas, including campgrounds, picnic areas, boat 

launches, walking and hiking trails, fishing, and whitewater flows. We know firsthand, the infrastructure needs, responsibilities and challenges related to maintaining, operating and re-licensing this clean, reliable and valuable resource. 

As required by Federal and state regulatory agencies, PG&E evaluates and mitigates the projects’ impacts on natural resources and the environment. We have 

made it a priority to work collaboratively with stakeholders, including Federal and 

state agencies, local community members, environmental organizations, fishing interests and other recreationalists, and agricultural landholders, among others, during the re-licensing process. Together, we work to assess the impacts of these 

projects, identify the issues of importance, develop plans to protect fish and wildlife 

habitat, enhance recreational uses, and improve water quality and flow management. We believe this collaborative approach best serves the public interest, as we 

recognize that many entities and individuals rely on the various watersheds, which 

include our facilities. 

As it stands today, however, the prescribed licensing processes in place are overly 

complex, unnecessarily protracted, insufficiently coordinated, and needlessly expensive. In the simplest terms, we strongly support greater efficiency and transparency 

in the re-licensing process, and the expeditious conclusion of the re-licensing process 

so that the environmental protections and benefits negotiated during that process 

can be implemented faster and more efficiently. 

Hydropower is an invaluable, renewable resource that our country can and should 

do more to capitalize on to help us meet greenhouse gas goals necessary to avert 

the worst impacts of climate change. Hydroelectricity is a greenhouse gas-free 

source of energy that provides important benefits to the overall power system, particularly systems with significant amounts of intermittent renewable generation, 

such as wind and solar, as well as to energy consumers across the country. According to the National Hydropower Association, using hydropower avoids approximately 

200 million metric tons of carbon pollution in the United States each year—the 

equivalent of 42 million cars. It is a flexible resource, a domestic resource and a carbon-free resource. And we believe it is a resource that we must continue to use now 

and in the future. 

We appreciate all the efforts made to date by Congress to advance hydroelectric 

generation, and we believe that today’s hearing by the Natural Resources 

Committee is another very important step to continue this progress. Moreover, we 

applaud the 114th Congress for advancing comprehensive energy bills that have included provisions to modernize the hydropower licensing process. We remain hopeful 

the House and Senate bills can be reconciled between leaders of both chambers and 

presented to the President for his signature in 2016. PG&E fully supports this process and will remain an active voice in the sharing of our experiences related to realizing the full potential of hydroelectric power. 

12 

While these steps on the Federal legislative front have been encouraging, the regulatory approval process still remains a significant challenge, and future action at 

the Federal level is necessary to ensure the continued operation of existing hydropower and support for growth of new hydropower. Improving the efficiency of the 

licensing and re-licensing processes is paramount. PG&E believes that it is critical 

for hydroelectric power generators to be able to move through the re-licensing 

process more efficiently and more affordably, so that we can implement environmental protections, community improvements and facility upgrades proposed during 

re-licensing much more quickly than we can today. Delays in the re-licensing 

process serve only to delay such needed improvements and add costs, which are 

ultimately borne by the energy consumer. 

HYDROPOWER: A DOMESTIC AND CLEAN RESOURCE

At approximately 100 gigawatts of installed capacity, hydropower is America’s 

largest renewable energy resource, producing half of the country’s renewable power. 

In addition to providing tens of millions of American homes with clean and affordable power each year, hydropower also provides benefits to recreation, flood control, 

irrigation, navigation, and water supply, among others. 

In order to capitalize on hydropower’s existing capacity and future potential, addressing key challenges within the existing hydropower licensing process is necessary. In PG&E’s experience, the process to re-license existing hydroelectric 

projects requires extensive consultation with multiple state and Federal agencies 

that consistently takes at least 7 years, and frequently lasts more than 10 years. 

For example, the re-licensing of the Poe Project is now in year 18. 

Meanwhile, the cost to PG&E customers to obtain a license renewal has routinely 

exceeded $20 million per license, and some current proceedings will exceed 

$50 million. When, and if, a license is approved and received, implementing the 

conditions of the license also routinely costs tens-of-millions of additional dollars. 

To put this into greater perspective, the cost and duration of the process to relicense an existing hydroelectric project can be just as cumbersome and complex as 

seeking a license for a new, unbuilt hydroelectric project. In both cases, the cost and 

duration associated with licensing is typically far greater than any other established 

electric generation technology. 

LICENSING IMPROVEMENTS FOR HYDROPOWER

PG&E appreciates and recognizes the right of and need for Federal agencies to 

place license conditions upon the lands they manage. Similarly, PG&E also appreciates and recognizes the right of Federal agencies to prescribe fishways to allow 

fish to pass licensed dams. Finally, PG&E recognizes and appreciates that different 

Federal agencies have different missions and may therefore have different perspectives on what license conditions are needed. At the same time, we also believe that 

better coordination of these perspectives is necessary. 

The common sense and fair recommendations we advocate to modernize the process will: (1) help improve the timeliness and reduce the cost of renewing a license; 

(2) ensure all involved agencies use the same underlying data, studies and schedule 

in exercising their authorities; (3) provide clarity with respect to the extent of agencies’ authorities; and (4) provide a process for a single effective challenge opportunity before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to resolve disputes 

regarding proposed license conditions. 

In addition, none of the above-mentioned recommendations would repeal or undercut the authority of any Federal or state resource agency or the Native American 

community to administer the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, or other 

Federal environmental laws pertaining to hydropower. And since these measures 

will encourage an open and collaborative approach with stakeholders, we will 

achieve better outcomes by working together throughout the licensing and relicensing processes—and hopefully be in a position to effectuate necessary upgrades 

and improvements more quickly. 

To overcome the existing licensing inefficiencies, while maximizing hydropower’s 

potential and promoting additional transparency, Congress should focus on 

addressing the following four areas: 

• Improving coordination between Federal and state environmental reviews; 

• Better defining the extent of authorities by Federal agencies; 

• Improving Federal agency coordination and transparency; and 

• Improving Federal and state agency coordination and transparency. 

13 

To achieve these basic improvements, we are hopeful Congress will pass 

meaningful hydropower licensing process reforms based on the following six 

principles: 

• Establishing a defined process at FERC to resolve issues arising from overlapping or conflicting authorities, or overlapping and conflicting license conditions among Federal agencies, as well as between Federal and state agencies. 

• Addressing deficiencies in the licensing process that prohibit a licensee from 

challenging final conditions or prescriptions. 

• Requiring the use of the same studies and data for both Federal and state 

environmental analyses, including defining a disciplined schedule to which all 

agencies and stakeholders must adhere to. 

• Clarifying that the conditioning authority of Federal land management agencies should be only on Federal or private lands within the project boundary 

or directly related to the project. 

• Empowering FERC to be in a position not to adopt proposed license conditions 

that do not have a clear nexus with the project being licensed or any actual 

effect on the Federal reservation that is being used. 

• Allowing FERC to establish a schedule with respect to all Federal authorizations, while considering late filed mandatory conditions and prescriptions as 

recommendations under Federal Power Act Section 10(a). 

In addition to implementing these principles, we recommend the Natural 

Resources Committee—given its jurisdiction over the Federal resource agencies involved in the licensing of hydropower facilities—continue its work to identify criteria 

that result in sensible mandatory conditions all agencies can embrace. While PG&E 

generally has had success in working with Federal and state resource agencies and 

others to develop collaborative solutions, the fact remains that some can be narrowly focused on a single resource or unwilling to consider all of the impacts of their 

mandatory conditions, including impacts on the economy, the environment and electric reliability. We believe that a bipartisan solution can be reached to address these 

matters. 

PG&E believes these common sense, much-needed improvements to the hydropower licensing process can be accomplished in a responsible and balanced manner 

that protects and preserves our fisheries and other natural resources, and provides 

for continued collaboration. 

At the same time, such enhancements would bring consistency, predictability and 

lower costs for projects that support the safe and reliable delivery of hydroelectric 

power—benefiting utility customers, the environment, American jobs, and energy infrastructure. For example, a license renewal typically results in enhanced habitat 

and species protections, more access to recreational areas and updated water 

resource measures. These are improvements that all stakeholders want, but unfortunately they often take too long to put in place because of the length of the relicensing process. A more timely process will continue to provide for these benefits, 

while also ensuring that they are achieved sooner and at lower cost to energy 

consumers. 

We know that Congress has an important opportunity to modernize the hydropower licensing processes in 2016 and beyond. PG&E looks forward to continuing 

our efforts—and working with Congress to further advance these long over-due 

measures—as we strive to operate the safest, cleanest and most reliable hydroelectric system in the Nation. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY REP. HUFFMAN TO MS. DEBBIE POWELL

OF PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY

Ms. Powell did not submit responses to the Committee by the appropriate 

deadline for inclusion in the printed record. 

Question 1. Hydropower is one of several renewable, non-fossil fuel energy 

sources, but the construction and maintenance of dams can bring with it several 

negative environmental impacts, not only to fish and wildlife but through 

greenhouse gas emissions as well. These impacts include: 

• The emission of methane from reservoir surfaces, turbines and spillways, 

14 

• Submerging and destroying large areas of carbon capturing forests and 

grasslands, 

• Blocking the flow of critically needed sediment to feed starved coastal 

wetlands and beaches at risk from sea level rise, 

• Impeding wildlife migration routes essential for climate adaptation, and 

• Exacerbating the negative climate impacts on water quality, stream flows, 

and water loss due to reservoir evaporation. 

How does the Pacific Gas and Electric Company address these broader issues 

related to species viability, methane emissions, sediment loads, and reservoir 

evaporation? 

Dr. GOSAR. Perfectly timed. Thank you very much, Ms. Powell. 

I now recognize Mr. Denham to introduce his witness, Mr. Boyd. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is my honor to introduce a good friend, Steve Boyd, Director of Water Resources and 

Regulatory Affairs at Turlock Irrigation District, the cleanest 

energy available, the cleanest energy out there. This water energy 

is not relatively clean, not kind of clean, but the cleanest. I understand there is a political agenda behind this as well, on why we 

do not want to have more water storage, but I just want to commend you on having the cleanest energy available out there. 

I know that you are going through a lot of challenges with the 

permitting process. A number of government regulations, while 

some would say they are lax policy permitting, I know that it has 

taken you over 7 years, it will probably take you another 7 years 

to a decade longer to actually finish this permitting process that 

will go well beyond our local budgets. I mean we are already over 

$20 million; I am sure it will be much, much more than that on 

this long, lengthy process. 

Nevertheless, you are providing power to our community, 203 

megawatts through the Don Pedro Dam alone. It is something that 

is critical to our community, critical to the Valley, not only with the 

amount of electricity you are providing, but certainly with the 

amount of water storage and irrigation. Without this irrigation, the 

social injustice that continues to see our high unemployment level, 

to see large swaths of our community that are unemployed and in 

bread lines would continue to increase. 

So, we thank you for the work that you do. We thank you for the 

work that is upcoming. Greater water storage not only creates 

greater clean energy, but certainly creates the bounty of fresh 

fruits and vegetables that we provide the rest of the world and 

creates much-needed jobs in our community, as well. 

We welcome you to today’s hearing, and we look forward to hearing more about the transparency, the accountability, and particularly some of the challenges that you are going through with 

Federal and state agencies. 

STATEMENT OF STEVE BOYD, DIRECTOR OF WATER 

RESOURCES AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS, TURLOCK 

IRRIGATION DISTRICT, TURLOCK, CALIFORNIA 

Mr. BOYD. Thank you, Congressman Denham, for that very kind 

introduction. Vice Chair Gosar, Ranking Member Huffman, members of the subcommittee, my name is Steve Boyd with the Turlock 

15 

Irrigation District. I am the Director of Water Resources and 

Regulatory Affairs. 

Following the introduction, I want to focus my comments on our 

recent experience with re-licensing the Don Pedro Project. First, a 

little background. For those of you not familiar with California, we 

are about 90 miles due east of San Francisco. The project is on the 

Tuolumne River, a tributary to the San Joaquin River. The headwaters begin in Yosemite National Park. They flow west across the 

Valley into the San Joaquin, and then north into the San Francisco 

Bay Delta. 

Turlock Irrigation District was founded in 1887. We are the oldest irrigation district in the state and one of four today that also 

provides retail electricity to our consumers. Shortly after TID was 

formed, the Modesto Irrigation District was formed to our north, 

across the Tuolumne River from us and immediately adjacent to it, 

and the districts immediately began developing water rights, some 

of the oldest in the state, on the Tuolumne River, with the notion 

of bringing irrigation to some of the richest farm lands in the 

world. 

In the 1900s, the two districts began diverting water from the 

Tuolumne River, but it was apparent, without a reliable and safe 

water supply, we could not complete even a single irrigation season. So we constructed in the 1920s the original Don Pedro Project, 

capable of holding 289,000 feet. And we also entered the retail 

electric business at that time. 

With a small reservoir, we were able to get through one irrigation season. But for those of you familiar with hydrology in 

California, with back to back dry years we were unable to weather 

sustained drought, much like we are seeing now. So in 1971, the 

districts completed the new Don Pedro Project, a 570-foot-tall dam 

capable of impounding about 2.3 million acre-feet of water, about 

10 times the size of the original project, and generating 203 

megawatts of power. 

