149 



Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you very much. 

 Mr. Frank? 



STATEMENT OF BILLY FRANK 



Mr. Frank. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



I'm Billy Frank, Chairman of the Northwest Indian Fish Com- 

 mission. 



I belong to the Nisqually [phonetic] Tribe. And this is my friend. 

 Nelson, plus the other panels here. 



And a second everyone of the panels, what they've said, natural 

 resource people, tribal people. 



And with me today I have Jim Anderson, our Executive Director 

 of Northwest Indian Fish Commission, along with Jim Harp, a 

 Quinault Tribal Nation member and the manager of their fisnery 

 in the northwest and along the Pacific Coast, and one of our com- 

 missioners of the Northwest Indian Fish Commission. 



We manage the Pacific salmon, the fish in northwest, as I think 

 you know about. And because as fi*om that great Samoa country, 

 you have a lot of, we have a lot of ties together. 



Mr. Faleomavaega. Yes. I have many members of my tribe in 

 the State of Washington. I hope you look for them. 



Mr. Frank. Right. And we have a lot of relatives. 



Mr. Faleomavaega. It'll get a little cold up there, but — I appre- 

 ciate it. [Laughter.] 



Mr. Frank. But I enjoy a lot of your questions about how impor- 

 tant this Committee and the chairmanship of this Committee is 

 and how it's getting better and better. 



Your question about Congress, about one to ten. We're educating 

 now. You're seeing us in the halls of Congress. You see Steve right 

 there. You see our other tribal people and other people of color in 

 our Congress. 



That's great, because we've been left out of the plan, the Indian 

 tribes throughout this nation. 



And when it comes to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and that 

 question, you know, I asked the tribes, can they afford that bu- 

 reaucracy any more and your management. 



What they ought to be doing is getting the money to us. We want 

 the money to manage in our homeland and in our own backyard 

 because we are the managers. And we're good managers, positive 

 managers, working with the states, working with the counties, 

 working with the cities and the communities to bring our resources 

 together to balance it out there for everybody, not just the Indian 

 tribes. 



So we're dealing in long-range management in the Northwest. 

 And I have some fish here I want to give to you right now. 



Mr. Faleomavaega. I will accept it gratefully. Is it raw? 



Well, I'll be sure the Chairman gets some of it. 



Mr. Frank. We'll have a big ceremony one of these days, right 

 Tom? 



Mr. Faleomavaega. Well, I'll be sure to bring my tribe also, and 

 we'll have a big pow wow. You're going to have to furnish us some 

 blankets, though, because it gets a little cold up there. 



Mr. Frank. We have them too. 



