Telephone Remarks Announcing a New Partnership To Restore Pacific Coastal Salmon

The President. Thank you very much. And I want to say to all of you on the phone and, obviously, our friends from Washington here in the Oval Office, that I am very, very grateful to all of you and to others in your States and in the tribes who have made a priority of preserving the salmon. And I'm grateful to you for making sure that those of us who do not hail from the Pacific Northwest understood the gravity and the urgency of the issue.

We want to help you bring the salmon back. And the Vice President and I today are announcing, as a part of my fiscal year 2000 budget, a new $100 million fund to help States and tribes restore coastal salmon. The funds can be used up and down coastal rivers and streams to rebuild habitat, restore spawning grounds, give salmon a new lease on life. And if we work together, I'm sure that we can succeed in restoring this symbol of your region's heritage and ensure that for all time to come the salmon will still be thriving.

I want to thank again all of you for what you have done. We can't succeed here without your energy, your vision, your determination.

And I know how passionate folks out there are about their salmon, and I'm confident we can succeed, and I believe this $100 million will help.

Governor Locke, I'd like to call on you first. And tell Mona I said hello and Hillary and I are thinking about her and you, and we look forward to another beautiful baby. I'd like for you to speak and then maybe Governor Knowles, Chairman Billy Frank, and Governor Kitzhaber.

[At this point, the teleconference continued.]

The President. Thank you very much. I know you're all busy and have many other things to do. I just want to thank you for what I said earlier. You brought this to our attention; you asked us to do something. We're committed to this; we have to pass this now. But this needs to be a long-term commitment to partnership on the part of the Federal Government. And I want you to help us pass it in Congress. I want you to help us work with you to implement it. And I want you to continue to make sure that we are aware of exactly what's happening in your backyard.

I think this is very important to the future of the entire country, that we prove we can do this together. And this is something that every single one of you will always be proud of having taken a leadership role in.

Thank you very much, and goodbye.