The original license was issued in 1966, and it carried a 50-year 

term. Interestingly, that license is set to expire this Saturday. In 

anticipation of the expiration of that license, the districts began in 

earnest the re-licensing process in 2009. Using what FERC calls 

the Integrated Licensing Process, or ILP, we began a series of 

meetings with interested stakeholders. 

The ILP is intended to create clear time frames, a project schedule, and provide ample opportunity for agencies, NGOs, and interested parties to provide input on studies, data gaps, and to help 

inform the record for the FERC process. 

Since the 7 years that we began the process, our ratepayers have 

spent over $20 million on the EILP, most of those costs associated 

with over 30 complex studies that are intended to show Don 

Pedro’s impacts on a variety of resources. Those resources include 

historic properties, Native American cultural sites, recreation, state 

and federally protected species, water temperature and quality, 

resident and anadromous fish populations, both in the reservoir 

and below. 

All of those studies were developed in consultation and collaboration with multiple state and Federal agencies, NGOs, and, in our 

case, a myriad of interested individuals. We have held more than 

16 

a dozen public workshops since 2013 on those studies. And, frankly, most of the agencies have not attended many of those and been 

a part of the process. It is my firm belief that the study results create the road map for success and licensing conditions going 

forward. 

Don Pedro is multiple-benefit facility. Aside from the 20 percent 

annual production of our overall load, it is our most economical 

source and carbon-free source of energy. 

Seeing my time, I am going to jump right to the conclusion. In 

closing, the district takes their role of environmental stewardship 

very seriously. We are held correctly to a high standard of accountability and transparency in this process, and we believe that agencies with Section 4(e) and Section 18 mandatory conditioning 

should be held to that same level of accountability. 

We believe there is a win-win in this process, and that we do not 

need to do away with mandatory conditioning, but simply bring 

about engagement in the process from the beginning. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Boyd follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEVE BOYD, DIRECTOR OF WATER RESOURCES AND

REGULATORY AFFAIRS, TURLOCK IRRIGATION DISTRICT

HIGHLIGHTS

1. Hydropower is of great value to our region. It serves multiple benefits, 

including irrigation, balancing for interment renewable resources, recreation, 

promoting electric reliability, is a clean emissions-free resource and is an 

economic stimulus to our farming community. 

2. FERC’s Integrated Licensing Process (ILP) is only beneficial if participants 

are willing to faithfully engage. 

3. Mandatory Conditioning Agencies must give equal consideration to power and 

non-power benefits as directed by current law; the river provides so much 

more than power to the region. 

4. The process could be improved if there was more transparency and timely 

engagement by the resource agencies in the effort to find science-based 

solutions to meet the multi-purpose nature of the resources and the dam. 

5. Last, for those that want to do the right thing and are concerned about the 

integrity of the river, delays in licensing ultimately also lead to delays in 

environmental benefits. 

THE FOUNDATION

Established in 1887, the Turlock Irrigation District (TID) was the first publicly 

owned irrigation district in the state of California and is one of only four irrigation 

districts in the state providing electric retail energy directly to homes, farms and 

businesses. Organized under the Wright Act, the District operates under the provisions of the California Water Code as a special district and is governed by a locally 

elected, five-member Board of Directors. 

Today, TID provides irrigation water to more than 5,800 growers in a 307 squaremile service area that incorporates 150,000 acres of Central Valley farmland. In addition, TID provides reliable electricity to a growing retail customer base that now 

exceeds 100,000 residential, farm, commercial, industrial and municipal accounts in 

an electric service area that encompasses 662 square-miles in portions of three 

counties. 

TID has been delivering irrigation water since 1900 when the District completed 

250 miles of its gravity-fed water conveyance system. The Tuolumne River is the 

District’s primary source of water, replenished annually by the spring snowmelt in 

the 1,884-square-mile Tuolumne River watershed originating at Mt. Lyell in 

Yosemite National Park. Water for irrigation and hydroelectric power production is 

stored at the Don Pedro Reservoir about 50 miles east of Turlock in the Sierra 

Nevada foothills near the historic gold rush era town of La Grange. 

17 

TID partnered with the neighboring Modesto Irrigation District (MID) (‘‘the 

Districts’’), and built La Grange Dam in 1893 to divert water out of the river and 

into the Districts’ respective canals. The Districts joined forces again in the 1920s 

to build the first Don Pedro Dam. With a small storage capacity of 289,000 acrefeet, the dam held only enough water to accommodate growers’ irrigation needs for 

a single growing season. After numerous dry winters, the Districts, which included 

our community, made the decision to replace the original dam with a much larger 

one in order to store water necessary to bridge multiple years of drought. The New 

Don Pedro Project was completed in 1971 and has storage capacity of 2,030,000 

acre-feet (AF), seven times larger than the original. 

With the first dam came the opportunity to generate hydropower. The Districts’ 

customers voted overwhelmingly in 1923 to keep the power for public use versus 

selling it to investor-owned utilities then operating in the area, thus becoming the 

first of the state’s irrigation districts to also enter the retail power business. 

BENEFITS OF THE DON PEDRO PROJECT

The Don Pedro Project was locally funded and built, and it is operated by the 

Districts. It was constructed primarily to store and deliver irrigation water to some 

of the most productive farmland in the world. According to the Socioeconomic Study 

Report completed in April 2014, the Don Pedro Project supports approximately 

$4.109 billion in output, $734.8 million in labor income and 18,900 jobs annually. 

Additionally, the value of the crops produced within the TID service area is approximately $359.3 million per year. These numbers reflect the positive direct and indirect economic effects on the entire regional economy within Stanislaus, Merced and 

Tuolumne counties. 

With affordable, reliable irrigation water supplies, the Project directly supports 

the vibrant agricultural sector that has evolved since the Districts’ formation. And 

by extension, it indirectly supports the large agriculturally based economy that has 

developed around crop and dairy farm production, including input suppliers, dairy 

plants, food processing businesses, and many others. In addition to providing irrigation water to some 150,000 acres, the Don Pedro project also provides municipal and 

industrial water supply, flood control storage, recreation, power, and fish and wildlife conservation benefits. 

Securing a new FERC license is not only crucial to providing water for California’s 

Central Valley, it would maintain a clean and sustainable energy supply that is a 

fundamental component of the Districts’ long-term effort to meet California’s aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals and to fulfill other energy and environmental 

mandates. 

On average, Don Pedro provides 20 percent of TID’s annual electric load, but during a wet year, this can be as high as 35 percent. Moreover, Don Pedro is our most 

economical energy source and, because of its operating flexibility, is a critical resource for meeting demand and stabilizing the regional grid. In addition to the hydropower generated by the Don Pedro Project, TID meets the needs of their electric 

power customers with a variety of generation, including wind, solar and natural gas. 

Operational flexibility is paramount as TID, and California’s entire utility sector, 

moves toward the newly adopted 50-percent Renewable Energy Standard (RPS) and 

a massive influx of intermittent renewables on the regional grid. Because TID 

serves as its own balancing authority—one of seven in the state—its portfolio must 

include sufficient resources to meet its reliability and safety obligations. As a balancing authority, we not only help provide reliability to the Valley, we also help the 

Western region in its balancing and electric reliability needs. 

This benefit cannot be understated as we move to one of the most aggressive renewable standards in the country. Although large hydroelectric systems are not included within California’s regulatory definition of eligible renewable energy to meet 

the 50 percent RPS, Don Pedro’s generation emits no greenhouse gases, helping TID 

limit our carbon footprint overall. The Central Valley has some of the lowest levels 

of air-quality in the state. Hydroelectricity produced from the Don Pedro Project 

continues to ensure that TID is able to provide reliable electricity with no carbon 

emissions. 

The multiple benefits of the Don Pedro Project continue to help maintain economic stability for our customers. This is extremely important as the District represents some of California’s most economically challenged areas. Approximately 53 

percent of the residents within TID’s service area live within a disadvantaged 

community, as defined by the California Environmental Protection Agency. 

18 

THE RE-LICENSING PROCESS

TID and MID are co-owners and licensees of the Don Pedro Project on the 

Tuolumne River. The Project consists the 2,030,000 AF reservoir and a powerhouse 

capable of generating 203 megawatts. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 

(FERC) issued the Districts a license for the Don Pedro Project in 1966, and that 

license expires on April 30, 2016. Since 2009, the Districts have been working toward acquiring a new license within FERC’s Integrated License Process (ILP). 

Following extensive consultation with resource agencies, tribes, and multiple conservation groups, as well as the FERC, the Districts filed a draft license application 

on November 26, 2013, and a final license application with FERC on April 28, 2014. 

To date, the Districts have spent 7 years and more than $20 million on the FERC 

re-licensing process for the Don Pedro Project. The Districts expect to spend several 

more years and millions more in the expectation of a new license that will allow 

MID and TID to continue to cost-effectively operate, in an environmentally sound 

manner, the very same hydropower facility that they have been operating for the 

last 45 years. As public agencies, the costs associated with the re-licensing process 

and meeting any additional conditions imposed by a new license will be borne by 

the communities MID and TID serve. 

The Districts intentionally chose to enter into the FERC ILP desiring to work 

alongside the state and Federal agencies and other interested parties and stakeholders—at the beginning of the process—working toward an equitable solution for 

the operations of the Don Pedro Project. The Districts had hoped that this process 

would produce a solution in a reasonable time frame, allowing the Districts to begin 

to implement fisheries improvements agreed to by all parties. 

The Districts followed the FERC ILP, which provided a clear schedule and 

timeline for the re-licensing process and created fair and ample time for the involvement and participation of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), state and 

Federal agencies as well as interested parties to be involved providing input and 

creating a clear and complete record. 

As part of this process, the Districts have completed more than 33 studies, costing 

a cost of $20 million to date, with some individual studies exceeding $1 million. 

These studies examine, among other items, the Don Pedro Project’s potential effects 

on historic properties, Native American cultural sites, public recreation, federally 

protected species, state protected species, water quality, water temperature, 

instream flow, resident and anadromous fish populations both in the reservoir and 

downstream of the project, terrestrial species and regional socioeconomic resources. 

Each of these 33 studies was developed by the Districts in consultation with multiple Federal and state agencies, numerous interest groups during countless meetings and conference calls, which in combination generated thousands of pages of 

information and comments. In addition, the Districts have held more than a dozen 

public workshops on the studies and their findings since 2013. After each study was 

performed, a draft report was shared with all the participants in the re-licensing 

process to provide an additional opportunity for review and comment. The Districts 

then responded to every comment, modified the draft report and issued a final 

report. 

As the final studies are completed and submitted, the Districts will be filing an 

amended Final License Application with FERC based on the complete data set and 

record. In the meantime, the Districts have been meeting with NGOs, resource 

agencies and all interested parties in the hopes of reaching agreement on flow and 

non-flow measures that could be made to ensure the integrity of the river and secure a new license. These measures will bring about significant improvements to the 

fishery sooner, rather than later; but only if all parties are willing to negotiate 

rather than drag out the regulatory process. 

IMPROVING THE RE-LICENSING PROCESS

The great amount of care, time and money committed by the Districts and the 

scientists and engineers performing rigorous studies using accepted methods vetted 

by all the re-licensing participants would be most useful if study results are used 

by the participants to inform their opinions and the recommended terms and conditions that they want FERC to impose on the new license. 

However, in our case, these carefully executed studies have often been ignored or 

criticized as faulty when the results do not confirm participants’ pre-conceived 

notions or beliefs about environmental impacts. Fortunately, objectivity has not 

been lost with FERC staff, which gives every indication of being impartial reviewers 

who use and reference all of the resulting studies, and who do not seem to have 

pre-conceived notions about project impacts. 

19 

For example, the Districts 2012 predation study, a FERC-required study, evaluated the impact of predation by non-native fish on salmon in the lower Tuolumne 

River. The study determined that more than 90 percent of the out-migrating salmon 

smolts were consumed by non-native bass species prior to reaching the San Joaquin 

River. Some re-licensing participants and resource agencies criticized the study and 

requested an additional predation study. The Districts collaborated with re-licensing 

participants and agreed on the new Predation Study Plan, and FERC ordered a second predation study in 2014, which will cost well over $1 million to be conducted. 

The Districts requested a permit from California Department of Fish and Wildlife 

in October 2013, yet the permit for the FERC-ordered study was never issued by 

the agency, meaning the 2012 study will be the study of record. 

The Districts take their role of environmental stewardship seriously and are rightfully held to a high degree of accountability and transparency with all re-licensing 

participants. We believe that all re-licensing participants should be held to that 

same standard, especially agencies with mandatory conditioning authority under 

Section 4(e) and Section 18 of the Federal Power Act. We believe the record and the 

results of Tuolumne River-specific data should be the basis for decisions related to 

future license conditions. If mandatory conditioning agencies make decisions related 

to license conditions, it is incumbent upon them to provide logical and substantial 

support for their rationale, and make said information available to all participants. 

That is not always the case. For example, 

On June 10, 2011 the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) communicated 

in a letter to FERC: 

‘‘Given that fall-run Chinook salmon, CV steelhead, and Pacific lamprey are 

present in the lower Tuolumne River, it is reasonable that NMFS may 

exercise (through the Secretary of Commerce) its section 18 fishway prescriptive authority . . ..’’ 

