29 



cil rule. There are some exceptions to that but generally it is not 

 a consensus process. 



Once the Council adopts a plan the current Federal law says the 

 administrator shall use the Bonneville fund to fund the plan. Now 

 that is a political conflict built between the ratepayers and the fish 

 and wildlife interest as to how much Bonneville is going to fund be- 

 cause it is ratepayer money. 



That does occur and it is political and Dr. Bevan is right when 

 he says that that is a political process, kind of like Congress or the 

 State legislature. Now the other point, if I can, if you are in a listed 

 species, we have got an endangered species listing, then NMFS 

 through its Section 7 and Section 10 authority has a lot of power. 



You cannot take a fish or harass or endanger or anything else 

 without going to Rollie and getting a piece of paper that says you 

 can do it so he has got a lot of power once there is a listing. I am 

 trying to avoid a listing. I am trying to come up with a procedure 

 that never gets there. 



Ms. Cantvvell. So what would the central coordinating form for 

 implementation of the overall strategy be charged with? 



Mr. BOTTIGER. The Council would adopt the program, the strat- 

 egy, Bonneville would fund it and when Bonneville funds it, it con- 

 tracts with others. It contracts with States, with tribes, with the 

 Corps, with the Bureau to perform certain studies. And with Bon- 

 neville's financial condition, they are having difficulty doing that 

 without major rate impacts. 



Ms. Cantwell. And this form would be — I mean would that be 

 a group representation similar to who is here today? 



Mr. BOTTIGER. I am not following you some place. There is an 

 independent Scientific Review Team to direct the research and this 

 Team would do — both Dr. Bevan's Team and the Council's rec- 

 ommendation would do the same thing and so I point out we agree 

 with them that that needs doing. We need to coordinate this re- 

 search instead of every agency going off on their own creating all 

 these conflicting results that I talked about. 



Ms. Cantwell. But if we said that that oversight committee was 

 within NMFS and dealt with — just say for discussion sake here — 

 just an advisory role on things like conformance with goals and ob- 

 jectives and ascertain that relevant permits and biological opinions 

 issued by NMFS are consistent with recovery plans, is that some- 

 thing that you would agree to or disagree with or 



Mr. BOTTIGER. NMFS subject to NAFTA can appoint any advi- 

 sory committee it wants. I don't have any objection or problem with 

 that. I see now you are talking about Dr. Bevan's group. Political 

 pressure, if you pick the right people who use the press and other 

 ways to put political pressure on NMFS making the right decision, 

 is an effective way to do things so we have all done that before. 



Mr. Bevan. Ms. Cantwell, if I may add, the Team is charged 

 under the Endangered Species Act with putting together a salmon 

 recovery plan. The Team feels very strongly that the Endangered 

 Species Act gets in too late and gets out too early. Simply delisting 

 a species that is now capable of maintaining itself without provid- 

 ing harvest, both sport and commercial, is not a satisfactory solu- 

 tion. 



83-191 0-94-2 



