Today, the House passed H.R. 4582 (Rep. Jeff Denham, R-CA), the “Save Our Salmon Act,” by voice vote. The legislation will exclude striped bass from the fish doubling requirement and other provisions of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, eliminating the ongoing federal conflict between protecting striped bass and endangered salmon in California.

Contradicting federal statutes undermine the recovery of endangered species by protecting predators of endangered fish. This burdens endangered species recovery efforts and negatively affects water allocation for many Californians.

“In California, contradictory statutes have caused millions of dollars and billions of gallons of water to go to waste. This is unacceptable, especially as Californians  face historic drought conditions. This bill is an effort to prevent even more critical water resources from being needlessly wasted. I look forward to working with Rep. Denham to advance a companion bill in the Senate,” Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) said.

“Predation of California’s native salmon and steelhead populations by non-native striped bass continues to squeeze our precious fresh water resources, further exacerbating the drought situation. The Save Our Salmon Act offers a practical, bipartisan solution that will update a decades old policy that threatens endangered salmon and steelhead populations and costs California’s taxpayers money and precious water,” Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) said.