NMFS’s letter clearly signaled its intent to require fish passage at Don Pedro 

prior to the completion of any studies on the Tuolumne River below or upstream 

of Don Pedro Dam documenting the existence of any of the environmental conditions 

necessary to support the various life cycles of the species mentioned by FERC in 

its letter. Retrofitting a fish passage on to the 570 feet high Don Pedro would be 

very expensive to the Districts’ ratepayers. Before mandating such an undertaking, 

NMFS should be required to justify its decision with proof that it will actually benefit the resources and the fish passage is the best available option, not merely the 

one NMFS likes the best. 

IN CLOSING

The Districts believe that the study results and record from the Don Pedro process indicate that there are a series of flow and non-flow mitigation measures that, 

if implemented, would dramatically increase the health and viability of the fishery 

on the Tuolumne River. Those measures could be negotiated and settled upon by 

all interested parties and then taken to FERC jointly as a set of future license conditions. Many of the agencies are not motivated to seek creative solutions that could 

bring about significant environmental improvements sooner rather than much later, 

but choose instead to wait and use their regulatory authority at the end of the process, delaying environmental improvements as well requiring conditions not supported by data. 

The Districts want to do the right thing for our community, and the environment, 

and we think it is fair to want those actions to be based on science and the multiple 

studies we have conducted based on a collaborative process by all stakeholder. However, what we have found is no desire or incentive for certain resource agencies to 

engage in a meaningful way, throughout the process, waiting until the end when 

they have more bargaining power. We believe, when it comes to mandatory conditioning authority, there are no checks in the systems and improvements are needed. 

In closing, Don Pedro is an emissions-free resource, providing resilience toward 

multiple global challenges such as climate change, drought, and water storage, flows 

for fish, irrigation, and other ancillary uses. TID encourages a more efficient and 

transparent process, recognizing both power and non-power benefits of Don Pedro. 

Significant hydropower licensing improvements would perhaps shield future license 

applicants from the same regulatory dilemma the Districts are currently facing. 

Thank you. 

20 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY REP. HUFFMAN TO STEVE BOYD, 

TURLOCK IRRIGATION DISTRICT

Mr. Boyd did not submit responses to the Committee by the appropriate 

deadline for inclusion in the printed record. 

Question 1. Hydropower is one of several renewable, non-fossil fuel energy 

sources, but the construction and maintenance of dams can bring with it several 

negative environmental impacts, not only to fish and wildlife but through 

greenhouse gas emissions as well. These impacts include: 

• The emission of methane from reservoir surfaces, turbines and spillways, 

• Submerging and destroying large areas of carbon capturing forests and 

grasslands, 

• Blocking the flow of critically needed sediment to feed starved coastal 

wetlands and beaches at risk from sea level rise, 

• Impeding wildlife migration routes essential for climate adaptation, and 

• Exacerbating the negative climate impacts on water quality, stream flows, 

and water loss due to reservoir evaporation. 

How does the Turlock Irrigation District address these broader issues related to 

species viability, methane emissions, sediment loads, and reservoir evaporation? 

Dr. GOSAR. Well, I thank you very much. 

That was wonderfully done. Everyone is staying under 

5 minutes. I now recognize Ms. Pavel. 

STATEMENT OF MARY PAVEL, ATTORNEY, SONOSKY, 

CHAMBERS, SACHSE, ENDRESON & PERRY, LLP, 

WASHINGTON, DC 

Ms. PAVEL. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the 

committee. My name is Mary Pavel. I am an attorney for the 

Skokomish Indian Tribe and a member of the tribe. 

Since time immemorial, the Skokomish Indian Tribe has occupied and controlled lands adjacent to the Skokomish River. In 

1855, the Skokomish Tribe entered into a treaty with the U.S. 

Government, which reserved a permanent homeland for the 

Skokomish along the Skokomish River. The location of the reservation was intended to facilitate easy access to the river and its tributaries that are vital to the tribe’s fish-dependent lifestyle and 

culture. 

The focus of my testimony today is Section 4(e) and the importance of this provision in protecting the resources that are vital to 

tribes. 

The Skokomish Tribe’s experience with the Federal Power Act 

represents two extremes of implementation of 4(e): when the 

Trustee abdicates its responsibility under the Act and when the 

Trustee embraces its responsibility under the Act. 

The Cushman Project became fully operational in 1930. From its 

inception, the tribe resisted the project because of its impact on the 

reservation and treaty rights. However, the Federal Government 

did nothing to protect the tribe or its reservation. As constructed, 

Cushman includes two dams, two powerhouses, penstocks, a pipeline, and transmission lines. Most of the project’s structure lies just 

northwest of the Skokomish Reservation, but the powerhouse and 

transmission lines are within the reservation, with some of the 

transmission lines being located on trust property. 

21 

The two dams totally block fish passage up the North Fork of the 

Skokomish River. Further, the entire flow of the North Fork of the 

Skokomish River was diverted from its channel and sent by pipeline to an out-of-basin powerhouse on the Hood Canal. This resulted in the destruction of the once premier and valuable 

Skokomish North Fork fishery, including the extirpation of the 

Skokomish River sockeye; the flooding of almost 30 percent of the 

Skokomish Reservation, including the destruction of the drinking 

water, because the flooding destroyed the function of septic systems; and the destruction of treaty-protected cultural and wildlife 

resources. 

Given the failure of the United States to uphold its responsibility 

under the Federal Power Act, the tribe had to wait until relicensing in 1974. There was a great deal of time between when 

Tacoma filed its license and when FERC issued its new license, but 

that was not the land management agency’s fault. In fact, Tacoma 

benefited from that process. Ultimately, what Tacoma got was not 

a 50-year license, but an 86-year license, because the annual 

licenses contained no new conditions. 

The tribe used its time actively to push Interior to move forward 

with 4(e) conditions. The Interior did put forward 4(e) conditions, 

however FERC rejected Interior’s conditions, asserting that Interior 

had missed FERC’s 60-day deadline. Further, notwithstanding the 

well-documented adverse impact of the project on their reservation, 

FERC took the position that Interior only had the authority to impose conditions on the transmission lines on trust lands. 

Both the tribe and the city filed petitions to review the Cushman 

license. In this case it was the tribe who defended Interior’s authority to impose 4(e) conditions, not the Federal agency itself. Again, 

the Trustee abdicated its trust responsibility. 

In this landmark case, the court held that FERC must include 

Interior’s 4(e) conditions in any license it issued for the project. 

This legal victory for the tribe created an opportunity for the tribe, 

Tacoma, and the Federal and state agencies to reach a global settlement for the future operation of Cushman. The benefits of the 

settlement included increased carrying capacity of the Skokomish 

River; improved fish habitat; improved fish passage; restoration of 

salmon populations, including two hatcheries to reintroduce them 

into the North Fork; restoration of wildlife habitat; and restoration 

of lands and cultural sites to the tribe. 

There can be no doubt that this settlement only happened because Interior’s authority to impose 4(e) conditions was upheld by 

the court. 

While hydropower may be carbon free and renewable, policymakers must consider that hydropower development can have 

devastating and, in some cases, irreversible impact on people and 

resources. The Skokomish Tribe bore the brunt of the cost of generating power at Cushman for 86 years. Today, unlike the 1920s, the 

land management agencies better recognize the responsibility to 

balance the interest of energy development against the responsibility to protect the lands and resources that are a part of the public trust. The balance that is required by 4(e) is necessary for the 

United States to fulfill its solemn trust responsibility to tribes to 

protect our homeland and our resources. 

22 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Pavel follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARY J. PAVEL, PARTNER—SONOSKY, CHAMBERS, SACHSE, ENDRESON & PERRY, LLP 

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to 

testify today. My name is Mary Pavel. I am currently a partner in the law firm of 

Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Endreson & Perry, LLP. I previously served as the 

Chief Counsel and Staff Director for the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. I am 

an attorney for the Skokomish Indian Tribe and a member of the tribe. 

A. THE SKOKOMISH RESERVATION

Since time immemorial, the people of the Skokomish Indian Tribe occupied and 

controlled lands adjacent to the Skokomish River and Hood Canal on the Olympic 

Peninsula of Washington State. In 1855, the Skokomish Indian Tribe entered into 

a treaty with the U.S. Government, which reserved a permanent homeland for the 

Skokomish people near their ancestral villages along the Skokomish River at the 

southernmost point of Hood Canal. See Treaty of Point No Point, January 26, 1855, 

12 Stat. 933, reprinted in II C. Kappler, Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties at 674– 

77; see also U.S. v. Washington, 384 F. Supp. 312 (W.D. Wash. 1974) (Boldt). 

The location of the Reservation was intended to facilitate easy access to the 

Skokomish River, its tributaries, and the tidelands and salt water of Hood Canal 

that sustained the Skokomish people for generations. Id. at 376–77. The Reservation’s location near the Skokomish River and the waters of Hood Canal supported 

the fish dependent lifestyle and culture of the Tribe. In 1905, the U.S. Supreme 

Court correctly acknowledged that for Pacific Northwest Indian tribes, fishing and 

hunting resources ‘‘were not much less necessary to the existence of the Indians 

than the atmosphere they breathed.’’ United States v. Winans, 198 U.S. 371 (1905). 

The treaty with the United States also reserved to the Skokomish people ‘‘the 

right of taking fish at usual and accustomed grounds and stations . . .’’ as well as 

hunting rights ‘‘on open and unclaimed land.’’ Boldt, 384 F. Supp. at 376–77. The 

Skokomish people relied and continue to rely on natural resources of the Skokomish 

River for subsistence, economy, ceremonial, cultural, religious, and other purposes. 

Id. Many tribal members derive all or a part of their income from the fish and shellfish of the Skokomish River system. 

B. SECTION 4(E) OF THE FEDERAL POWER ACT

The focus of the Tribe’s testimony today is the Section 4(e) of the Federal Power 

Act and the importance of this provision in protecting the resources that are vital 

to the Skokomish Tribe. In one scholarly article, it is said, ‘‘the Federal Power was 

premised on the principle that electric power potential of the Nation’s navigable waterways is a public resource, which should be harnessed in a manner consistent 

with the public interest.’’ Kirsch, Peter J. and Sietz, J. Barton, ‘‘The Role of the 

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Protecting Non-Consumptive Water 

Uses’’ (1990) presented at Moving the West’s Water to New Uses: Winners and Losers 

(Summer Conference, June 6–8)) at http://scholar.law.colorado.edu/moving-westswater-to-new-uses/13/. Section 4(e) of the Federal Power Act is the tool that ensures 

that when this development happens it is consistent with the purposes of other 

Federal lands and most importantly, for the purposes of this testimony, Federal 

Indian reservations. See Sommerville, Thane D., ‘‘Tribes and Dams: Using Section 

4(e) of the Federal Power Act to Protect Indian Tribes and Restore Reservation 

Resources,’’ Bellwether, Seattle University School of Law (Spring 2009). 

Section 4(e) of the Federal Power Act, even as originally enacted in 1920, authorized the Secretary of the Interior to impose conditions to protect Federal reservations, including Indian Reservations, where projects licensed by the Federal Power 

Commission were located. See 16 U.S.C. § 797(e). This provision continues in force 

and effect today. More specifically, the Federal Power Act authorized the licensing 

of hydroelectric power projects within reservations, but only upon an affirmative determination by the Federal Power Commission (now the Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission ‘‘FERC’’) that the license ‘‘will not interfere or be inconsistent with the 

purpose for which such reservation was created or acquired.’’ 16 U.S.C. § 797(e). In 

addition, Section 4(e) requires that any license issued within a Reservation shall be 

subject to and contain such conditions as the Secretary of the Interior shall deem 

necessary for the adequate protection and utilization of such reservations. Id. 

The Skokomish Tribe’s experience with the Federal Power Act represents the two 

extremes of implementation of this important provision: when the trustee comVerDate Mar 15 2010 09:33 Dec 15, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 J:\114TH CONGRESS\WATER, POWER & OCEANS\04-27-16\99956.TXT DARLEN
23 

1 Copies of the records of this history are part of the record of proceedings in Skokomish 

Indian Tribe v. United States, No. C99–5606 (E.D. Wash.), and are also maintained in the 

Tribe’s files. 

pletely abdicates its responsibility under the Act and when the trustee ultimately 

embraces its responsibility under the Act. The Skokomish Tribe’s experience with 

the Federal Power Act further demonstrates the critical importance that Section 4(e) 

plays in balancing the use of the Nation’s waters for the development of hydropower 

with terms and conditions essential to ensuring that hydropower is not developed 

at the expense of other vitally important resources. 

C. INITIAL LICENSING OF THE CUSHMAN HYDROELECTRIC PROJECT

Since the early 1900s, the city of Tacoma and others recognized the hydropower 

possibilities for the Skokomish River. The Skokomish Tribe equally recognized the 

potential devastation that hydropower development would cause the Skokomish 

Tribe, its people and its resources. These concerns are well documented in correspondence between the Tribe and officials of the highest levels within the Federal 

Government, including officials within the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior. These concerns were also expressed to the city of Tacoma. 

