Water is not a renewable source of energy and should not be designated as such. Just ask the people of California, Arizona, Nevada and southeastern Colorado how renewable their water source is during long droughts. Building new hydropower plants will require building new dams. These new dams will require large areas of probably public lands to be confiscated and filled with water that should be used to preserve the life and livelihood of the small family farms that have become all-important in the current fight over the estate tax. Those two positions don't quite square with each other. Water is precious and needs to remain available to all, not just energy companies looking for another break. If Washington state wants to build hydopower plants, it should do so but not at the expense of the rest of the nation.