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ready got standing authorization under the Water Resources Act to 

 have a Northwest River Basins Commission. Could that perform 

 the function of the concerns that Mr. LaRocco has put forth? We 

 have got the Pacific Northwest Coordinating Agreement and I read 

 the people's answers and analysis of that and they say, well gee, 

 any one agency is not just bound by power production, they can 

 raise concerns about other obligations they have, like fish, but it 

 is not really encouraged. It seems to me there needs to be a more 

 comprehensive forum. 



Mr. Hardy. Well that was really one of the principal driving 

 forces behind the creation of the forum concept in the system oper- 

 ation review, which is the process that the Corps 



Mr. DeFazio. But are we recreating something that already is 

 authorized and existed previously? Could we 



Mr. Hardy. It is possible you could end up with something like 

 the Pacific Northwest River Basins Commission. There are, as is 

 discussed in the System Operations Review document, the forum 

 document, a number of other models. Ohio River Commission, 

 Chesapeake Bay program, and San Francisco has one. There are a 

 number of other models around the country of federal, state, and 

 citizen bodies to address this kind of issue. I think that in fact we 

 have the makings of what we need right now. The Council has its 

 Fish Operations Executive Committee, which really has all of the 

 parties represented. It has the federal agencies, it has the Council, 

 and it has the States and tribal representatives. Perhaps not at ex- 

 actly the right level — we have more technical folks and we probably 

 need policy folks, but some variant of FOEC, which reconciles the 

 Endangered Species Act mandates and the Northwest Power Act 

 mandates. 



Mr. DeFazio. But you heard the finistration of Mr. Grace, or his 

 concern about more congressional oversight for implementation of 

 their recommendations, so I do not know how this technical fish 

 committee is going to overcome those large agencies. 



Mr, Hardy. It needs to evolve or grow or be changed into a policy 

 body. Right now it is more of a technical body in some cases than 

 a policy body. But you have all the interests there who need to be 

 there to make decisions. 



Mr. DeFazio. So a high-level policy body that could perhaps en- 

 courage or require memorandums of understanding between the 

 agencies incorporating the recommendations of the Council's Recov- 

 ery Plan and the overall recovery plan? 



Mr. Hardy. That is right, something like that could reconcile 

 those, £ind where there were conflicts, it could work them out. That 

 is really the purpose of FOEC — ^to try to provide a forum to do that, 

 and to the Council's credit, they initiated that process, recognizing 

 that conflict in phase two, I think. 



Mr. DeFazio. Why do we not turn to Mr. Grace for some com- 

 ment on that, or Mr. Webb, whoever would like to respond. I real- 

 ize you are a relatively new member, but looking at that, how 

 would you get to these concerns, the concerns you have expressed 

 about the implementation, about the discussion we just had. 



Mr. Webb. Well I might say, Mr. Chairman, I think this should 

 be said on behalf of the Council, earlier this morning, I think all 

 of the Council, most of the Coimcil are most appreciative of con- 



