Big Tent Ideas

After NAFTA, A Dam Bad Deal With Canada Remains

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Garrett Murch Contributor
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How does this sound for a deal: Get another country to pay for dams you build, generate electricity on those dams, and then sell it back to the country that paid for you to generate it. Then, keep collecting payments from that country nearly two decades after they’ve paid for building the dams. That would be a pretty sweet deal, right?

Well, that is exactly the deal that Canada has gotten with the United States in the Columbia River Treaty. Signed in 1961, the United States agreed to pay for the building of dams in the Columbia River Basin (which is roughly the size of Texas) that Canada would manage to prevent flooding in the Pacific Northwest (including in Canada). Further, the United States provides Canada with roughly $150 -$300 million worth of carbon-free hydro-power per year, depending on electricity prices. (RELATED: US Trade Deficit Hit 14-Year High In August)

By 2002, however, the U.S. payments had fully covered the construction cost of the Canadian dams. Yet the annual payments have persisted for nearly another two decades. Canada now sells much of the electricity it receives from the U.S. under this treaty to, you guessed it, the U.S. This of course drives up costs – unnecessarily – for American ratepayers in states such as Washington and Oregon. If the status quo remains a couple more decades, the U.S. will have paid for the dams twice!

This is not fair, and raises the question, why is this being allowed to happen? The problem has long been foreseen and recognized. The treaty itself has provisions for renegotiation, including a requirement that the U.S. continue payments for 10 years following termination or change to the treaty — creating a sense of urgency to act swiftly if there ever was one.

In 2013, a wide array of Pacific Northwest entities submitted recommendations for a new agreement to the U.S. State Department to be reached by 2015. It took the State Department five years to consider the six whole pages of recommendations, only to ask for more time to negotiate a new treaty with Canada.

Today, there is still no new treaty. In 2024, Canada’s obligation under the existing treaty to mitigate flood risk in the U.S. expires. This is a dangerous and unacceptable situation that must be remedied right away. (RELATED: So You Want To Move To Canada?)

The State Department cannot be allowed to slow walk Americans right into a flood of water and high electricity bills. Time is of the essence. Regardless of who is president next year, the Columbia River Treaty must be scrapped and a new agreement with Canada must be reached. With President Donald Trump, we’ve witnessed his ability to renegotiate NAFTA to set better terms for Americans. We’ve also witnessed his willingness to stand up to Joe Biden’s friends at the State Department.

I am confident a second Trump administration will take this matter head on for the American people—even for people in states that did not vote for him. With a Biden administration, start filling sandbags.

Garrett Murch is a political consultant who has worked for Jeff Sessions, Laura Ingraham, The Heritage Foundation, and as communications director of the Maine Republican Party.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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