KJackson: One more small point. I spent more than 30 years interpreting, enforcing and even writing regulations promulgated in the Code of Federal Regulations (CRF) I can tell you from first hand experience that when an administration, be it republican or democrat, proposes a rule that they seriously want to implement, the public comments have VERY little impact.

I helped rewrite a regulation related to reimbursement of administrative costs for administering federal grants. We got thousands of comments from almost every sate and many cities and counties. Almost all comments were against the proposed rule. The rule was issued with only a few tiny changes thrown in as a sop to the protesters. The administration, in this case, Clinton, had an agenda and was not going to be deterred by any amount of comments. I can promise you the final rule will look almost exactly as the current administration wants, irrespective of the comments received.

That said, I will carefully read the notice and I will comment long and loud if it does not clearly contain language to protect wild salmon and steelhead runs, and not by simply calling a closely related hatchery fish the same as a wild fish. I think that if there is enough public pressure in an election year there is a small chance that significant changes can be made. If not there are always the courts. This would first be heard in a federal district court. If you are right the Supremes would not hear the case then all we need to do is win at the district court of appellate level.

From reading your posts I suspect you are in fact a concerned angler and do want to restore wild salmon runs where possible. We simple see this issue though different lenses.