23 



The political rhetoric, the political processes may sound good. To 

 many people they are palatable, but nothing is palatable to Indian 

 people except the freshness of that salmon that we once enjoyed. 



It was not from someone's plan that the salmon came; it was 

 from the creator. That is where we differ considerably in how we 

 view this recovery effort. Recovery should not mean just maintain- 

 ing a 60 percent viability of a recovery. 



It should mean restoring the accountability processes. The over- 

 sight responsibility of this committee and others in the Federal 

 Government should have that will. 



Out here we have "won't": we won't give water that is needed 

 for the salmon; we won't give the habitat that is necessary. These 

 things that are important to us are what we hope that the commit- 

 tee will consider. 



We know your challenges are many, but we hope and pray you 

 have the strength to see through what the commitment is. The 

 commitment is to the pursuit of happiness and the right to life and 

 liberty; but it is also to discipline, it is also to those things that 

 were here long before there were ever human beings on this earth, 

 and we hope that as we share this cultural bit of philosophy that it 

 could take root. 



I know that each of you who have constituencies and families un- 

 derstand what that means, and we do thank you in behalf of these 

 four tribes that are the owners of our commission, we thank you 

 for the opportunity to present testimony. 



[The statement of Mr. Strong may be found at end of hearing.] 



Chairman Studds. Thank you, sir, and thank you for once again 

 putting things in perspective for us. I appreciate that. 



I really only have one question, and I don't think anybody has 

 the answer or they probably would have had it in their testimony. 

 It seems to be very clear that in the broadest sense we know what 

 to do, and everyone is now beginning to speak the same language, 

 the President, the Secretary of the Interior, the witnesses here. 



We need to think on a far larger, broader scale. There are words 

 of the day, ecosystem management, on a whole watershed basis in 

 the case of the salmon species. Granted, we know now that is what 

 we must do. The question is how in God's name, given the complex- 

 ity of government at all levels, do we do it. 



I can still hear Secretary Babbitt's astonishment at finding that 

 not only was his department at war with other departments of the 

 Federal Government, but agencies within his department were at 

 war with one another. It is no wonder that the average citizen, 

 never mind the average salmon, can't figure out what is going on. 

 It seems to me very clear that we need someone in charge of an 

 ecosystem or a watershed. 



I hate the cliche, but we need some kind of a "czar". We have 

 king salmon, maybe we need a salmon king, I don't know, we need 

 somebody responsible for this. 



I hesitate to ask a panel composed of, among other things, three 

 Federal agencies who should be responsible, but has anybody got 

 any ideas? Please don't feel compelled if you don't have any to re- 

 spond because I don't know the answer, but what should we do? 



Do we need to give the President of the United States or his cabi- 

 net statutory authority they currently do not have to name a 



