The state will never walk until we have a governor who wants to engage. That's where the marching orders come from and the last thing Inslee wants is a public fight with the tribes over who gets to kill the salmon he says we need to feed to the orcas. The tribes know this and WDFW knows this.

The only way this will change is for WDFW to call the feds' bluff and the tribes' bluff. If they walk out, you'll have both the commercial fleet and recreational side putting immense political pressure on.

Do you think our federal representatives and senators are going to allow their constituents to lose millions or billions of dollars because the feds won't process the permit because they might have to make a decision? Next time fishing is down and the tribes play hardball, the state needs to walk and do it publicly. It's a political bomb the nobody is going to want to deal with. The feds did some serious hand wringing last go round.