On November 21, 1923, the city of Tacoma requested a ‘‘minor license’’ from the 

United States, through the Federal Power Commission (now FERC) for the operation of the Cushman Hydroelectric Project. Skokomish Indian Tribe v. United 

States, 332 F.3d 551, 554 (9th Cir. 2003). Notwithstanding the repeatedly expressed 

Tribal concerns regarding the impact that hydropower development would have on 

its treaty protected fishery and its Reservation, Tacoma submitted its license application without any measures for fish passage or any other mitigation to protect the 

Tribe and its Reservation. See City of Tacoma’s Application to Federal Power 

Commission for a License to Flood Certain Lands of the United States (November 

21, 1923).1 Moreover, Tacoma’s 1923 application did not inform the Federal Power 

Commission that the main power plant and a portion of the project transmission 

line would be on the Skokomish Reservation, or that Tacoma intended to divert and 

dry up the entirety of the North Fork Skokomish River upstream of the Reservation. 

Id. Nor did the Federal Power Commission conduct any investigation to determine 

potential impacts to the Skokomish Tribe or the Skokomish Reservation. In 1924, 

the United States, through the Federal Power Commission, granted the city of 

Tacoma authorization to flood 8.8 acres of Federal land through a so-called ‘‘minor 

part’’ license. See License for A Minor Part of a Complete Project, Project. 460, 

Washington City of Tacoma, O.C. Merrill, Executive Secretary Federal Power 

Commission (June 3, 1924). The license did not authorize the construction, operation, or maintenance of any dams, reservoirs, powerhouses, transmission lines or 

appurtenances. Id. The ‘‘minor part’’ license only authorized activity on less than 

two-tenths of one percent of the area actually occupied by the present-day Cushman 

Project. Skokomish v. United States, 332 F.3d at 565 (Tashima, J., dissenting). 

In 1924, the city of Tacoma began construction of the Cushman Hydroelectric 

facility on the North Fork of the Skokomish River under the 50-year ‘‘minor part’’ 

license issued by the Federal Power Commission. The Cushman Project became fully 

operational in 1930. From its inception, the Project was vigorously resisted by the 

Skokomish Tribe because of its impacts on Reservation lands and treaty fishing 

rights. The record in the Tribe’s case against the city of Tacoma and the United 

States documents the Tribe’s repeated requests to the Interior Department to take 

action to protect the Skokomish Tribe and its Reservation, and its multiple requests 

to the Interior and Justice Departments for assistance and litigation in both state 

and Federal courts. See record of proceedings in Skokomish Indian Tribe v. United 

States, No. C99–5606 (E.D. Wash.). However, the Interior Department did nothing 

to protect the Tribe or its Reservation, despite Interior’s authority (exclusive of the 

Tribe) under the Federal Power Act to protect the Tribe’s Reservation and despite 

the United States’ obligations under the Treaty with the Tribe to protect the rights 

guaranteed it under that Treaty. See Federal Power Comm’n v. Tuscarora Indian 

Nation, 362 U.S. 99 (1959); White Mountain Apache Tribe v. United States, 537 U.S. 

465 (2003). 

The Cushman Project includes two dams, two powerhouses, penstocks, a pipeline, 

transmission lines and other structures. City of Tacoma v. FERC, 460 F.3d 53, 59 

(D.C. Cir. 2006). Most of the Project’s structures lie just northwesterly and in close 

proximity to the Skokomish Indian Reservation. See Map attached as Exhibit A. 

One powerhouse and the project transmission lines are within the Reservation, with 

the transmission lines being located on trust property. The two dams totally block 

fish passage up the North Fork of the Skokomish River. Further, the entire flow 

24 

of the North Fork of the Skokomish River was diverted from its channel and sent 

by pipeline to an out of basin powerhouse on Hood Canal (a bay of the Puget 

Sound). City of Tacoma, 460 F.3d at 59. 

EXHIBIT A 

Notwithstanding issuance of the license, the Tribe continued to pursue avenues 

for readdress and protection of its treaty rights. Frustrated by the failure of the 

United States to protect it, the Tribe attempted to seek legal recourse against the 

development and associated impacts of the Cushman Project on its own. The Tribe 

was prevented from doing so by the United States. In a petition submitted to the 

Secretary by letter dated August 17, 1930, the Tribe petitioned the United States 

to approve legal representation by private attorneys to represent the Tribe against 

Tacoma. See Petition to the Secretary of the Interior, Department of Indian Affairs, 

Washington, DC by George H. Adams et al (August 17, 1930). On October 10, 1930, 

the acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs refused the Tribal members’ request for 

legal representation, and reported that ‘‘steps that have already been taken by the 

Department of Justice to protect their interests.’’ See Letter from Henry Scattergood 

25 

to Nicholson, Superintendent, Taholah Agency (October 10, 1930). There were no 

such steps. 

Meanwhile, on September 13, 1930, tribal members sued in state court to enjoin 

Tacoma from diverting the North Fork out of its watershed. See Complaint, Henry 

R. Allen, et al, Mason County Superior Court (September 13, 1930). Two days later, 

tribal members—including my great-grandfather—on behalf of themselves and the 

Tribe sued in Federal district court to enjoin Tacoma, arguing that the diversion 

would ruin their salmon fishery, and diminish their treaty fishing rights, thwart a 

primary purpose of the reservation, and irreparably destroy their principal means 

of livelihood. Complaint, Adams v. City of Tacoma, Case No. 428 (W.D. Wash. 1930). 

The Federal district court dismissed the Tribe’s suit against Tacoma holding that 

the Tribe could not represent itself and could only be represented by the United 

States. Adams v. City of Tacoma, Case No. 428 (W.D. Wash. 1930). 

Following this dismissal, the Tribe was forced to rely solely on the United States 

as trustee to protect its interests. However, the United States declined to bring suit, 

or take any other form of action, to protect the Tribe’s rights. In 1934, Assistant 

U.S. Attorney General Harry W. Blair informed U.S. Attorney for Western 

Washington, Charles J. Dennis that the United States had a right to bring suit for 

damage to the Skokomish Indians’ treaty rights and cited a July 7, 1934 report evidencing significant damage resulting from the diversion of the North Fork 

Skokomish River. See Letter from Harry W. Blair Assistant Attorney General to J. 

Charles Dennis, U.S. Attorney (September 15, 1934). Assistant Attorney General 

Blair directed U.S. Attorney Dennis to investigate the matter, determine the extent 

of damage, and bring legal action if warranted. Id. 

However, U.S. Attorney Dennis had served as attorney to the city of Tacoma from 

1920–1923 and again from 1928–1932. In that capacity, he represented Tacoma in 

cases relating to the Cushman Project and the damming and diversion of the North 

Fork. In September 1934, in what is clearly an ethical violation and conflict of interest, U.S. Attorney Dennis recommended against the United States filing suit against 

Tacoma for the purpose of protecting the Tribe’s fishing rights. See Letter from 

Charles Dennis, U.S. Attorney to U.S. Attorney General (September 24, 1934). 

In 1935, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior agreed with Tacoma’s former attorney’s recommendation that no legal action would be taken by the United States 

on behalf of the Tribe to protect the Tribe’s rights against the damming and diversion of the North Fork Skokomish River. See Letter from Oscar Chapman, ASIA, 

to U.S. Attorney General, (October 1, 1935). 

D. IMPACT ON THE SKOKOMISH RESERVATION FOR THE TRUSTEE’S FAILURE

As a consequence, Tacoma operated this facility without any ‘‘significant license 

conditions.’’ City of Tacoma v. FERC, 460 F.3d 53, 66 (D.C. Cir. 2006). The failure 

of Interior to exercise its statutory duty to impose any—let alone ‘‘appropriatelicense conditions’’ in 1924 resulted in the destruction of the once plentiful 

Skokomish North Fork fisheries, the flooding of almost 30 percent of the Skokomish 

Reservation and the continued degradation of the entire Skokomish Watershed and 

the destruction of treaty protected cultural and wildlife resources. Skokomish Indian 

Tribe v. United States, 410 F.3d 506, 509–510 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc). 

The dewatering of the North Fork completely destroyed the salmon run up what 

was once a premier Tribal as well as a sports fishery, with grievous economic and 

cultural consequences for the Tribe. See City of Tacoma v. FERC, 460 F.3d 53, 62 

(D.C. Cir. 2006); Skokomish Indian Tribe v. United States, 410 F.3d 506, 509–510 

(9th Cir. 2005) (en banc). See also Washington v. Wash. State Commercial Passenger 

Fishing Vessel Ass’n, 443 U.S. 658, 686 (1979) (the Treaty of Point No Point entitles 

the Tribe an opportunity to harvest up to a maximum of 50 percent of harvestable 

resources). 

In terms of direct impact on the Skokomish Reservation itself, the dewatering of 

the North Fork resulted in an approximately 40 percent reduction in the flow of the 

Skokomish River mainstem. The decreased flows in the mainstem greatly contributed to the massive siltation of the River, because it resulted in significant 

aggradation—which occurs whenever deposits of sediment cause the floor of a river 

to build up over time because of the absence of flushing flows. This aggradation 

caused almost one-third of the Reservation lands to be flooded, and resulted in the 

failure of septic systems, contamination of wells, blocked fish migrations, damaged 

Reservation orchards and pastures, and the silting over of fisheries and shellfish 

beaches. Skokomish v. United States, 410 F.3d at 509–510; see also id. at 521 

(Graber, J., dissenting quoting technical analyses opining that dredging the channel 

could lessen, halt or even reverse the aggradation). 

26 

The Department of the Interior’s Report to FERC, in connection with the relicensing of the Project, estimates that the aggradation reduced the conveyance capacity of the mainstem from pre-Project levels of 18,000 cfs to approximately 5,000 

cfs. Prior to the Project, the Skokomish River flooded approximately once every 1.3 

years. Now the River is subject to flooding more than 10 days a year every year. 

In all, 27 percent of the Tribe’s Reservation land is repeatedly flooded and has 

therefore become useless. When the news shows the pictures of a fish swimming 

across the road—that is the Skokomish River. See Picture of Fish Crossing the 

Road, Exhibit B. 

EXHIBIT B 

The Skokomish River estuary was also negatively impacted by the loss of river 

flow. The Skokomish River estuary is part of the Puget Sound Estuary system, 

which is classified as an estuary of national significance under the National Estuary 

Program of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1330. By impounding and diverting the 

North Fork Skokomish River out of its watershed, the Cushman Project severely reduced freshwater and nutrient inflow and altered sediment and salinity regimes, 

with the consequent adverse impact on the biological productivity of the Skokomish 

River estuary, inter-tidal delta, and Hood Canal. The Washington Department of 

Fish and Wildlife’s Recommendations on Terms and Conditions on the Project’s relicensing stated that the Skokomish River Estuary on the Reservation was an excellent shellfish gathering ground for Tribal members. But as a consequence of the 

Cushman project’s operations, the shellfish beds on the Skokomish River Estuary 

have been greatly reduced in size and productivity. The degradation of the Estuary 

is a result of both increased siltation and the septic contamination of the Estuary. 

Wildlife populations were also severely impacted by the operation of the Cushman 

Project. The greatest impact has been upon the migratory deer and elk herds that 

historically wintered in the valley of the North Fork. The two reservoirs created by 

the Cushman Project inundated important wintering areas. The destruction of these 

traditional wintering areas has contributed substantially to the declining populations of deer, elk, and other game and non-game wildlife in the vicinity of the 

project. Finally, the flooding caused by the Project has destroyed numerous tribal 

historical and cultural sites. 

E. THE RE-LICENSING OF THE CUSHMAN PROJECT

Given the failure of the United States to uphold its responsibility under the 

Federal Power Act to impose any conditions, the Tribe had to wait until the Project 

came up for licensing again in 1974 to address the impact of this Project on the 

Tribe and its Reservation. 

27 

On November 5, 1974, Tacoma filed its application for a new license. 84 FERC, 

¶ 61,107 (1998). The Tribe intervened 1 year later to ensure that the United States 

would not once again abdicate its responsibility to the Tribe and sought conditions 

on the new license that would protect the Skokomish Reservation. Id. at 61,536. 

As stated in the FERC initial re-license for the Project in 1998: ‘‘Commission 

action on the Cushman Project license application has been delayed by a series of 

matters, including the lack of prerequisite water quality certification; the enactment 

of the Electric Consumers Protection Act of 1986; the requirements of special legislation to remove National Park status from a corner of the Project reservoir; disputes over compliance with the National Historical Preservation Act; a 1 year 

deferral of the deadline for Federal agencies to refer the Commission staff’s Environmental Impact Statement to the Council on Environmental Quality for review of the 

EIS’s adequacy; and an eleventh-hour Endangered Species Act issue.’’ Id. Thus, there was a great deal of time between when Tacoma filed for a license and 

when FERC issued its initial new license in 1998. But the fault was not that of the 

land management agencies and their 4(e) conditions. Moreover, the delay in relicensing only benefited Tacoma. From the time the license expired in 1974 until 

a renewal license was ultimately issued, Tacoma was able to operate the Cushman 

Dam as it had been operated since 1930. City of Tacoma, 460 F.3d. at 60. Essentially, what Tacoma received was not a 50-year license, but an 86-year license to 

operate the project wholly free from all terms or conditions that might otherwise 

protect the environment, natural resources, or the Skokomish Tribe’s Reservation 

and Treaty rights. Id. at 61. 

