Within the National Marine Fisheries Service, the science centers are responsible for providing the technical and scientific support to the regional offices in carrying out their regulatory and management responsibilities. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. I will limit my formal comments to those involving the biological opinion and the collaboration in the scientific process.
First, to summarize from the testimony of Mr. Stelle to this subcommittee on September 13, 2000, the National Marine Fisheries Service is currently engaged in the preparation of two major documents. One is a biological opinion for the Federal Columbia River Power System. The other is a conceptual recovery plan being called the All H Paper. This latter exercise is being led by NMFS but is more broadly the product of the Federal Caucus composed of NMFS, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bonneville Power Administration, the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management.
In preparing these documents, NMFS considered the results of a variety of analytical exercises and scientific syntheses including results from the Plan for Analyzing and Testing Hypotheses, or PATH; NMFS' Cumulative Risk Initiative, or CRI; and the empirical information summarized in NMFS White Papers. Following review and comment by the state agencies and tribes, both the biological opinion and the All H Paper are currently scheduled for release in final form on December 15th.
On the issue of science collaboration, a major opportunity will occur via participation in technical recovery teams. We have already formed technical recovery teams, or TRTs, to start the process for recovery planning in Puget Sound and on the Lower Columbia River and Willamette Valley, and we are considering establishing TRTs to develop recovery plans for the listed salmon and steelhead in the interior Columbia River Basin.
The process NMFS has initiated to develop these plans is a two-phase one with the involvement of both regional technical and policy expertise in each of the relevant phases. To briefly summarize, the first phase is a scientific exercise culminating in the establishment of delisting criteria or recovery goals.
The second phase is more of a policy forum in which the options for recovery will be carefully weighed and a suite of actions selected. Both the technical phase and policy phase will involve qualified individuals from regional entities and interest groups. A recovery science review panel composed of internationally renowned ecologists and evolutionary biologists will review the products of the TRTs. Our goal is to bring together a broadly representative group of the best minds to tackle these issues.
To summarize, it is NMFS's intent that the recovery planning process will take place out in the open, that it will meaningfully involve regional scientific expertise, that the recovery plans will be subject to peer review, and that the final technical products, when appropriate, will be published in scientific journals.
Thank you for this opportunity to address the subcommittee. I would be pleased to answer any of your questions.