September 11, 2007 – Washington, DC – Nearly 20 national environmental, conservation and outdoor organizations have teamed with sport and commercial fishing groups to urge Congress to oppose a provision in a pending federal spending bill that threatens salmon recovery efforts in the Pacific Northwest, and undermines the integrity of the Endangered Species Act.
Language currently in the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (S. 1696) seeks to circumvent recent court rulings that declared illegal a federal recovery plan for endangered salmon and steelhead in the Upper Snake River basin. The 2006 court decision came under immediate fire by representatives of Idaho’s industrial water users and members of the Idaho congressional delegation, warning that they would take “whatever action necessary and possible to turn back this explicit threat.”
The provision, Sec. 127, directs that “The Secretary of the Interior should seek to carry out without further delay the provisions identified in the Upper Snake River Basin Biological Opinion released by the National Marine Fisheries Service, Northwest Region dated March 31, 2005 for the conservation of salmon and steelhead species in the Columbia and Snake River Basins and the Upper Snake River Basin Biological Opinion issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dated March 31, 2005 for the conservation of various species in the Pacific Northwest.”
The language was added to the bill by Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) and approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee in June.
Via a strongly worded letter addressed to Appropriations Committee chairs Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Congressman Norm Dicks (D-WA) and delivered members of both houses of Congress, the groups noted that such legislative action could threaten ongoing salmon recovery efforts while delaying real solutions to the Pacific Northwest’s salmon crisis. Because it urges the federal agencies to implement a biological opinion that has been declared illegal and is currently being rewritten by those agencies, the provision risks undermining both the Endangered Species Act and a valid federal court process.
In appealing to Congressional leadership to remove the language from the bill, the letter concludes that “Salmon and salmon-based communities are fighting for their lives throughout the Northwest, including Idaho, where Pacific salmon are most imperiled. Now is not the time, and a congressional spending bill is certainly not the place, to risk derailing salmon recovery.”
Groups signing the letter include: American Rivers, American Whitewater, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Endangered Species Coalition, Federation of Fly Fishers, Friends of the Earth, Idaho Rivers United, Idaho Steelhead and Salmon Unlimited, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, NW Energy Coalition, Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Republicans for Environmental Protection, Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, Sierra Club and Save Our Wild Salmon.
Full text of the letter is available at www.wildsalmon.org <http://www.wildsalmon.org/> .
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