60 



Mr. Hardy. I can illuminate it. I am not sure it will be a very 

 satisfactory answer. That program has very high administrative 

 costs which we intend to cut significantly. 



Mr. DeFazio. What do we do? Gro out and name every fish and 

 then keep track of them? 



Mr. Hardy. That is a good example of a program with a sole 

 source contract with a particular set of State agencies. That is one 

 problem. 



Mr. DeFazio. Who got the contract? 



Mr. Hardy. The State does, ODF&W and Oregon State Univer- 

 sity, if I am not mistaken. We have done things like evaluating the 

 socioeconomic impacts of this; can you create a food consumption 

 market for squawfish. 



Mr. DeFazio. People eat whiting these days; we are fighting over 

 whiting. Ten years ago it was called hake, and no one would touch 

 the stuff. So you never know. My cats would like it, if no one else. 



Mr. Hardy. You never know, and that is a significant portion. 

 From my perspective, that was something that maybe was an in- 

 teresting and potentially attractive question when we designed and 

 implemented the program two years ago. That probably is some- 

 thing that we can't afford in this day and age. So we are going to 

 go back and look at those kinds of costs, Mr. Chairman, because 

 I would heartily agree with you that that level of cost over the ac- 

 tual bounty is just grossly out of proportion. 



Mr. DeFazio. I would suggest that maybe we raise the bounty 

 a little bit. I will just put ads in the local paper for you down in 

 my district for unemployed mill workers and loggers. A lot of them 

 like to fish, and I think they would be happy to go up there and 

 pull them in for a little less. 



But that just sort of stuck out. It sends a message. And I don't 

 mean to belittle you or the administration, and I realize new pro- 

 grams are problematic, but I am glad to hear you are going to ad- 

 dress it, because I think it does stick out. 



I will give an observation, which maybe I shouldn't, but I am 

 often doing things like this. I wanted to look at the Willamette 

 Basin, because I had concerns over the operation of a flood control 

 reservoir which also had recreational value, which wasn't an al- 

 lowed use at the time it was constructed. In dealing with the Corps 

 of Engineers, they came up with a phenomenal price tag to just 

 study the system, which hadn't been studied as an integral whole. 

 It had been built one dam at a time, and the last modeling they 

 did was in the 1930s before any of the dams were built, so I said 

 I think maybe it is time to update this. So they gave me this very 

 big price tag, and reluctantly I paid it, and of course 3 years later 

 I am still waiting for the result. 



Then I asked them to look at another study, and this time they 

 came in with another phenomenal price tag, and I said to them, 

 "I'll tell you what. You go back and you justify everything in this. 

 Detail me the budget. You show me where all this money is going, 

 and I'll look at getting the money" — I learned something fi*om the 

 first example — and suddenly the price tag for the second study 

 dropped rather dramatically. I still didn't get the detailed breakout 

 and, in fact, still thought it was too high. 



