Delay in Salmon Fisheries Aid Prompts Anger
By David Whitney, Sacramento Bee
June 28, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration said in a heated meeting with West Coast House members Tuesday that there will be no economic aid until at least February for salmon fishermen idled because of the collapsing Klamath River fishery.

"This is NOAA saying to the fishermen of California and Oregon: Drop dead," snapped Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, after the closed meeting with Conrad Lautenbacher, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The virtual closure of the West Coast salmon season is affecting fishermen from Monterey to Portland.

"This has hurt communities just as seriously as Hurricane Katrina," said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara. "We have fishermen in San Luis Obispo suffering, not being able to make their boat payments, not being able to continue their family businesses. Our communities need help, and they need it now."

Thompson and Capps were among a half-dozen House members appealing directly to Lautenbacher and the Commerce Department for $81 million in disaster aid for the fishermen and dependent communities. The meeting followed a letter from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Bush administration Monday expressing deep frustration over the delay.

"I am at a loss as to what further information you need so that our fishing-dependent communities can become eligible to receive disaster assistance," the governor said.

The House members said they were told no disaster declaration would be coming until at least February, after the closure of the season and enough time for the administration to calculate actual damages.

Lautenbacher declined to confirm that, saying the agency was "still working with the congressional delegation."

But that's not what the angry House members said.

"We have fallen into a bureaucratic black hole," sighed Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.

The Commerce Department announced in May that it was slashing the commercial salmon season by 80 percent because of poor returns of fish to the Klamath River, where a huge die-off three years ago was blamed on Bush administration policies that favored farm irrigation over downstream water quality.

Despite a regional office approving a disaster declaration, top officials in Washington have held up a final decision. Many believe that their decision is influenced at least in part by the fact that a disaster declaration would implicate the administration's controversial water policy.

According to a Congressional Research Service memo to Thompson, there are no formal established procedures for fishery disaster declarations and the time for making them varies dramatically. For example, it took less than a week to issue such a declaration for fishermen affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Thompson said he and fellow lawmakers would try to add $81 million in disaster aid to a 2007 spending bill for the Commerce Department this week, but that effort is likely to be challenged in the Republican-led chamber.

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Fish Fight Turns Bitter
By Zachary Coile, San Francisco Chronicle
June 29, 2006

Washington -- Lawmakers from California and Oregon, angry at the Bush administration for refusing to aid struggling Pacific Coast salmon fishermen, brought the House to a standstill Wednesday -- ultimately forcing GOP leaders to offer a small amount of economic relief.

The issue has simmered for months as West Coast fishermen have struggled to cope with the nearly complete closure of the salmon season by federal officials, who are trying to protect critically low salmon stocks in the Klamath River.

Lawmakers have been urging Congress to pass an $81 million relief package for fishermen and fishing-related businesses along the California and Oregon coasts to address the economic fallout of closing the fishery.

"The administration is refusing to even look at it," Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, said on the House floor. "The Republican Congress is ignoring the fact that working families are being displaced, being put out of jobs and going bankrupt."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski have declared state disasters for coastal fishing communities and are urging Congress to offer economic relief. But the White House so far has refused to declare a disaster, and until Wednesday House GOP leaders opposed economic assistance.

"It's just unfair that this would happen, especially when this is a disaster that was created by the Bush administration," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez. "They ought to take responsibility; they ought to be held accountable for their actions, and they ought to provide relief for these hard-working families."

In protest, Miller and other lawmakers used procedural moves to slow the House to a crawl. All morning, lawmakers labored through a series of 15-minute "motion to rise" votes that delayed action on a spending bill for the Commerce, Justice and State departments.

West Coast lawmakers won a small victory and ended their protest when the House passed an amendment specifying $2 million for disaster relief for salmon fishermen. The money is seen as a placeholder so California and Oregon senators can seek to add more disaster aid to the bill later in a conference committee.

The troubles for West Coast fishermen stem from the poor state of wild salmon stocks in the Klamath River near the California-Oregon border.

Chinook -- or king -- salmon are bountiful this year off the Pacific Coast, but most of them are from the Sacramento River. Salmon from the Klamath River are at perilously low numbers, and because Klamath and Sacramento fish intermingle in the ocean, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a federal agency, called for strict reductions in the commercial catch to protect the threatened Klamath stocks.

Fishermen's groups argue that the poor condition of the Klamath salmon is the result of years of controversial federal water management decisions.

Much of the river's flow is diverted to farmers, and four hydropower dams along the river warm the water, killing salmon through disease or parasites. In 2002, more than 33,000 salmon died because of low water, high temperatures and disease, and large die-offs of young salmon have followed in recent years.

The restrictions by federal authorities sharply limited the season, banned fishing in some areas and allowed commercial fishermen to catch only 75 fish each week, which fishermen's groups and state officials say is economically unfeasible.

"No one can afford to go far out and catch 75 fish, so no one is fishing," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.

Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, said fishermen in California coastal communities such as Bodega Bay, Half Moon Bay, Fort Bragg and Eureka have seen their incomes plummet as the harvest of salmon has dropped by as much 90 percent.

