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STATEMENT OF STAN GRACE 



Mr. Grace. Good morning, Chairman DeFazio, Mr. LaRocco and 

 staff members of the task force. I am Stan Grace, Chairman of the 

 Northwest Power Planning Council. With me today is Jay Webb, 

 Idaho Council Member and member of the Council's Fish and Wild- 

 life Committee. 



Thank you for the opportunity to present the Council's views on 

 the recovery of salmon stocks in the Columbia River basin. 



Under the authority of the Northwest Power Act of 1980, the 

 Council prepares a program to protect, mitigate and enhance fish 

 and wilmife and related spawning pounds and habitat of the Co- 

 lumbia River and its tributaries. This is our Columbia River basin 

 fish and wildlife program. 



In 1992, we amended the program with our strategy for salmon, 

 a comprehensive progr£un of measures aimed to improve salmon 

 survival at every stage of the life cycle. Our program is designed 

 to balance competing river uses, while strengthening and rebuild- 

 ing salmon and steemead runs. Our aim is to make future Endan- 

 gered Species Act petitions for salmon unnecessary and ultimately 

 to produce healthy and harvestable populations of fish. 



We want to avoid the contentious legal battles that characterize 

 recovery planning for the northern spotted owl. We devised our 

 program with regionwide public participation. We firmly believe 

 that a re^onwide cooperative effort is preferable to federal or legal 

 intervention that coiUd lead to extensive and expensive conflict, 

 Utigation and economic disruption. The key now is implementation. 

 That is where I would like to focus the remainder of my comments 

 today. 



I am pleased to report that most of our salmon strategy is being 

 implemented. However, we are concerned that it is being imple- 

 mented in a somewhat fi-agmented manner. The Northwest Po\ver 

 Act gives clear direction to certain federal agencies to protect, miti- 

 gate and enhance fish and wildlife and related spawning grounds 

 and habitat of the Columbia River basin and to coordinate their ac- 

 tions. 



These agencies which manage or regulate hydroelectric dams in- 

 clude the Bonneville Power Administration, the U.S. Army Corps 

 of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Federal Energy 

 Regulatory Commission. However, many of the state, federal, tribal 

 and other agencies we depend on to implement oxir program are 

 not covered by the Northwest Power Act. As a result, coordination 

 is easier to state than to achieve. Concerns about coordination were 

 voiced repeatedly by witnesses who testified at a field hearing of 

 the House Merchant Marine & Fisheries Committee on August 10, 

 1993 in Portland. 



The Council's statutory authority is limited. We must rely on the 

 cooperation of federal, state and tribal agencies to implement the 

 program, and the cooperation is often difficult. Some see our pro- 

 gram as merely a list of actions, a menu from which to pick and 

 to choose for selective implementation. Along this line, you asked 

 for comment on whether the Council's role should be expanded or 

 contracted. At the very least, it may be appropriate to strengthen 

 congressional oversight of implementation of the Council's fish and 

 wildlife program. Tins would help ensure that the relevant federal 