While the license was pending renewal, the Tribe used this time to knock on every 

door of the Federal Government to ensure that the Federal Government did not once 

again ignore its responsibility to the Tribe. In doing so, the Tribe actively pushed 

Interior to move forward with 4(e) conditions that would protect the Reservation 

and the Treaty protected resources. The Tribe did this because Interior is the only 

Agency that can impose 4(e) conditions to protect Indian Reservations. Thus, it was 

imperative that the Tribe convince Interior to impose 4(e) conditions. 

Ultimately, the conditions that Interior put forward were far less than what the 

Tribe wanted or believed were necessary, but at least the trustee finally acted. See 

Letter from Willie R. Taylor, Director, Office of Environmental Policy and Compliance, Department of the Interior, to Lois D. Cashell, Secretary FERC, Re Cushman 

Hydroelectric Project, Project No. 460, forwarding DOI section 4(e) conditions for the 

adequate protection and utilization of the Skokomish Indian Reservation (August 4, 

1997). Despite this, FERC rejected Interior conditions, asserting that Interior had 

missed FERC’s unilaterally imposed 60-day deadline. See 84 FERC ¶ 61,549. Further, notwithstanding the well-documented adverse impacts that this Project had on 

the Skokomish Reservation, FERC took the position that Interior only had the authority to impose conditions on a discrete and very small portion of the Project, 

namely that being the transmission line right-of-way located on the Reservation. Id. 

Both the Tribe and City filed petitions to review the Cushman Project license in 

the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Court. In this case, it was the Tribe 

who defended Interior’s authority to impose 4(e) conditions, not the Federal agency 

itself. Once again, our trustee abdicated its responsibility. See City of Tacoma, 460 

F.3d.53 (D.C. Cir. 2006). 

In this landmark case, the D.C. Circuit held that FERC must include the Interior 

Department’s Section 4(e) conditions in any license it issues for the Project. City of 

Tacoma v. FERC, 460 F.3d 53, 64–67 (D.C. Cir. 2006). The Court of Appeals held 

that FERC ‘‘exceeded its statutory authority by placing a strict time restriction on 

responsibilities Congress delegated other Federal Agencies.’’ Id. at 65 (‘‘FERC took 

all the time it needed—a full 24 years . . . Interior, in contrast, produced its license 

conditions within about 3 years.’’). 

The Court of Appeals also rejected FERC’s argument that the Secretary’s Section 

4(e) conditions must be limited to the impacts of the Project facilities actually located on reservation lands. Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Escondido 

Mut. Water Co. v. LaJolla Band of Mission Indians, 466 U.S. 765 (1984), the Court 

concluded instead that since some of the Project facilities are located on reservation 

land, the Secretary may impose any ‘‘conditions that are designed to mitigate the 

effect of the project on the Skokomish River to the extent doing so is reasonably 

related to protecting the reservation and the Tribe.’’ City of Tacoma, 460 F.3d at 

67. The Court then remanded the case for further proceedings, leaving open the opportunities for: (1) FERC to ‘‘express its disagreement’’ with the conditions and seek 

to persuade Interior to modify them; (2) FERC to deny a license; and (3) the City 

to litigate the reasonableness of the conditions. Id. 

This legal victory for the Tribe, the first consequential decision since the Tribe 

began its fight against this Project, created an opportunity for the Tribe, Tacoma, 

28 

the Federal Government and the state agencies to reach a global settlement for the 

future operation of Cushman Project, including Interior’s 4(e) conditions. The global 

Settlement Agreement was signed by the parties in January 2009 and FERC issued 

a new 40-year license to Tacoma in July 2010. 

Today, the Tribe, Tacoma, the state and the Federal agencies are true partners 

in the hydropower operations on the Skokomish River. The benefits of the Settlement Agreement and new license, included increased carrying capacity on the 

Skokomish River, improved fish habitat, improved fish passage, restoration of 

salmon populations, including two hatcheries to reintroduce salmon to the North 

Fork; restoration of wildlife habitat, and restoration lands and cultural sites to the 

Tribe. See Cushman Hydroelectric Project Settlement Agreement Highlights, 

Tacoma Power, TPU, Exhibit C. 

EXHIBIT C 

29 

F. CONCLUSION

There can be no doubt that this settlement only happened because Interior’s 

authority to impose 4(e) conditions necessary to protect the Skokomish Reservation 

was upheld by the Court. The title of this hearing today is ‘‘Realizing the Potential 

of Hydropower as a Clean, Renewable, and Domestic Energy Resource.’’ While hydropower may be clean and renewable, policymakers must consider that hydropower 

development can have devastating and in some cases irreversible impacts on people 

and resources. 

The Skokomish Tribe bore the brunt of the cost of generating power at the 

Cushman dam for 86 years, even when there was a provision of the law that allowed the Federal Government to protect the Reservation. Today, unlike the 1920s, 

the Federal land management agencies better recognize their responsibility to balance the interest of energy development against their responsibility to protect the 

lands and resources that are a part of the public trust. This balance that is required 

by Section 4(e) is necessary for the United States to fulfill its solemn trust responsibility to Tribes to protect our homelands and our resources that were promised to 

us in the Treaties that we signed when we turned over millions of acres of land. 

Today, the Cushman Settlement is a model example of what is possible when this 

balance is made. The Skokomish Reservation is already seeing the benefit of the settlement through the ongoing restoration of the Skokomish River Estuary; restoration of historic land back to the Tribe; and soon a Sockeye hatchery will be open 

and because of this Sockeye will once again run up the North Fork of the Skokomish 

River. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

Dr. GOSAR. Thank you, Ms. Pavel. 

Ms. Matlock, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF JESSICA MATLOCK, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, SNOHOMISH COUNTY PUBLIC UTILITY 

DISTRICT NO. 1, EVERETT, WASHINGTON 

Ms. MATLOCK. Good afternoon, Chairman Gosar, Ranking 

Member Huffman, and members of the subcommittee. My name is 

Jessica Matlock, and I am the Government Relations Director for 

Snohomish Public Utility District. We are located in Everett, 

Washington, which is north of Seattle. 

We serve a population of over 775,000 people, including critical 

industries like Boeing, and we have a local naval base. We serve 

our customers using 93 percent carbon-free energy, most of which 

is hydropower—that is 81 percent. We are also Bonneville Power 

Administration’s largest customer. Our only carbon sources come 

from market purchases, our biomass clients, or from what BPA 

acquires. 

In 2007, our elected board of commissioners adopted a climate 

change policy. That policy committed us to achieving all cost effective conservation and all future load go through renewable 

resources. As a result, we have aggressively implemented energy 

efficiency. We have added solar, wind, and more hydropower to 

meet these demands. But we did not stop there. We also researched 

and obtained a FERC license for one of the first-ever tidal energy 

projects in the Nation. We also drilled for geothermal, and we continue to look for it. We have installed and we are installing our 

third utility-scale battery storage system, as well. 

But now I will talk about our baseload generation of clean, 

renewable hydro. In 2011, we completed the first Federal Energy 

Commission re-licensing of 112 megawatt hydroelectric project. I 

want to talk about two very important attributes of this project. 

30 

The facility also serves as a water supply for the city of Everett, 

and it was certified as low impact by the Low Impact Hydropower 

Institute in 2011. 

We use this facility to also adapt to the changes in climate, protecting downstream fisheries resources, and I will give you a specific example. Just last summer, during our drought, it provided us 

powerful ability to regulate stream temperatures and flows to protect fish. If there was no dam, temperatures actually would have 

reached 75 degrees, and resulted in extremely low flows, as 

happened in adjacent rivers. And these conditions are lethal to fish. 

We are one of the only utilities in the Nation still developing new 

hydro and its small hydropower. In fact, in 2011 we completed the 

first hydropower project in nearly 20 years in the state of 

Washington. It was a 71⁄2 megawatt run-of-the-river project, which 

also became certified in 2012 to meet California’s RPS standards 

for low-impact hydro. 

In 2015, we constructed two 6-megawatt run-of-the-river projects 

which are free-flowing, and they are located above natural fish passage barriers. We are currently in the FERC preliminary process 

to construct a 30-megawatt—again—run-of-the-river project which 

requires no dam, weir, or other river barrier. 

Hydropower projects can be built consistent with environmental 

values, and are an important tool in adaptive management, due to 

our changing climate. So what now for Snohomish? 

Our energy demand continues to grow. In order to meet our 

climate policies, we must find and build new renewables. However, 

we cannot rely on energy efficiency, and we cannot rely on intermittent renewables, like solar and wind, because of the complicated 

nature of the grid. The grid has to have stability attributes, such 

as voltage support, reactive power, and spinning reserves. These 

cannot typically be supplied by intermittent renewables. 

The only option we are left with is firm baseload power, and that 

is through the form of nuclear, gas, hydropower, and coal. But our 

own state policies prohibit building new coal plants, and our future 

state clean air rule is proposing to phase out and prohibit all gas 

plants. New nuclear interstate is not an option, so we are left with 

clean, renewable hydropower, but with an outdated and sometimes 

prohibitive regulatory framework. 

As with anything, we should learn from the past and modify 

practices based on continued progress and improvement. In the 

modern era, we need to recognize the need for renewables and 

emissions-free energy sources. We need to modernize our regulatory processes and obtain better coordination. One example that 

we recently went through that we had issues with was a tidal 

energy project, the first ever in the Nation. It succumbed to current 

outdated process. This was our project. We spent 8 years trying to 

get this permitted. It was only supposed to take 6 years. We actually had to end the projects because of costs escalating beyond our 

control because it took us 8 years. 

What other public utility has taken a bold step forward to research and develop new clean energy? This possibly revolutionary 

project died because of the delays that resulted from overlapping 

Federal and state environmental permitting processes. Now the 

PUD is working on a free-flowing, small hydroelectric project with 

31 

no dam located above natural fish passage barriers. And yet, we expect the process to take 10 years and face some of the same issues. 

So, how is a green utility supposed to meet low growth? 

Ironically, the PUD could have taken the easy route by building an 

efficient gas plant, which would have taken far less time than 

building our hydro projects. We are not asking to circumvent nor 

erode environmental regulations. My last point, we are just asking 

you to update and modernize the FERC licensing process. Without 

improvement to this process, the PUD may have no choice but to 

abandon our carbon-free policies and priorities, and rely back on 

fossil fuels. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Matlock follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JESSICA MATLOCK, GOVERNMENT RELATIONS DIRECTOR, 

SNOHOMISH COUNTY PUBLIC UTILITY DISTRICT

INTRODUCTION

Good afternoon, Chairman Fleming, Ranking Member Huffman, and members of 

the subcommittee. My name is Jessica Matlock and I am the Government Relations 

Director of the Snohomish County Public Utility District (PUD) located in Everett, 

Washington. The PUD is the largest PUD in Washington, the second largest publicly owned utility in the Pacific Northwest, and the 12th largest in the country in 

terms of customers served. In addition to a population of 775,000 people, the PUD 

serves critical industries including Boeing and a local naval base. 

The PUD serves its customers using 93 percent carbon-free resources comprised 

of hydropower (80 percent), wind, solar, biogas and biomass. We are the largest utility power purchaser from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) which markets power from the Federal hydroelectric system in our region. Our only carbon 

sources come from market purchases. 

In 2007, the PUD’s Board of Commissioners adopted a climate change policy, with 

a commitment to meet load growth first through all cost-effective conservation, then 

with a diverse mix of renewable resources. As a result, we have aggressively implemented energy efficiency, and added solar, wind and more hydropower to meet the 

demands of our customers. The PUD also is a leader in the development of new 

energy storage projects that are standardizing the way this technology is managed 

to make it more operationally and economically viable. 

HYDROELECTRIC DEVELOPMENT

In addition to BPA hydro purchases, the PUD takes 20 percent of the power from 

the 27.5 megawatt (MW) Packwood Hydroelectric Project. The PUD also selfgenerates a significant amount of clean, renewable hydropower. In 2011 we completed the successful Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) re-licensing of 

our 112 MW Henry M. Jackson Hydroelectric Project which also provides water supply to the city of Everett. The PUD also owns the .65 MW Woods Creek Hydroelectric Project. 

In addition, the PUD is one of the few utilities in the Nation that is aggressively 

developing new, small hydropower. Small, run-of-the-river hydropower projects can 

provide an important source of emissions free, renewable power. The PUD recently 

built the first hydropower project in Washington State in 20 years, and licensed two 

more projects in 2015 that are now under construction. The Youngs Creek Hydroelectric Project, which went on-line in 2011, is a 7.5 MW run-of-the-river facility 

generating enough power for about 1,500 homes. It received Renewable Energy 

World magazine’s 2012 Hydro Project of the Year award and the 2012 American Society of Civil Engineer’s Outstanding Achievement Award. The PUD’s Calligan 

Creek and Hancock Creek Hydroelectric Projects, which received FERC licenses in 

2015, are under construction. Calligan and Hancock are each 6 MW, run-of-the river 

renewable resource facilities. 

The PUD currently is in the FERC preliminary permit process for the Sunset Fish 

Passage and Energy Project located on the South Fork Skykomish River. Sunset is 

proposed as a 30 MW, run-of-the-river renewable resource facility and is unique in 

that we have developed an innovative plan that utilizes natural water features to 

avoid the need for any dam, weir or other river barrier. 

