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STATE OF WASHINGTON 



OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR 



P.O. So* 40002 • Otympt*. Wjshington 98304-0002 • (20*i 7S3tTaO 



June 21. 1994 



Th« Honorable Bill Clintoa 

 President of the United States 

 The Whiu House 

 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. 

 Washington. D.C. 20S00 



Dear President Clinton; 



The existing impasse with Canada under the Pacific Salmon Treaty is endangering conservation of our 

 salmon stocks and is threatening to endanger human lives. At this point only your administration, in 

 conceit with Canada and in cooperation with Alaska, Washington, Oregon and affected treaty tribes, has 

 the legal power to steer us all into calmer, saner and safer waters. 



I write, theivfore, to urge you to focus your authority under the U.S. Constitution and under the Treaty to 

 bring an end to the management impasse that, if it continues, may wreak great damage upon our 

 fisheries, citiiens and future relations with Canada, this state's cordial neighbor. 



An urgent problem stems fipom Canada's decision to charge a S 1 , 100 (U.S.) tax on all U.S.-flagged 

 fishing vesseb transiting Canadian waten between Washington and Alaska. These waters am part of the 

 Inland Passage that shelters marinen along British Columbia and Southeastern Alaska from the storms 

 of the PaciHc. The unprecedented tax will hurt boat owners and may expose to storm seas those U.S. 

 fishermen who cannot pay the tax or who on principal rcAjie to do so. This action could cause U.S. 

 fishing boats and their hands to go down in a Pacific gale because of a tax invented to tweak our 

 attention. No one should propel boats of either nation toward danger simply becaitse governments have 

 not yet worked hard enough to agree. 



Dealing with the tax, however necessary, is a stopgap that must not divert attention from the fact that 

 Northwest salmon stocks are in deep double and failure to implement the Pacific Salmon Treaty is one 

 of the chief reasons. Part of the danger to our salmon stocks comes from the lack of treaty arrangements 

 whereby Canada agrees to pass through their fisheries weak coho, chinook and other stocks, including 

 stocks firom the Snake River that under the U.S. Endangered Species Act we have declared threatened or 

 endangered. There is no way of disentangling our expensive and contentious domestic efToits to save 

 weak stocks from the overall management under the treaty of the salmon that we and the Canadians 

 jointly exploit and revere. 



