Ted Stevens: “This has been the saddest day of my life. I say good-bye to the Senate tonight. Thank you very much.”

They are not numbers. They were people, living, breathing, caring, loving people. And they're not anymore. And there is no rational explanation as to why not.

The whole purpose of the Act is to protect our fisheries and have a conservation ethic to be the major goal.

It is the wrong mine for the wrong place.

Thanks to the foresight of Senator Ted Stevens and his congressional colleagues in establishing the North Pacific Research Board in 1997.