32 

NEED FOR REGULATORY IMPROVEMENTS

We have proven that small hydropower projects can be built consistent with environmental values. However, the PUD’s load will continue to grow and the PUD will 

need to find ways to meet this demand. The PUD’s current portfolio of small hydropower projects consists of minimal impact projects which had been previously licensed by FERC. The PUD has consistently prioritized for development hydropower 

sites that would be low-impact. For the PUD to expand its portfolio, it is important 

to have a licensing process that works for a range of smaller projects. 

Hydroelectric power is our Nation’s largest renewable. However, the negative stigma of a bygone era of dam-building with insufficient thought to fish, water quality, 

and the interests of Native American tribes has left a regulatory process that has 

swung too far in the other direction. In a modern era where we recognize the need 

for renewables and emissions free energy sources, it makes no sense to continue to 

subject hydropower development to a complicated, many years-long licensing and 

permitting process. 

For new proposed projects, licensing and permitting delays mean increased costs 

and uncertainty, and can prevent low-impact, environmentally sustainable projects 

from ever being developed. 

After 8 years of regulatory delays in a FERC pilot license process that was supposed to take 6 months to approve one of the first tidal energy projects in the 

Nation, the PUD was forced to shutter the project after costs escalated beyond our 

ability to fund it. In addition, project opponents were able to delay the project 

through the complex and overlapping Federal and state environmental permitting 

processes to employ a strategy of ‘‘winning while losing.’’ Now, the PUD is working 

on a free flowing, small hydroelectric project with no dam or impoundment located 

above natural fish passage barriers, yet we expect the process to take 10 years, and 

face some of the same issues with overlapping regulations. 

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

The PUD advocates a more streamlined, coordinated licensing and permitting effort managed by FERC to add more structure and certainty to the process. 

Timelines for the hydropower licensing process need to be tightened in order to keep 

viable, low-impact projects from being dropped based on the up-front costs to complete studies and protracted Federal and state permitting. For these reasons, the 

PUD supports the hydropower licensing improvements contained in the comprehensive energy bills, S. 2012 and H.R. 8. The PUD urges Congress to send legislation 

to the President’s desk this year adopting these reforms. 

CONCLUSION

How is a green utility supposed to meet load growth and demand, while also 

meeting the goal of being carbon-free? The PUD cannot meet even current demands 

solely through energy-efficiency and intermittent renewables. The PUD could have 

taken the easy route by building an efficient gas plant, which would have taken far 

less time than going through the FERC hydropower licensing process. For the PUD 

to meet its environmental policies and goals, that process needs to be streamlined 

and improved. Otherwise, the PUD may find that its current policy of pursuing renewables in place of fossil fuels to be prohibitively costly with an associated level 

of uncertainty simply too high for a load-serving entity like Snohomish to effectively 

manage. 

I appreciate the opportunity to relate Snohomish County PUD’s experience and 

challenges in developing clean, renewable hydropower for our customers. 

***** 

SUPPLEMENT TO MS. MATLOCK’S TESTIMONY

Keeping Things Chill for Fish in the Sultan 

Snohomish County PUD 

Highlights, by Bob Bolerjack 

October 23, 2015 

As the operator of the Jackson Hydroelectric Project and Culmback Dam, the PUD 

embraces its stewardship role on the Sultan River. 

A great example occurred this summer. A lack of run-off from the mountains 

following a warm winter combined with several blistering hot days to produce dangerous and, in some cases, deadly conditions for fish throughout the region. At parVerDate Mar 15 2010 09:33 Dec 15, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 J:\114TH CONGRESS\WATER, POWER & OCEANS\04-27-16\99956.TXT DARLEN
33 

ticular potential for risk in the Sultan River were juvenile coho and steelhead, 

species that spend their first year of life in the river before heading out to sea. 

As resilient as these species are, they’re actually pretty fragile when it comes to 

water temperature. As rivers became too warm this summer, fish mortality rates 

rose in many of the region’s rivers. 

But not in the Sultan. Controlled releases of water by the PUD from Spada Lake 

reservoir behind Culmback Dam kept temperatures in the Sultan below 60 degrees, 

just where fish need it. 

Managing the flows was a delicate balancing act this year. During the warmer 

weather months of April through October, Spada Lake typically is stratified, meaning the water has layers of descending temperatures—warmer toward the top, cooler 

toward the bottom. To take advantage of that, the dam features a selective withdrawal structure—panels that can be opened and closed to release water at four 

different levels. 

That flexibility is important, because keeping the river cool all season long isn’t a 

matter of simply releasing water from the bottom of the reservoir. 

‘‘We don’t want to take too much from the bottom,’’ said Senior Environmental 

Coordinator Larry Lowe. ‘‘We need to keep some cooler water in reserve in case we 

need it in September when adult fish are returning to spawn.’’ 

When conditions were at their most challenging this summer, Larry and Natural 

Resources Manager Keith Binkley were monitoring water temperatures frequently. 

Probes at key points along the river provide readings every 20 minutes. By making 

adjustments to flows day-to-day during critical periods, they succeeded in maintaining their target of about 60 degrees. 

‘‘Throughout the summer, we were making lots of adjustments,’’ Keith said. ‘‘By 

selecting water deeper in the reservoir, we made sure that throughout that hot 

period the fish weren’t stressed and had optimal rearing conditions.’’ 

But it was especially challenging this year as the water surface elevation in the 

reservoir dropped throughout the summer. 

The controlled releases complemented a PUD project from three years ago, when the 

utility created new habitat for juvenile coho and steelhead by constructing side 

channels on the Sultan where young fish could grow and thrive. 

‘‘The water tends to be warmer there because it’s so shallow,’’ Larry explained. ‘‘But 

even there, we were able to manage the temperature through controlled releases 

from the reservoir.’’ 

In a series of frequent checks throughout the summer, no dead juvenile fish were 

found in the Sultan. The side channels have clearly proven their value in protecting 

young coho and steelhead. 

‘‘It’s kind of like we’ve created this Shangri-La for juvenile fish,’’ Keith said. ‘‘There’s 

nothing like it in the neighboring water bodies. So we’d expect that the juvenile fish 

in the Sultan would be in better condition, would grow better, and not be thermally 

stressed when they finally do migrate down.’’ 

It also illustrates the value of Culmback Dam, beyond providing the fuel for power 

generation and drinking water for most of Snohomish County. 

‘‘The beauty of the Jackson Project is that it’s a relatively modern facility,’’ Keith 

explained. ‘‘At a lot of the older dams, they would just build the intake at a fixed 

elevation where they could always deliver water, but that water would be extremely 

cold—too cold for a productive fishery.’’ 

Eventually as the reservoir dropped during the summer it would go from cold to 

warmer and warmer. 

‘‘When Jackson was upgraded in the 1980s, there was a greater understanding of 

the impact of temperature on fish, and the upgrade included a variable release 

option.’’ 

If there was no dam at all on the Sultan, temperatures this summer would have 

been similar to those on the neighboring Skykomish, which reached a lethal (to fish) 

75 degrees. 

‘‘One of the benefits of dams is being able to have this cool water, especially in a 

warm year like this,’’ Larry said. ‘‘It was a really great thing this year.’’ 

34 

Even resource agency folks who are generally opposed to regulated systems were 

heard to say that years like this one should make us appreciate the regulation 

provided by reservoirs. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY REP. HUFFMAN TO MS. JESSICA

MATLOCK OF SNOHOMISH COUNTY PUBLIC UTILITY DISTRICT NO. 1 

Ms. Matlock did not submit responses to the Committee by the appropriate 

deadline for inclusion in the printed record. 

Question 1. Hydropower is one of several renewable, non-fossil fuel energy 

sources, but the construction and maintenance of dams can bring with it several 

negative environmental impacts, not only to fish and wildlife but through 

greenhouse gas emissions as well. These impacts include: 

• The emission of methane from reservoir surfaces, turbines and spillways, 

• Submerging and destroying large areas of carbon capturing forests and 

grasslands, 

• Blocking the flow of critically needed sediment to feed starved coastal 

wetlands and beaches at risk from sea level rise, 

• Impeding wildlife migration routes essential for climate adaptation, and 

• Exacerbating the negative climate impacts on water quality, stream flows, 

and water loss due to reservoir evaporation. 

How does the Snohomish County Public Utility District No. 1 address these 

broader issues related to species viability, methane emissions, sediment loads, and 

reservoir evaporation? 

Dr. GOSAR. I thank the witnesses. At this point we will begin our 

questions for the witnesses. To allow all Members to participate, 

and to ensure we can hear from all of our witnesses today, 

Members are limited to 5 minutes on their questions. However, if 

Members have additional questions, we can have additional rounds 

if time allows us, or they can submit their questions for the 

hearing record. 

After the Ranking Member and I pose our questions, I will then 

recognize Members alternatively on both sides of the aisle, in order 

of their seniority. I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of 

questioning. 

Ms. Matlock, Mr. Boyd, and Ms. Powell, both the House and 

Senate energy bills have hydro re-licensing reforms. Do any of the 

remedies in either of the House or Senate bills undermine environmental protections or compromise tribal reservations? 

Ms. Powell? 

Ms. POWELL. Thank you. No. 

[Laughter.] 

Dr. GOSAR. OK. Mr. Boyd? 

Mr. BOYD. I will echo the no, certainly. My understanding and 

read of the legislation is that it improves the process and leaves 

mandatory conditioning within the process, and it would have 

agencies engaging in the process sooner, rather than waiting for 

the end and bringing new information forward. 

Dr. GOSAR. How about you, Ms. Matlock? 

Ms. MATLOCK. No. We feel that the process creates a more timely 

and predictable process. In no way, shape, or form do we want to 

erode those environmental regulations. 

35 

Dr. GOSAR. My next question will go back in reverse order now. 

Is the status quo on Federal re-licensing acceptable, Ms. Matlock? 

Ms. MATLOCK. No. Again, as I have proven out, it is actually 

stifling innovation. 

Dr. GOSAR. Mr. Boyd? 

Mr. BOYD. I would agree, it is stifling. We certainly work within 

the process, as it is defined now. But I do believe there are incremental improvements that could be made. 

Ms. POWELL. And I agree, no. And to emphasize Ms. Matlock’s 

points earlier, the way the process is right now, it is extended and 

it is prolonged. There are extensive costs that are essentially interest of the initial investment in that process that all of your constituents and my customers end up paying for. 

Dr. GOSAR. Well, we are going to go back to the same three. Not 

one of you has suggested that the existing process must be turned 

upside down. Each of you testified that some modest improvements 

could be made to make the process more transparent and timely. 

Will these process changes harm the environment? Ms. Powell? 

Ms. POWELL. No, I don’t think so. PG&E really believes our natural resources need to be protected. We live in the same area 

where our company is. My employees live and recreate in the areas 

of the 16 rivers that we have projects on. We really value the beauty and the nature that exists there. The process modernizations 

that we have long supported do not allow FERC or hydro licensees 

to avoid compliance with the Endangered Species Act, the Clean 

Water Act, or any other Federal land management status. 

Dr. GOSAR. How do you feel, Mr. Boyd? 

Mr. BOYD. I certainly concur. As I mentioned in my testimony, 

we hold ourselves rightfully to a very high standard related to environmental stewardship at TID. And I think the incremental 

changes we are looking for in hydro re-licensing are Federal agencies to hold themselves to that same high standard of open and 

transparency in the process. 

Dr. GOSAR. How about you, Ms. Matlock? 

Ms. MATLOCK. I would just echo Mr. Boyd and Ms. Powell. But 

I would say that, again, we all live in this area, Snohomish, in particular, has the climate change policy which protects the environment. We prioritize our projects that look to create a limited 

amount of impact. 

Dr. GOSAR. OK. Same three, and we will go back in reverse 

order. 

Now, some have suggested amending Federal law to ensure that 

conditions imposed by natural resources agencies have a direct 

nexus to the proposed project. This seems like common sense to 

me, as why should rate payers pay for something that is not related to a hydropower project? Do you agree with this? And why, 

Ms. Matlock? 

Ms. MATLOCK. Yes, of course, we believe in a more focused decisionmaking process. We think there should be nexus. But again, 

that is why we support the efforts of FERC to create a more coordinated effort. 

Dr. GOSAR. Mr. Boyd? 

Mr. BOYD. I concur. There has to be a project nexus. FERC has 

seven criteria to create that nexus, and we believe creating the 

36 

public record as part of the process would allow the agencies to 

accomplish that. 

Dr. GOSAR. Ms. Powell? 

Ms. POWELL. We agree. There are many situations where there 

are license conditions that are proposed that are well outside the 

impacts of the operations of our facilities in those rivers, and those 

seem to be an unnecessary burden to our customers. 

Dr. GOSAR. I thank you. And look at the good example I left, 12 

seconds there. 

I now recognize Mrs. Napolitano for her 5 minutes. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is very interesting hearing hydropower, because I have been working on recycling and other ways to combat the drought in California. So, I am 

glad to hear there is a lot going on in hydropower. 

Mr. Boyd, Azusa Light and Water in my district operates a hydropower plant which receives water through a 6-mile underground 

conduit on Federal land, the Angeles National Forest, and that delivers 300,000 residents their water in the San Bernardino Valley 

with 3 megawatts of clean, renewable generation to Pasadena 

Water and Power. Seeing the ongoing drought and climate change, 

these deliveries are very much needed. 

