It's not just the commercial salmon trollers who are mad over the loss of a season this year.

Oregon and California lawmakers are, too.

Several West Coast members of Congress, including Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., met with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Conrad V. Lautenbacher Jr. and National Marine Fisheries Service Director Bill Hogarth on Tuesday. The plan was to discuss the status of a fisheries failure declaration for this year's season.

It was only last week that news of a memo from NOAA headquarters to the NMFS Southwest Region office revealed that the lead agency wasn't going to make a decision anytime soon regarding the salmon season.

DeFazio said Tuesday that's still the case. NOAA refused to provide him with the memo from NOAA to the Southwest Region, saying it was a pre-decision document.

“They said we're just going to have to wait and see how it goes,” DeFazio said, clearly angry at the outcome of the meeting.

DeFazio and fellow Oregon Congressmen Darlene Hooley and David Wu and California Congressmen Mike Thompson, Lois Capps and Lynn Woolsey, all Democrats, as well as senators from both states, have been seeking a disaster declaration from the Department of Commerce - the parent agency of NOAA - since spring, when it was clear the salmon seasons would be curtailed. A fisheries failure declaration is necessary to start the process of authorizing funds to be made available to affected fishing industries and communities under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the primary fisheries law.

That's not quite the case, NOAA Public Affairs Director Jordan St. John said on Friday, when he also said the memo was off-limits to the public at this point.

NOAA is not like the Federal Emergency Management Administration - NOAA has no disaster funds, St. John said, and that Congress can appropriate the money now.

“Congress can do it anytime they want,” St. John said.

And they have. U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., tried to get emergency supplemental funds to the fleet in May, but his amendment was denied. Subsequent legislation by other lawmakers, including DeFazio, has languished in Congress. They're now working on getting funding added into the federal budget bill for the 2006-07 fiscal year.

Still, a decision from Commerce would help the two-step process of federal funding authorization and appropriation.

Under section 312(a) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the Secretary of Commerce can make a determination of a fishery failure and authorize funds to be used to assist fishing communities.

Then Congress can appropriate the funds - formally requesting specific dollar amounts through legislation.

St. John, in response to telephone calls to Lautenbacher and Hogarth, said today that was the case during the last Northwest salmon crisis, in 1994. Congress appropriated $12 million for the industry, all without a fisheries failure declaration, he said.

Part of the issue, too, is timing, St. John said. The Department of Commerce can't prospectively declare the season a failure; it has to wait until some information is available.

“It can't do it ahead of time,” St. John said, noting that some salmon fishing still is going on and that the department is gathering that data.

However, the Department of Commerce has made at least one prospective fisheries failure declaration: On Jan. 19, 2000, it declared the West Coast Groundfish fishery a failure only 18 days into the season.

St. John said he wasn't familiar with the groundfish case.

“Was it closed completely?” he asked.

No, it wasn't.

But neither is the salmon fishery this year, except on the South Coast of Oregon and North Coast of California.

Stalled progress

DeFazio said he'd understood the Southwest Region was supportive of a fisheries failure declaration, but that NOAA headquarters is holding up the process.

Lautenbacher said he had an opinion from federal lawyers not to claim a disaster until after the season is over and that a decision can be expected in February of next year, DeFazio said.

“Things kind of went downhill from there,” he said.

The lawmakers asked for the legal opinion, the information from the Southwest Region supporting the fisheries failure declaration this year and also for the documents showing why the department denied a fisheries failure declaration last year.

They got nothing.

“I've never been in a meeting with so many members of Congress so immediately and spontaneously outraged by an administration official,” DeFazio said. “It's absolutely outrageous.”

Similar information

DeFazio - and Wu, Woolsey, Hooley, Thompson and Capps - can add his name to the list of those frustrated with administration officials.

Former Pacific Fishery Management Council salmon adviser and troller Don Stevens, is, too.

Stevens sent an e-mail to Oregon Salmon Commission members on Friday that detailed discussions he had with Kevin Allexon, Lautenbacher's policy advisor, at NOAA. He, too, requested the memo headquarters sent to the Southwest Region.

Allexon, Stevens said, seemed genuinely concerned about the fate of the fishermen, but also said that the memo was part of a fact-gathering process and that NOAA headquarters would make a decision after a thorough review of the information and data and that NOAA had no federal funds to provide relief.

On Tuesday, after hearing of DeFazio's similar conversations with Hogarth and Lautenbacher, Stevens was surprised.

“He (Allexon) said they're really worried about this,” Stevens said.

Then he paused and said, “Well, it's clear they're not that worried.”

DeFazio couldn't agree more.

Said DeFazio, “They've created a fish trap, our fishers have swum into it and they snapped it shut.”