The Council is the region's voice in balancing the need for affordable, reliable electric power with cost-effective protection and enhancement of the Columbia Basin's fish and wildlife resources. In a sense, it is the Council's role to be an honest broker among fish, wildlife and energy interests, developing scientifically credible policies and recommendations to best serve the public interest.
During Fiscal Year 2000 the Council is beginning a major amendment of its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program to give the program an explicit scientific foundation and consistent goals, biological objectives and strategies for action. In turn, these will give direction to locally developed action plans for each of the 53 subbasins in the Columbia Basin. The Council's key role in regional fish and wildlife planning is underscored in draft recovery plans developed by federal agencies this year for threatened and endangered species of fish in the Columbia Basin. The agencies are working with the Council to develop subbasin action plans, and the draft federal recovery plans adopt the Council's 1999 Artificial Production Review recommendations regarding the future use of fish hatcheries.
Also this year, the Council has been investigating the reasons behind the sudden and rapid increases in the cost of wholesale electricity on the West Coast and the impacts of electricity industry restructuring on the region's power supply. The Council has identified a substantial risk of adequacy problems in the power supply and is working with the region's electric utilities, the Bonneville Power Administration and others to develop policies and procedures that will help the region avoid power supply and reliability problems in the future.
The Council's Fiscal Year 2002 budget is $7,880,000. In comparison, the Fiscal Year 1992 budget was $8,484,000 and last year's was $7,091,000. This represents an overall reduction of about 8 percent during a 10-year period while absorbing cumulative inflation projected at 28 percent. The Council believes this budget is consistent with our mission to protect, mitigate and enhance fish and wildlife affected by hydropower in the Columbia River Basin while assuring the region an adequate, efficient, economical and reliable power supply and involving the public in our decision-making.
Sincerely,
Stephen L. Crow
Executive Director
