584 



Mr. DeFazio. I thank everybody for being so succinct. 



Where to start — ^well, let us start where you were towards the 

 end of your testimony, because it goes to Mr. Plenert. Mr. Plenert, 

 we have had some discussion earher with BPA, and I asked at 

 least one of the other agencies about the idea of a lump sum trans- 

 fer and administering through a midtipHcity of jurisdictions the 

 funding for the Council's plan. How do you react to her suggestion 

 that Fish & Wildlife is the appropriate place? 



Mr, Plenert. Well, first of all, I believe that a lump sxmi funding 

 does provide certainty, where you know you are going to have the 

 funding to carry out whatever activities that you are. 



As far as the Fish & Wildlife Service, you know, I wovild hate to 

 sit here and say I would be willing to take on a bunch of extra du- 

 ties. I feel we are kind of stressed to the limit right now with work, 

 but if somebody saw fit to transfer the funding or have the Fish 

 & Wildlife Service be responsible for that, yes, I would be willing 

 to do so. We have a lot of experience with administering federsd 

 grants, federal aid funds. We administer, in the region that I am 

 responsible for, some $50 million of federal aid grants to the States 

 and we do it with six people and with about a 2 percent overhead. 

 So we do have the experience, and if somebody saw fit to do that, 

 yes, I would entertain that. 



Mr. DeFazio. To Ms. Garrison, I do not know what you were 

 here for and what you were not, but we had some discussion with 

 Mr. Hardy about limip sum transfers to the agencies, one is the 

 fish and wildHfe program and the other would be ongoing obUga- 

 tions to the Council. And what Mr. Hardy expressed was that, you 

 know, they are interested but they would like to get something out 

 of this, which is some higher degree of certainty of what their fu- 

 tiire budgetary obUgations are going to be over some sort of plan- 

 ning period — 5 years, 10 years, whatever. In one case, he cited ap- 

 parently a 50-year or 60-year agreement with Montana on resident 

 fish and wildlife on some sort of hold-harmless clause. 



Could you comment? I beUeve he is raising a good point, which 

 is that a key thing is some higher degree of certainty so we know 

 how much we are going to need and what we are proposing to im- 



glement. But would you comment on his reservations there, the 

 old-harmless clause, what you know of the existing agreements, 

 what you would think would be possible in future agreements. 



Ms. Garrison. Well, first, I assiune you are only tcdking about 

 the portion of the Council's program that is funded by Bonneville, 

 as opposed to the operations side. I do not think it is possible for 

 the Council to provide any kind of certainty about the other side, 



Mr. DeFazio. Right, 



Ms, Garrison. That said, I think there is quite a bit of oppor- 

 tunity for prioritization in the program and the Council has shown 

 itself to be very willing to participate in that. I also think that it 

 is important to have accoimtability in the program, and I have 

 made some suggestions in my written testimony for that. There 

 should be routine audits, both in terms of the results and the fi- 

 nances. Beyond that, I do not know what kind of certainty the 

 Coimcil could give. I think it is making a very good effort to control 

 the costs. You would probably have to ask them to find out more 

 than that. 



