May 21, 2009

Pacific Salmon Recovery Funds Restored in Obama Budget

U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks learned late Thursday that the Obama administration will send to Congress a budget amendment restoring funding for the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund to a level of $50 million.

The Fund was omitted as a separate account in the Obama administration’s FY 2010 budget proposal that was sent to Congress earlier this month, prompting Rep. Dicks and members of the Pacific Northwest congressional delegation to ask for a reconsideration of what Rep. Dicks believed was “an oversight that occurred during the change of administrations. “    The congressman, who had worked with Vice President Al Gore in early 2000 to establish the recovery fund,  received a call from Secretary Locke today with the news that an amendment to the FY 2010 budget had been approved.  The funds are located within the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Marine Fisheries account.

Each year the account funds projects that contribute to the restoration and conservation of Pacific salmon and steelhead populations and their habitats in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho and Alaska.  The fund supplements existing state, tribal and local programs to encourage federal-state-tribal-local partnerships in salmon and steelhead recovery and conservation. 

“This is a tremendously encouraging decision: a sign that the new Administration at every level is serious about the recovery of threatened and endangered salmon populations on the west coast,” Rep. Dicks said.

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