"The younger people, who still have boat payments, they aren't going to make it," Grader said. "It's pretty bleak."

The issue came to a boil Tuesday at a meeting on Capitol Hill between lawmakers and officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees fisheries, including the agency's administrator, Conrad Lautenbacher. According to Congressman Thompson, agency officials said they wouldn't be able to declare a disaster until next year after the salmon season had ended.

Lawmakers were irate. DeFazio asked why the agency didn't just cancel the salmon season so fishing communities could qualify for disaster relief.

A spokesman for the agency said lawmakers were mistaken and that officials could declare a fishery disaster at any time based on data they receive from the state about salmon populations. NOAA spokesman Jordan St. John added that the agency was trying to allow limited fishing to keep the industry alive.

"The original discussion was to close the entire fishery," St. John said. "At the request of fishermen's groups and some of the very same members of Congress, they worked out some way to keep the season partially open so there could be fishing."

But Thompson said the agency's plan has been a disaster for fishermen, who have invested thousands of dollars in fishing permits, fuel, bait and payments on their boats. Federal officials are opening areas off the coast for two weeks at a time, but there's no guarantee there will be fish in those areas during those windows, he said.

"I think the fishing industry is going to evaporate," Thompson said. "It's not just the people who are going out fishing. This has an impact on the whole community."

Grader said he hopes for a technological solution: Fishermen are starting to use new technologies that can distinguish between the salmon from the Sacramento River and those from the depleted Klamath River.

"We've been trying to use modern technology to do a better job," he said. "But we've gotten no help from the agencies. There's no leadership."

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Leaders Take a Stand to Help Fishermen
By Jeff Kosseff, The Oregonian
June 29, 2006

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Darlene Hooley decided Wednesday morning was the perfect time to "organize a little protest."

With Congress moving toward the Fourth of July recess, Hooley and Reps. Peter DeFazio and David Wu used arcane procedural maneuvers to bring debate on a sweeping appropriations bill to a near standstill, frustrating their colleagues until they got a compromise.

The Oregon Democrats, along with colleagues from California, are furious that the Bush administration has not committed to providing disaster relief assistance to the West Coast salmon fishing industry. Their protest Wednesday led to the first step in directing federal aid to the industry.

Wednesday morning, Wu called for a motion to adjourn, which required every member to return to the chamber while the Oregon and California representatives discussed the impact on the fishing community. The Oregon and California representatives then began demanding votes on each of the scores of amendments to the appropriations bill, requiring their colleagues to return repeatedly for roll calls.

The Oregon and California representatives refused to back down.

"I'll keep going for as long as it takes," Hooley said in a phone interview during the protest.

Wu said that during his eight years in the House, he has grilled experts on parliamentary maneuvers and pored over the procedural rules.

"I've been keeping this in my back pocket for eight years for a moment when we would need it," Wu said. "Should I have saved it for something more important? Maybe so, but I think the salmon are not only economically pretty important to Oregonians, but it's who we are."

In an effort to protect king salmon in the Klamath River, the federal government has ordered trollers along a 700-mile stretch of coastline to drastically reduce their fishing this year. That has resulted in huge financial losses to the fishing industry from central California to northern Oregon.

"It is devastating to our coastal communities," Hooley said.

The decision to protest came hours after a meeting in which the representatives learned a decision on federal relief might not come until February.

Late Tuesday, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration met with the congressional delegation. The NOAA officials said they first needed to study the economic impact before declaring a disaster and providing relief.

"It's clear this administration has no intent of declaring a disaster and providing any meaningful assistance," DeFazio said. "That was the most arrogance and indifference I've ever seen reflected -- except for Donald Rumsfeld -- in my 20 years in Congress."

NOAA spokesman Jordan St. John said the agency is legally required to have a "factual basis" for such relief, though it wouldn't necessarily take until February. Such a determination requires states to provide NOAA with information on the fishing season, he said.

To determine that fishermen are struggling, Wu said, it's not necessary to "do a study of a study of a study."

"You know that people are hurting, and you can at least start the spigot."

Even without NOAA's disaster declaration, St. John said, Congress can appropriate money for relief.

Members of Congress have introduced bills to provide relief totaling $81 million, which they say is the amount of money that the industry has lost. But House leaders told the representatives that the money would not be included in the appropriations bill.

After more than two hours of frustration, the members were able to strike a compromise. The House agreed to an amendment allocating $2 million for disaster relief. The Oregon and California representatives hope to use that as a placeholder as they negotiate for more.

"This is a recognition by the United States Congress that there's a disaster," DeFazio said. "We've got the thing rolling here, and we hope we're creating an opening for our senators to add additional money."

Wu said he had wondered whether continuing the protest for a few more hours could have led to more money. But such tactics could test his colleagues' patience and hurt the cause.

He said a friend, Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pa., approached him and said, " 'Wu, you're gonna get this settled pretty quick? I'll tell you, there's a mutiny brewing.' "

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