Sponsor
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez
Representative · D-WA
Representative · D-WA
The bill shifts stronger, quicker control over sea lion removals to Columbia River Tribes to protect salmon and tribal fisheries, trading increased tribal sovereignty and potential fishery benefits against risks to marine-mammal conservation, legal conflicts with federal protections, and community tensions.
Tribes with ancestral ties to the Columbia River are formally empowered to exercise greater authority over natural-resource management in their ancestral waters, reinforcing tribal sovereignty and self-determination.
Tribal fishers and adjacent rural communities may see reduced predation on threatened salmon runs because Tribes can lethally remove sea lions harming those runs, potentially improving salmon returns and tribal fisheries.
Tribes can designate qualified persons to carry out removals, allowing more timely and locally controlled responses to predation events that threaten fisheries or culturally important resources.
Sea lion populations and marine mammal conservation efforts could be harmed because the bill allows unlimited, year-round lethal takings of specified sea lions, increasing long-term ecological risk.
Tribes and other stakeholders face legal and enforcement conflicts because the bill creates a statutory exemption from other federal laws for these takings, potentially complicating the Secretary of Commerce's ability to enforce marine-protection statutes.
Individuals could be wrongfully harmed because the authorization permits lethal take without requirement that targeted animals be individually identifiable, raising risks of misidentification and ethical/legal concerns.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes covered Columbia River Tribes to intentionally lethally take specified pinnipeds in the Columbia River up to McNary Dam, notwithstanding other law.
Official title: To amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 to authorize intentional lethal take by certain Indian Tribes of California sea lions and Steller sea lions in a specified portion of the Columbia River, and for other purposes.
Introduced July 9, 2026 by Marie Gluesenkamp Perez · Last progress July 9, 2026
Authorizes Columbia River Indian Tribes with ancestral ties to intentionally lethally take specified pinnipeds (California sea lions and Eastern DPS Steller sea lions) in the Columbia River mainstem and tributaries from River Mile 0 to McNary Dam, notwithstanding other law. Tribes may take any number of the covered animals at any time, designate persons to carry out takings, and must use methods the Tribe deems humane. The provision is added as a new subsection to the Marine Mammal Protection Act and preserves existing Tribal rights while defining “Indian Tribe” by reference to federal law. It creates a statutory exception to other federal protections for marine mammals in the specified Columbia River area for covered Tribes’ use.