Azusa and Pasadena are working to re-license their plant with 

FERC. However, they are concerned how the pending input from 

U.S. Forest Service might impact their deliveries. They might make 

the cities perform additional studies after their FERC application, 

which I understand is a 50-year application. Their experience in 

dealing with them has been challenging and frustrating by the lack 

of engagement and transparency by the agency. Do you concur? 

Mr. BOYD. I do. Although I am not intimately familiar with that 

project, it is my understanding that, like our project, it is a joint 

use project supplying both water and power to the region. And 

Azusa has tried to engage Forest Service on that, and had requests 

for studies that go well beyond the scope of the project. 

That is about as much as I know on that, but it certainly dovetails with my experience on the Don Pedro Project with lack of engagement in the process in the beginning, and fear that there will 

be requests for further studies after the record is complete. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Well, what suggestions would you make for 

improvement? 

Mr. BOYD. That resource agencies engage in good faith at the 

beginning of the process, and are part of the study-making 

procedure, and we develop a single record to be used in decisionmaking for re-licensing. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. How much in advance? 

Mr. BOYD. We started in 2009. If we could have all been on the 

same page in 2009 creating a single record, we would be a lot 

farther than we are today. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. Ms. Powell, the hydroelectric systems not only provide clean, cost-efficient energy, but also provide 

for fish habitat and wildlife, and of course, recreational opportunities. What steps has PG&E taken to protect, preserve, and enhance 

these natural resources? You indicated you lived there and you 

liked to see them there, but what is PG&E doing to promote the 

well-being? 

37 

Ms. POWELL. Thank you, Congresswoman. One of the largest 

projects that PG&E has been involved in that involves recreation 

and wildlife is the Battle Creek Restoration Project, which is in the 

northern part of California. It is a really large project, where it 

really made sense to modify our flows—there will be eventual removal of a diversion—and restore the flows to the natural, original 

flows to promote fish. 

All of our licenses involve recreation opportunities for members 

of California. And one of our focus areas, as more and more 

Californians come out to recreate in and around our facilities, is assuring that they know how to do that in a safe manner. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. I see. Do you work with the states to find out 

how well it can be done? 

Ms. POWELL. We do. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Based on your industry experience, how do 

PG&E hydroelectric operations and procedures compare with other 

hydropower operations? 

Ms. POWELL. We have benchmarked with other hydro operators, 

with similar facilities like ours, and with other industry associations, such as the National Hydropower Association and the 

Electric Utilities Cost Group. We find that we lead in many categories, including dam and facility safety and salmon and steelhead 

habitat restoration. We also find areas where we can learn from 

other industry leaders and improve our operations in that process. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Ms. Pavel, thank you very much for being here. And I 

understand the frustration your tribe must have had. 

Ms. PAVEL. Thank you. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. GOSAR. I thank the gentlelady from California. I just realized 

that Arizona is surrounded by California here. 

[Laughter.] 

Dr. GOSAR. I now recognize the gentleman from California. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. And we want our Colorado water back, Mr. 

Chairman. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Ms. Matlock, I wanted to explore the point 

that you made with regard to these unprecedented wind and solar 

mandates that we are seeing in states like California. The problem 

that has been described to me is that wind and solar are intermittent sources. They can fall off dramatically the moment the wind 

dies or a cloud passes over a solar array. 

Since the electrical grid is integrated—that is we have to constantly match what is being drawn off the grid by putting more 

power on the grid—these intermittent sources require immediate 

backup availability. There are two ways of providing that backup 

ability. One of them is through hydro, where, with the flip of a 

valve, we can start generating power to meet the sudden drop-off 

in supply from wind and solar. The only other way are electrical 

generators that have to be kept at ready reserve. That is, constantly spinning. Not producing any electricity, but constantly spinning in the event that they are needed on a moment’s notice. Is 

that essentially correct? 

38 

Ms. MATLOCK. That is correct. One other technology is battery 

storage, but it is still too expensive. But yes, you are right. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. And yes, exactly right—very, very expensive. 

Ms. MATLOCK. Correct. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. So if we don’t have hydropower available at a 

moment’s notice, we have to spin these turbines at full power, 

burning fossil fuels in order to keep them spinning, even though 

they are not producing any electricity. 

Ms. MATLOCK. Correct. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Is it logical, then, to say we are going to tear 

down hydroelectric dams and replace them with wind and solar? 

Ms. MATLOCK. Well, for us, we are low deficit. So, in the future, 

we would have to build. So obviously, we will not be tearing down 

our dams, because they are a critical backbone for us. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Well, California and Oregon are intent on 

tearing down four perfectly good hydroelectric dams on the 

Klamath that are producing 130 megawatts of the cleanest and 

cheapest power on the planet. When I asked them how they plan 

to replace them, we were told, ‘‘Oh, wind and solar.’’ Does that 

make sense? 

Ms. MATLOCK. I cannot comment. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Well, let me go on. You mentioned the impact 

of dams on riparian habitats. Could you describe the typical 

riparian habitat in a severe drought? 

Ms. MATLOCK. I am sorry, can you rephrase the question? 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. What happens to a riparian habitat in a 

severe drought? 

Ms. MATLOCK. Well, in particular to ours, the vegetation dries 

up—a lot of our riparian habitat are side channels for small fry—— 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Water temperatures go way up? 

Ms. MATLOCK. The water temperatures go down, the water levels 

go down—— 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. They will go up in a drought. 

Ms. MATLOCK. The water—right, sorry. The water temperatures 

go up, like I mentioned, 75 degrees. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. OK. And what happens to riparian habitat in 

a blow-out flood? 

Ms. MATLOCK. That is a good question. I would have to get back 

to you on that. I mean, obviously—— 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Let me ask you this. How do dams modify 

those extreme cycles of drought and flood? 

Ms. MATLOCK. That is a good question, and that is what our 

Jackson Hydroelectric Project does. We actually regulate it with 

different types of gates. We are constantly monitoring the flows in 

the river, so that we maintain fishery flows. So, in a time of a 

drought—— 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Which you couldn’t do without the dams? 

Ms. MATLOCK. That is exactly right. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. Boyd, how difficult is it to re-license an 

existing dam? 

Mr. BOYD. Well, we haven’t done it to completion yet, so I can’t 

answer fully. But it is proving to be lengthy and a bit frustrating 

at times. 

39 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. And expensive? 

Mr. BOYD. And expensive. Over $20 million to date for 30-plus 

studies. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Who pays for that expense? 

Mr. BOYD. Our ratepayers. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Those are the same folks that have to pay the 

added expense of running turbines at ready reserve and integrating 

wind and solar into their systems, is that correct? 

Mr. BOYD. That is correct. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Is that one of the reasons why California is 

paying among the highest electricity prices in the country? 

Mr. BOYD. I don’t think I can answer that directly. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Ms. Powell, do you have any thoughts on that 

subject? 

Ms. POWELL. We would have to get back to you on the cost. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Well, please do. But in the meantime, what 

does this re-licensing process get us? These are dams that have already been constructed, or are already functioning. We already do 

safety inspections on them, so these re-licensing steps are not necessary to assure public safety, we do that anyway. So what are we 

getting for all of that—$20 million in the case of your one instance? 

Mr. Boyd? 

Mr. BOYD. So far we are building a record of information which 

could show how the reservoir and the facility could be operated to 

improve the fishery. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. And is that worth $20 million? And how many 

months have you been working on this? 

Mr. BOYD. We have been at this 7 years. I don’t know that I can 

place a direct value on the monetary cost. But I can say, as the 

record has been created, I think it does show there are some clear 

things we can do to improve the fishery and move forward sooner, 

rather than later. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Thank you. 

Dr. GOSAR. I thank Mr. McClintock, and I now recognize the 

gentleman from California, Mr. Huffman. 

Mr. HUFFMAN. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I am a little concerned 

that my friend, Mr. McClintock’s Republican Party status might be 

revoked because in one fell swoop he managed to attack both 

states’ rights and private property rights. 

It is true that California and Oregon, working together under existing law, under state law, are moving forward with a river restoration project. What was not mentioned, though, is that those 

four dams are owned by a private dam owner who wants to remove 

them. So, in one fell swoop we degrade violence to both states’ 

rights and the idea that a private property owner ought to be able 

to dispose of their private property. Those are normally pretty 

major tenets of my colleagues across the aisle. But today they are 

being selectively targeted. 

I want to ask you, Ms. Pavel, about the experience you had with 

the Skokomish Tribe. It has not been mentioned today, but I think 

maybe I will ask you to speak to this. There is a unique aspect to 

the law that allows FERC, while an applicant is pursuing relicensing, to get an unlimited number of annual licenses. In fact, 

40 

I think the law requires them to grant an unlimited number of 1- 

year licenses on the original terms. 

Ms. PAVEL. That is correct. 

Mr. HUFFMAN. So, without any changes to address concerns such 

as the impacts you experienced to your tribe, could you sort of 

speak to that function of the law? 

Ms. PAVEL. Well, no, that is absolutely correct. When Tacoma’s 

license expired in 1974, FERC issued and continued to issue the 

annual licenses. Tacoma had the benefit of operating the Cushman 

Project as it was originally operational in 1930 until the new license was issued in 2010. And we have heard a lot about how to 

improve the process. 

My tribe would have benefited if the process had been improved 

to go faster. If we could improve the role and the voice, and somebody said, ‘‘Well, how do you make it go faster? ’’ I talked about 

how the tribe spent an inordinate amount of time making the 

Trustee engaged in the process. If we mandated, at least as to 

Indian reservations, that the Department of the Interior had to impose conditions to protect the purposes for which those Indian reservations were established, that would move the ball along a little 

faster. 

Mr. HUFFMAN. Just out of curiosity, how many of these annual 

1-year licenses on the original terms did you have to experience 

before the major impacts to your tribe finally got addressed in the 

re-licensing? 

Ms. PAVEL. Twenty-four. 

Mr. HUFFMAN. There were 24 separate annual renewals? 

Ms. PAVEL. Yes. 

Mr. HUFFMAN. Do you have concerns about the recently passed 

House energy bill and how that might limit the ability to quickly 

give consideration to tribal trust responsibilities and impacts to 

tribes? 

Ms. PAVEL. I do. And again, I understand there is a desire to 

move this process along faster and to bring transparency to it. But 

my concern is the short time frame and the limited ability to get 

that timeline extended would result in Interior again abdicating its 

responsibility to the tribe. We cannot force Interior to impose conditions. And you well know that these agencies are so limited in their 

resources. 

As the chart shows, there are a number of these projects coming 

up from licensing, and there is a complete lack of capacity. There 

is the Cushman Project for everybody, and you can see that most 

of the project is off the reservation. I believe it is not the intent 

of the drafters, but it would likely result in Interior abdicating its 

responsibility to my tribe, because they do not have the capacity to 

get their work done in that time frame. 

Mr. HUFFMAN. Right. 

Ms. PAVEL. And that is unfortunate. 

Mr. HUFFMAN. Under the final re-licensing product, you were 

able to get some major improvements to address your concerns for 

your tribe, right? 

Ms. PAVEL. Absolutely. And, Tacoma is here today. And the tribe 

and Tacoma have really become partners in this operation and this 

project. When you hear about Skokomish or flooding in the NorthVerDate Mar 15 2010 09:33 Dec 15, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 J:\114TH CONGRESS\WATER, POWER & OCEANS\04-27-16\99956.TXT DARLEN
41 

west, you see that picture in the news, that is the Skokomish 

River. 

But we talk about the highlights of the project, and it is fish passage, it is restoration of cultural and historic sites, it is in-stream 

flows that will address the flooding and increase channel capacity 

on the Skokomish River. 

Mr. HUFFMAN. Thank you. I am out of time. But just very quickly, is there any doubt in your mind that with a weakened ability 

for the Department of the Interior to engage in those considerations you may not have all of those benefits? 

Ms. PAVEL. There is no doubt. 

Mr. HUFFMAN. Thank you. 

Dr. GOSAR. I thank the gentleman. I now recognize the other 

gentleman from California, Mr. LaMalfa. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is awesome to hear 

a discussion about property rights, especially in Northern 

California, where three of the four dams that are on the Klamath 

are in my district, and my Siskiyou County constituents have one 

state or Federal agency after another coming after them for water 

rights, property use, introductions of wolves, pretty much everything that makes their life miserable up there is happening in 

Siskiyou County. 

So, when I hear the so-called decision by PacifiCorp to remove 

dams that they want to, which is after much harassment over the 

dams not being able to be licensed, the state using the Clean Water 

Act, saying they are basically not going to get re-licensed, and the 

years of battle it takes to do that, when they finally succumb and 

surrender, that somehow that is them wanting to tear out the 

dams, and that could not be farther from the truth. 

And Mr. McClintock has it very correct in his statement, that 

this is not voluntary, and that it is going to remove much hydroelectric power, which, in California, is now mandating that 

50 percent of its power has to be renewable by the year 2030. 

Where is it going to come from? At the same time they are decommissioning windmills in the East Bay area, and you can’t hardly 

get permits to build solar plants in the desert because of the desert 

tortoise, which already has 1.3 million acres set aside for desert 

tortoise protection. You can’t hardly get a permit to do anything in 

California. 

And speaking to one of the PacifiCorp reps, they are not going 

to replace the dams with other hydropower in Northern California, 

they are not going to replace with hydropower anywhere. They may 

get solar. Are they going to build the solar in California? No, they 

are going to build it somewhere else. So, my constituents lose jobs, 

they lose tax base, they lose all the way around. Once again, 

Siskiyou County is being victimized by an attack on their property 

rights and states coming after them. So I guess when states and 

other government entities are coming after people, it is our job to 

stop freedom from being trampled. 

