Gordo's Fish-Fucking Ways, In Legislative Detail

Yesterday, we disinterred a TV ad Gordon Smith would probably prefer you'd forgotten about, featuring Klamath Basin farmers praising Smith for dealing with the bureaucrats and getting their water turned back on. Given the stink that's settling over the decision process to overrule the Endangered Species Act, Smith should want no part of a record where he eagerly took credit for getting the water going again, after having appealed directly to President Bush and Karl Rove for help. Alas, he hasn't had to answer many questions about that record...yet.

The supporters in the Smith ad praise him for not taking No for an answer, and certainly when not practicing his apparent evening job as a species hydrologist, Smith spent many days in Congress during the 107 Congress coming up with any number of ways to denude or subvert the intention of the Endangered Species Act, the mission of which is simply to prevent species from becoming extinct. We have not given this compendium of Smith bill activity during 2001 and 2002 the absolute fine-toothed comb treatment, but then again we haven't had to, in order to find any number of ham-handed ways he tried to lean the process in favor of the farmers and not existing law or the latest science.

For instance--remember I told you about the codicile Smith had placed in a bill in 2001, attempting to automatically elevate peer-reviewed data over that which was not? It sounds innocuous, but that was precisely the premise used by the National Academy of Sciences panel to refuse consideration of the "Hardy Phase II" flow study the original water decisions were based on. Because the study was considered a "draft," the NAS panel ruled in January 2002 that they could not accept it as the best available science. And on February 5, Smith tried to codify that very premise into not just a clause on another bill, but into its own law. (And before I leave the subject of that prior codicile, the rest of the bill also sought to bypass a mandatory Secretary of Interior review when planned actions potentially threatened critical habitat. Nice.)

Smith led the charge in compensating farmers and water distributors who lost money during the shortage, and most of the state delegation surely felt obligated to join him. Colleague Ron Wyden cosigned onto a bill to reimburse the water assessment fees and lost revenue to water providers who'd experienced shutoffs in the spring of 2001. However, even though the water was soon turned back on, everybody was also credited back for the whole year, to the tune of $5 million.

My favorite manipulation of the US Code to get money to Klamath farmers was in August 2001. Smith proposed to include under natural disaster relief status "any application of the Endangered Species Act that, in the determination of the President, causes economic hardship of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance under this Act.'" As in, say, giving water to fish under ESA instead of farmers. Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and failed potato crops from rerouting the water--you know, natural disasters.

Just in general, Smith seemed to have it in for the fish. Apparently he didn't want Indian tribes messing things up for the farmers either; he proposed that if the Secretary of Interior designated a migrating fishway that utilities then had to account for, he or she then had to listen to proposed alternatives to the fishway, despite having already reached the conclusion to have the fishway in order to protect the habitat. He doesn't even want them spawning, dammit!

Heck, even as far back as 1998, Smith (and his House counterpart at the time Bob Smith) were threatening the government that they couldn't accept the idea that fish might get water when farmers don't:

"The Interior Department's latest water use plan is not the answer. We should keep working with the federal government to find a balance that recognizes the economic needs of southern Oregonians. This plan just doesn't get us there. It threatens our collaborative efforts and the Klamath Basin's agricultural community," Chairman Smith said.

"The Klamath Basin community has made significant inroads toward resolving difficult water rights problems in the region. A heavy hand from the federal government will only frustrate this progress. Water use in southern Oregon is too important to settle for what is at best a divisive issue," Senator Smith said.

But the king-daddy of them all, his 9th Symphony of legislative effort, was Amendment 899 to the House Interior appropriations bill of 2001. His speech on the floor dramatizes just where he's coming from when the contest is fish vs farmers, science vs emotion. His proposal? Ignore the decision and court rulings; go back to the way it was 10 years ago, when the fish didn't get first crack at the water, the farmers did. That's it--just turn back the clock and pretend no rulings or evaluative science had ever occurred. The amendment failed, but just barely, 52-48. Ballsy as it is, it may have been the most legislatively rational thing he tried. He recognized the ESA rulings as anathema to his goals, so he proposed simply repealing it. Honest, maybe, but we can still hold him accountable.

Some extended snippets from the Congressional Record as Smith introduced his amendment to turn back time to a simpler era, when we didn't give a shit if the fish lived or died, as long as people could grow potatoes (bless you Thomas.gov):

I am the first Senator to be elected from Oregon who comes from its rural parts--eastern Oregon--in 70 years. I represent all of my State, but I have a special passion to represent those rural parts that I have watched be devastated for too long by Federal action. I believe the Endangered Species Act is a noble act with noble purposes, but I believe it is being used by some to very ignoble ends.

My actions today are not to subvert the Endangered Species Act. This is not reform. This is an act asking that its terms be implemented in a way that will relieve genuine human suffering in a way that may prevent the violence that has already been visited upon Federal property in a contest between farmers and the Bureau of Reclamation for the essential ingredient to life in the West, and that is water.

What has happened to the community of Klamath Falls, by conservative estimates, will cost that county $200 million. I thank the Senator from West Virginia, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and others, who helped me to get $20 million of relief to these people. Obviously, it is 10 percent of what is needed, even by conservative estimates.

.........

But now what we are doing is we are raising this lake 3 feet--it is a very big lake, very shallow, but it is being raised 3 feet--and cutting off all the water to farmers and fowl. It is being done to save the suckerfish, and now, while it is being saved, it is warming up. So the coho salmon that will soon be returning expecting to receive the cool waters of the Klamath will receive waters the temperature of a swimming pool. So, potentially, even the coho salmon--which is also a listed species--could be adversely affected by this biological opinion.

Well, there are two agencies of the Federal Government that are competing. One biological opinion is Fish and Wildlife with regard to the suckerfish. The other is the biological opinion of the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Commerce Department that affects the coho salmon.

Both biological opinions essentially ask for 100 percent of the water which means cutting off 100 percent of the people.

The point I want to make is that would not be necessary if the Federal Government over the last 8 years would have kept its part of the bargain and done what it could to mitigate the impact to the sucker so that farmers would not be victimized.

What I do is simply reinstate the previous biological opinions that were in effect before this spring until the Federal Government can complete action on numerous recommendations of its 1993 recovery plan. Again, they were not acted upon over the last 8 years. Why? They say budgetary reasons.

I want this to be a priority. I want the budget to fix this problem. I do not want the whole budget burden thrown on the backs of rural people, but that is what was decided to be done.

.......

This is the land, the valley. I do not know whether my colleagues can see it, but this couple is overlooking the Klamath Basin--farms being developed, hay being raised, corn being raised, potatoes being raised that fill our shelves today. Look at the hopes and dreams in the faces of these people.

This is a little girl at an assembly of people at a rally a few weeks ago. Her sign says: ``Mommy says I can't eat, but fish can.''

That is what we are driving them to, and it is not right because they are being told they are of lesser value under our law than the shortnosed sucker.

This is a picture of the shortnosed sucker. It is a bottom-feeding fish. It lives in this shallow lake. It has gone through many droughts along with the farmers. It has survived, stressed, I am sure, just as humans are stressed in conditions of drought.

I am not saying this fish has no value. I have never thought the suckerfish is very good looking, but it has a mother, and that mother, I am sure, loves this fish. I know the Native Americans in this area value this fish, and I am not suggesting in any way that we are not interested in saving this fish.

I am saying the purpose of the Endangered Species Act was not to engage in a process of rural cleansing, of throwing off their property people who had been given great promise and hope for the future. They are meeting the mailmen with foreclosure notices because the Federal Government decided it is going to breach its promise.