Hydropower sector participants that traditionally have been at odds–industry firms, dam safety groups, and environmental advocates—are working together on a shared new mission—to push legislation and projects to upgrade the growing fleet of deteriorating dams across the country and remove those structures that serve no economic purpose.

包括美国土木工程师协会，世界野生动物基金会和国家大坝安全官员在内的各种以大坝为中心的实体联盟，能够为水电和抽水储存投资提供超过8亿美元的资金，以及资金在最近颁布的基础设施投资和就业法案中提高大坝安全性。

They now advocate inclusion of a 30% tax credit for hydroelectric dams, among other dam-related provisions, in the Build Back Better Act. Although the $1.7 trillion social and spending bill has been stalled in the U.S. Senate for months, lawmakers from both parties have recently signaled their support for carving out and bringing to a vote some of its non-controversial provisions, including the climate- and energy-related measures.

这些团体已经通过斯坦福·伍兹环境研究所的“罕见对话”计划开会了两年多，该倡议试图将群体经常带到一个热门问题的相对方面，进入一个房间，以找到一致的协议领域。研究所董事克里斯·菲尔德（Chris Field）表示，鼓励这些团体以一种非危险的方式进行工作，以“探究可能以前似乎很棘手的解决方案”。

一项早期计划的成功是2014年通过了加利福尼亚州的《可持续地下水管理法》的通过，该法案说，这在很大程度上是通过农民，灌溉区和保护组织的合作，这些组织通过罕见的对话倡议汇聚在一起。

while some participants may have had different political ideologies, “everybody was interested in a similar set of outcomes, with a management framework in place where groundwater resources were tracked,” Field says. Dan Reicher, a senior research scholar at Stanford and a former US Energy Dept. assistant secretary, has chaired the hydropower group.

国家水力发电协会发言人勒罗伊·科尔曼（Leroy Coleman）表示，这些团体聚集在一起，因为美国大坝基础设施的条件不断恶化，也普遍共识，即水力发电可能是解决气候变化的有用工具。他说：“我认为Hydro被包括在Build Back更好的包装中的事实表明，国会认识到这对于清洁能源的未来至关重要。”在美国的90,000多个水坝中，只有2500个能够产生水力发电。“所以那里有机会。”

但是其中许多90,000个水坝状况不佳。根据ASCE的说法，到2030年，美国10个水坝中有7个将超过50年，其中许多不是根据当前标准建立的，或者考虑了气候变化的弹性。水力发电协会说，由于联邦遗传过程可能需要七年多的时间才能完成，因此许多水坝所有者正在考虑退役设施。

这些团体继续开会，并正在制定新的立法，以在2月提议。

Brian Graber, senior director of American Rivers’ river restoration program, says that he isn’t sure that any of the groups would have been as successful on their own in persuading lawmakers to include so much funding for dams, dam removals and dam safety. Support for the hydroelectric provisions was largely bipartisan, he says. Some dam safety and environmental provisions in the infrastructure law were championed by Senate Republican Rob Portman (Ohio). “It’s unusual for Republican senators to support environmental provisions,” Graber says, but because the groups worked together, they were able to propose the measures that they could agree on as a “full package.”

格拉伯说，尽管小组在可能的情况下共同努力，但仍然存在分歧。美国河流支持升级和改造，但不一定要建造新的水坝。

他说：“很简单，我们要确保环境规定保留在水力发电中……对于没有大量用途的水坝，请准备去除它们。”