Norman D. Dicks: “First of all, I take umbrage at the use of the word ``earmark'' by my colleague. This is no earmark. This is a national…”

“First of all, I take umbrage at the use of the word ``earmark'' by my colleague. This is no earmark. This is a national program. This affects California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Idaho. These States, after a whole series of endangered species listings that go coast-wide, are trying to save these salmon runs. As someone who comes from Washington State, I have been in the midst of an effort to try to recover our salmon runs. We have marked our fish. We have gone to selective harvests. We're protecting our wild runs. We're trying to do everything we can to recover these salmon runs. Today, on the Columbia River in Washington State, we will be very fortunate to get 600,000 salmon back. At a time in the thirties we would have 20 million fish coming back every year: wild chinook salmon, coho salmon, and others. So I think this is a very good program. We have worked hard to make sure the money is used for strong habitat restoration work and that we have worked to improve our hatcheries. We've done hatchery reform. We've done everything we can to restore the habitat for these fish. Again, this is a national program that was created during the Clinton administration. It is strongly supported in the Pacific Northwest by both Democrats and Republicans. I see my good friend from Alaska, Mr. Young, has arrived on the floor; and I just want you to know that Alaska, where we still have many wild fish, also participates in this program from time to time.…”