"…I hereby revoke the Presidential Memorandum of September 27, 2023. Further, within 15 days of the date of this memorandum, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works under the direction of the Secretary of the Army (heads of departments) shall take all appropriate steps to withdraw from the Memorandum of Understanding filed on December 14, 2023, in the Columbia River System litigation, National Wildlife Federation v. National Marine Fisheries Service, 3:01-cv-640-SI (D. Or.), Dkt. 2450-1 (MOU),” President Donald Trump said in a Presidential Memorandum dated June 12, 2025.

The order cancels the Biden administration’s “Restoring Healthy and Abundant Salmon, Steelhead, and Other Native Fish Populations in the Columbia River Basin” presidential memorandum from less than two years ago.

At issue are four Snake River dams that support river navigation for maritime barge operations, passenger vessels, irrigation and emissions-free hydropower for nearby communities, but opponents of the dams claim the structures have also contributed to the near extinction of 13 salmon and steelhead populations that return to the Columbia Basin from the Pacific Ocean to spawn. The fish, they say, are important to tribal health and sovereignty and to basin ecosystems, and the declines are affecting southern resident orcas off the coasts of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. The orcas eat the salmon.

The 2023 agreement was between the federal government and four Lower Columbia River tribes — Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe and the states of Oregon and Washington. The tribes want the dams removed.

“This move by the Trump Administration to throw away five years’ worth of progress is shortsighted and reckless,” Idaho Conservation League Salmon & Energy Strategist Mitch Cutter, said in a post he wrote on the league’s web site. “The Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement was a landmark achievement between the federal government, states, tribes, and salmon advocates to find solutions for salmon and stay out of the courtroom. Now, it’s gone thanks to the uninformed impulses of a disconnected administration that doesn’t understand the Pacific Northwest and the rivers and fish that make our region special.”

Not surprisingly, the Inland Ports & Navigation Group (IPNG) supports President Trump’s executive action to rescind the MOU, saying that it’s a significant step towards ensuring the continued prosperity of the Pacific Northwest. And that the Columbia Snake River system is a critical transportation route for the region, as well as for agriculture producers in the upper Midwest, supporting tens of thousands of jobs and contributing billions of dollars to the economy each year. It is the largest wheat export gateway in the U.S.

"Dams and salmon can co-exist," said IPNG Co-Chair Patrick Harbison, who is also a member of the Port of Kalama’s (Wash.) planning commission. "In fact, salmon runs have actually increased since the construction of the dams due to state-of-the-art bypass systems and fish ladders that were installed at each of the dams on the system."