One thing fishermen and environmentalists understand all too 

 well is being nickeled and dimed to death, a road here, a dam 

 there, a channel in the middle, a levee on the side. Day in and day 

 out the environment gets chipped away until one day we wake up 

 and find that the wild salmon are literally disappearing. 



Managing our resource crises one species at a time will not work 

 at all. We need, in the words of the new Secretary of the Interior, 

 to approach these issues on a much broader basis — on an ecosystem 

 basis and on a watershed basis. Federal and State agencies must 

 coordinate recovery efforts and act with one purpose if we are 

 going to pull this off. 



We are going to go briefly, momentarily, to our first panel of 

 people with responsibilities at those two levels to see what they 

 have to suggest to us. 



If I may now turn to the Member of Congress whom you have so 

 wonderfully sent to this committee who is our host at this point, 

 your Congressperson Elizabeth Furse. 



STATEMENT OF THE HON. ELIZABETH FURSE, A U.S. 

 REPRESENTATIVE FROM OREGON 



Ms. Furse. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am delighted to have the 

 opportunity to welcome this committee to Portland, and to wel- 

 come our witnesses to the hearing. I really do want to thank the 

 Members of Congress who have traveled from such a long way to 

 make this field hearing possible. 



I want to take a moment to applaud the efforts of Congresswom- 

 an Jolene Unsoeld in her quest to move the National Marine Fish- 

 eries Service into the Department of Interior. Her breadth of 

 knowledge on this issue is acknowledged throughout the Congress, 

 and I share her concerns and look forward to working with her on 

 these critical issues in the future. 



Today we will be addressing two of the most critical and impor- 

 tant and difficult issues in our fisheries. Actually there are more 

 than two issues, but we will be addressing the Magnuson Act and 

 how to restore Pacific salmon. Those are very complex questions 

 and issues. 



The Magnuson Act, as you know, was written for two main pur- 

 poses — to develop the U.S. fishing industry and to conserve and 

 manage those fisheries. From 1976 to today, it has been a very 

 rough ride, trying to achieve and balance both of those goals. 



The issues of overfishing, of bycatch, of allocation decisions, the 

 council system habitat protection, just to name a few of the issues 

 that have been consistently raised as we address the issue of reau- 

 thorization. I expect we will hear about several of those issues and 

 hopefully we will receive recommendations on how we might ad- 

 dress the problems described. 



It is no secret that I originally asked for a field hearing on the 

 Magnuson Act because of the decision of the Department of Com- 

 merce to overturn at the very last moment the Pacific whiting allo- 

 cation recommendations of the Pacific Fishery Management Coun- 

 cil. This system of regional management fishery councils was devel- 

 oped because it was recognized that those who work in the area 

 probably know a great deal more than officials sitting in Washing- 



