36 



I, personally, from the State of Oregon, at least— Rollie Rousseau 

 is my name — favor that or some similar forcing mechanism. I truly 

 believe the status quo, and that is what we have today, and that 

 is what we have had for the last several years, and that is what 

 we will continue to have, unless there is a forcing mechanism. 



I am not a strong advocate of Federal oversight necessarily, but 

 at the same time, we have a treaty that is a Federal treaty be- 

 tween two countries, and for allowing one State and/or one tribe to 

 totally exasperate that and stop any action, I think is unconscion- 

 able as well. So in this situation, I certainly would encourage this 

 Committee to look at options in that respect. 



Ms. FURSE. Thank you. Madam Chair. 



Mrs. Unsoeld. Do you have any other questions? 



Ms. FuRSE. No, that is all. 



Mrs. Unsoeld. Mr. Hamburg? Ms. Cantwell? The Chair does. 



I want to — if the panel would restore itself to respond to the 

 charge that I have read and heard stated, that we in Washington 

 State particularly have abused the resource. And so I would ask 

 Mr. James and Mr. Turner, how would you respond to the chal- 

 lenge in the question that we have abused the resource and why 

 should Alaska have to pay for the problems caused by our failure 

 to address or respond to these habitat problems? 



Mr. Turner. Well, thank you. Chairwoman Unsoeld. First of all, 

 the point that we have a challenge ahead of us to restore habitat 

 in the Northwest is a terrific one and one that the President has 

 addressed in his forest conference. We in the region are addressing 

 this challenge in response to the Endangered Species Act, and as 

 G.I. James mentioned, the comprehensive proposal that we are 

 shopping around this town to rebuild stocks coast- wide. 



Nonetheless, those problems are significant and they have re- 

 duced the numbers of fish that Canada intercepts from the south 

 as a consequence of that reduced production. The southern inter- 

 ceptions of Canadian fish have also been reduced since the Treaty 

 was signed. So what we hear from Canada is a great deal of con- 

 cern about interceptions of Canadian fish in Alaska. 



Nothing in the south has anything to do with the number of Ca- 

 nadian fish being intercepted in Alaska, and yet that is one of the 

 primary concerns put on the table by Canada. Canada's response 

 to those concerns compounds our problem, because they respond to 

 Alaskan interceptions. I am not making a value judgment here, but 

 Canada's response to increases in interceptions of Canada's fish in 

 Alaska is to increase their interceptions of Washington-bound fish 

 on the west coast of Vancouver Island. So not only are our stocks 

 suffering from El Nino and drought, they suffer from the Canadian 

 response to concerns about Alaskan interceptions with harvest on 

 the west coast of Vancouver Island. So we get hit several times on 

 the same issue. 



Mrs. Unsoeld. So here is the $64 question to Mr. Meacham: 

 Hasn't Alaska increased its interception of Canadian fish? 



Mr. Meacham. I would say that Alaska has increased the num- 

 ber, numerical count of fish that came from eggs laid in Canada. 

 But you really do need to go one additional step and ask why that 

 has happened. And the reason that has happened, at least in part, 

 is associated with very much increased production. Skeena River, 



