PRESS RELEASE: Congressmember Boebert Completely Wrong About Hydropower in the West

2/12/2026
For Immediate Release
Contact: Gary Wockner, Save The Colorado*, 970-218-8310

Congressmember Boebert Completely Wrong About Hydropower in the West

Colorado River, USA: Yesterday, Congressmember Lauren Boebert (CO-04) introduced a bill into the U.S. House titled the “Rural Jobs and Hydropower Expansion Act.” In the press release accompanying the bill, Boebert stated that, “Hydropower is one of the cheapest, cleanest, and most reliable forms of energy we have…”

Unfortunately, the exact opposite is true, especially here in the Southwest U.S.

First, a 2025 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency indicates that new utility-scale solar and wind are cheaper to install and operate than hydropower (see Executive Summary, page 4), especially in places like Colorado and the Southwest U.S. where sunny days prevail.

Second, hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific articles now chronicle the significant greenhouse gases (GHG) that are caused by hydroelectric dams and reservoirs, and a recent scientific report indicates that the combination of hydropower plants at Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River have caused GHG emissions equal to that of fossil fuel energy plants.

Third, the unreliability of those same hydroelectric plants at Hoover and Glen Canyon Dams, due to the ongoing drought in the Southwest U.S., is one of the many drivers of the management and political chaos on the Colorado River, and is in the news constantly.

“We appreciate Congressmember Boebert’s interest in cheap, clean, reliable energy, but hydropower is actually more expensive, dirtier, and increasingly unreliable. We encourage Boebert to look up in the sky at the enormous orb that sustains life on our planet, not down at our increasingly dammed and depleted rivers.” — Gary Wockner, director, Save The Colorado

This press release is posted here on our website.

*Save The Colorado is a program of Save The World’s Rivers.

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