With that said, Ms. Powell, hydropower provides many benefits. 

We have heard it talked about—flood control, stored water, which 

means water for agriculture, water for people, and water for fish. 

And even now, since we have the luxury of regulating temperature 

in the river in the fourth or fifth year of a drought, it even provides 

42 

cold water pools behind dams that we can talk about in this process. I will bet even the water behind the dams up on the Klamath 

is probably colder at the bottom than the river would be in 

drought. 

So, when we talk about the re-licensing and what it costs you, 

what it takes, you have license renewals that have taken between 

7 years and I have heard even 28 years to get a renewal done. And 

Mr. McClintock said—I would like you to elaborate, please. What 

do we learn, since the dams are already in place, they have been 

built, they have safety checks and that type of regulation upon 

them. What do we learn from the stacks of documents and the 

years and the millions of dollars of re-licensing? What is actually 

useful that comes out of that? Mr. Boyd touched on that. At the 

end of the day, what is going to be useful in helping us have better 

protocols of these long, drawn-out, expensive re-licensing processes? 

Ms. POWELL. Thank you, Congressman. I think the biggest thing 

that we learn from the studies is the impact that our operations 

have had on the environment, whether it be biologics or river 

areas. The repeated studies, with minor differences in the things 

that the studies look at—and these studies take years—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. So you can’t get re-licensed until every study is 

done? Why so many years with the studies? Are we going to tear 

out the dam if we don’t know? I mean should we tear out Shasta 

Dam, Lake Oroville, the Pitt River, everything on the Feather 

River because we don’t know? Or why not just get licenses and 

learn as we go? 

Dr. GOSAR. Some would like it. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Yes, they would, see? Yes, they don’t stop at the 

Klamath. It does not stop there. 

Ms. POWELL. Can you rephrase that question? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. LAMALFA. You don’t have to touch the Klamath. I know you 

don’t want to touch the hot potatoes, corporate people don’t usually 

want to touch the hot potatoes. But the deal is—well, coming back 

to the original question, it costs so much. You don’t learn that 

much. Why not get the license as we go, and continue to accrue the 

data, instead of having this painful process every year? Are we 

going to tear out the dams instead of having the license? What is 

the end goal? 

Ms. POWELL. I think the end goal is to have something that the 

agencies and the involved members can agree on that is acceptable 

to all. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Acceptable to which all? 

Ms. POWELL. All of the stakeholders who are involved in the 

process. 

Mr. LAMALFA. There are a lot of stakeholders that do not live in 

the area that do not care about the cost of electricity, either. The 

stakeholders are the ones that are actually the owners. That 

sounds like I have to stop. We will see you again. 

Dr. GOSAR. The witness can answer. Do you have an answer? 

Ms. POWELL. The stakeholders who were involved are the agencies. Other stakeholders end up being involved in the nongovernment organizations, the recreationalists. There are a lot of 

43 

interests that are around the re-licensings of these facilities that 

end up determining licensing conditions. 

Mr. LAMALFA. And power users and workers outnumber all of 

them by miles. 

Dr. GOSAR. OK, I thank the gentleman. I now recognize the 

gentlewoman from California, Mrs. Torres. 

Mrs. TORRES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to not ask a 

gotcha question, just a follow-up from testimony that I heard. 

Ms. Matlock, in your testimony, the project that you were describing that should have been approved within 6 years, and you 

went 8 years and still had not received an approval, you abandoned 

that project. What is Plan B for you? 

Ms. MATLOCK. Thank you for asking, because I actually need to 

clarify. It was 6 months. It is a pilot process, so it was supposed 

to be permitted in 6 months, and it took 8 years. 

It is pretty disappointing, because this was a clean, renewable, 

brand new tidal energy. What other public utility district in the 

Nation do you know of that is doing R&D? This is not really something that is typical, but we believe in it, and we wanted local 

power. We worked with the tribes, we worked with endless committees. The future is very uncertain for that. We were heartbroken 

and ended the project. 

Mrs. TORRES. So the project just ended and there is no 

alternative plan to move anything else forward? 

Ms. MATLOCK. Not on tidal energy at this point. We are now 

looking to drill for geothermal and battery storage, but that is also 

super-expensive. We continue to look at other sources. 

Mrs. TORRES. Toward the end of your testimony you mentioned 

something about storage. 

Ms. MATLOCK. Yes. 

Mrs. TORRES. Can you expand a little bit on that? 

Ms. MATLOCK. Yes. We are investigating, modernizing, and 

standardizing energy storage systems, such that you can use any 

type of technology of battery and install it into our substations. 

And that ultimately will reduce the cost of batteries. 

We are working with two different technologies, and it is a plugand-play, where we have one substation, several different types of 

technologies, but you cannot just bring it in, these are big container-ship-size batteries. And because the interface communications between the battery and the utilities are standardized, it 

again reduces time and money. 

So our efforts, again—a public utility trying to do an R&D 

project, breaking the mold, maybe in the future working with Tesla 

on these things, we would like to try to change the future of that, 

as well. 

And again, just to continue with that, we are using that as a balancing ability and maybe peak shaving. There are several different 

ways that you can do batteries, and we are investigating that, as 

well. 

Mrs. TORRES. Well, I want to encourage you to continue that. 

And I also want to applaud your efforts in investing in R&D. I 

think that that is really important. And you are correct, you don’t 

hear a lot of that coming from the industry. 

44 

In my district, prior to the recession, there was a big push to do 

solar panels on warehouses. So, we have extremely large buildings 

that are utilized for the goods movement. And companies were 

moving toward that effort to not only lease the ground for the purpose of building a warehouse, but also lease the rooftops for the 

purpose of adding solar panels to power the warehouse and all of 

the equipment in there, and provide some energy back into the 

grid. 

So, to the extent that we can do more of that, I also want to encourage my colleagues to push that type of development across 

their districts. Thank you. 

Dr. GOSAR. I thank the gentlewoman and I will now recognize 

the gentleman from California, Mr. Denham, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. 

Mr. Boyd, Turlock Irrigation District tried for 3 years to get the 

permit for the second predation study which was ordered by both 

FERC and the resource agencies, but were not approved for permits. Did the agency give any reason why the permits were not 

approved? 

Mr. BOYD. Thank you, Congressman Denham. In 2012, the 

districts, as part of re-licensing process, performed a predation 

study on the Tuolumne River. The results of that showed that up 

to 93 percent of juvenile out-migrating salmon are consumed by 

non-native predatory species. 

Once the results of that study were in, resource agencies requested an additional study that looked at the migratory habits of 

predatory species, looked at the river for predation, and you are 

correct, we tried for 2 years to get the permit. The first 2 years 

drought was cited as the reason for not getting a permit. And this 

past year, when we applied for the fish to do the study, we were 

told the study had no scientific merit. 

Mr. DENHAM. So the study has no scientific merit, but 

government agencies are requiring you to do the study? 

Mr. BOYD. Correct. The agency has requested the study. In consultation with the agency, we developed a study plan. FERC ordered the study, the districts agreed to do it. It had a cost of over 

$1 million, I believe. And then the permitting agency would not 

give us the permit in order to do the study. 

Mr. DENHAM. Seems political to me. It seems like some people 

just do not want the information that comes back from these studies, because you would actually save the fish that are threatened 

and endangered that are getting eaten by predator fish. Those that 

want to shut our water off and create this high unemployment in 

the Central Valley don’t want to have the study. That is my own 

political view. 

I understand one of the frustrations with working with resource 

agencies over the last 7 years is the lack of engagement and transparency throughout the process. Can you give me some examples 

of that? 

Mr. BOYD. Sure, I would be happy to. One quick one that comes 

to mind is possible fish passage on the Don Pedro Project. FERC 

has ordered the districts to do studies related to fish passage. 

National Marine Fisheries Services are also doing their own studies upstream of the project. I am afraid we are going to end up 

45 

with a dual record, and to date nobody has been able to tell us 

what the decisionmaking criteria is related to reintroduction or fish 

passage in Section 18 prescriptions. 

So kind of dovetailing with my testimony, we are held to a high 

standard of accountability, and we ask that the agencies be held 

to that same standard. 

Mr. DENHAM. It seems like there is unequal bargaining power between the licensees and the resource agencies, oftentimes holding 

up the permitting process and costing you money in the process, 

moving forward on some of these. 

Do you feel that there is a significant power disadvantage in a 

negotiation between you and some of these agencies that are not 

quite as transparent as we would expect government agencies to 

be? 

Mr. BOYD. Based on my experience, as we sit down and try to 

negotiate creative solutions to improve habitat in the fishery, there 

are some agencies that are reticent to talk about creative solutions 

that might be different than what they could get through a mandatory condition; and I do believe that that keeps them from coming 

to the table in an open way. 

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you. In my opinion, there are huge transparency issues with government agencies. And you are put in a 

position where you are negotiating with yourself. You are also put 

in a position where you are not only forced to expend money and 

see huge delays, but are not able to save the fish and meet the 

goals that are being pushed upon you. 

If we are trying to save the threatened and endangered species, 

we ought to at least be able to do the studies that would back up 

or maybe prove the Ranking Member’s point that maybe this just 

is not an issue. If studies show that predation is between 93 and 

98 percent of the factor of killing these threatened and endangered 

species, we ought to at least be able to have the sound science to 

be able to address that. If we are going to address fish populations, 

we should do it in a collective, transparent way. I yield back. 

Dr. GOSAR. I thank the gentleman and I recognize the gentleman 

from California, Mr. Costa. 

Mr. COSTA. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking 

Member. I don’t know how long I will go here, because of the votes. 

Let me make an editorial comment—I support all of the energy 

tools in our energy toolbox, including renewable sources of energy. 

I consider hydropower a renewable source of energy. Unfortunately, 

it is not politically correct with some of my friends to consider it 

a renewable source of energy. 

Having said that, Mr. Boyd, Turlock Irrigation District’s energy 

resources are very diverse, as you noted in your testimony. You 

have large hydropower, small hydropower, natural gas, and wind. 

Can you compare me the time it took to get the approval rating 

and the permitting process to construct your project called Almond 

2, or your 174 megawatt natural gas project, versus your current 

experience in trying to re-license your Don Pedro hydropower 

project? 

Mr. BOYD. Thank you. I would be happy to. 

Mr. COSTA. Quickly. 

46 

Mr. BOYD. As I mentioned, we are 7 years into the re-licensing 

process for Don Pedro. For the project you mentioned, Almond 2, 

it was 1999 to 2012, I believe, 3 years to site, permit, and construct 

the plant. 

Mr. COSTA. Three years versus 7 years and you are still going. 

Mr. BOYD. Correct. 

Mr. COSTA. Something has to be wrong with that part of the 

process, I would think. 

I understand under current law resources agencies are to consider power and non-power benefits. In your experience, do they? 

Also, do these agencies have the authority to make these decisions? 

And how do they make it, since you are 7 years into the process? 

Mr. BOYD. I believe, under the Energy Policy Act, FERC 

certainly has the jurisdiction to consider power and non-power benefits of the project. I do not believe resource agencies are under 

that same jurisdiction. 

Mr. COSTA. OK. Ms. Powell, I have heard claims by some groups 

that pending legislation before Congress alters the Federal Power 

Act, including roles that Federal agencies play in licensing and relicensing in this process. In fact, I have heard claims that legislation would allow the hydropower licensee to harm fish, wildlife, 

public lands, Indian reservations with impunity. 

Do any of these recommendations that you have outlined in your 

testimony do such a thing? 

Ms. POWELL. PG&E believes that our country’s natural resources 

need to be protected. 

Mr. COSTA. So you don’t want to harm fish? 

Ms. POWELL. We don’t want to harm fish. 

Mr. COSTA. You don’t want to harm public lands or Indian 

reservations? 

Ms. POWELL. We do not. 

Mr. COSTA. You have a responsibility to deal with all of these 

issues, right? 

Ms. POWELL. We do. 

Mr. COSTA. My last question—what is the financial impact on the 

end power to the consumer related to a re-licensing project, in your 

estimation, given your experience? 

Ms. POWELL. In the last 10 projects that we have re-licensed, 

which involved existing operational facilities, fully constructed 

facilities, the regulatory process for the re-licensing took between 

7 and 28 years to complete, the costs ranging from $2 million to 

$20 million. That was only to get through the re-licensing. After 

that, we were required to expend funds to implement the new 

license conditions. 

Mr. COSTA. All of those costs pass on to the ratepayer? 

Ms. POWELL. Yes, they do. 

Mr. COSTA. Well, thank you very much. We will submit 

additional questions, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you for continuing to try to make sure that energy 

remains viable and cost effective for American consumers. 

Ms. POWELL. Thank you. 

Dr. GOSAR. I thank the gentleman. I would like to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony. They called votes, so we have 

about a minute left. 

47 

Members of the subcommittee may have additional questions for 

the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond to those in writing. 

The hearing record will be open for 10 business days to receive 

their responses. 

If there is no further business, without objection the 

subcommittee stands adjourned. 

Now you understand what Arizona does between the California 

firing squad. 

Meeting adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:23 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

Æ