June 9, 2025 — Northwest tribal officials say the Trump administration’s latest budget proposal would violate their treaty rights to catch salmon.
Among other cutbacks, the White House’s proposed 2026 budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would eliminate the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund, the leading source of money for restoring the Northwest’s struggling salmon runs.
The Trump administration is asking Congress, which controls federal spending, to reduce NOAA’s funding to nearly half of its 2024 levels. While the budget proposal lacks many details, it singles out the $100 million salmon recovery fund and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which had a $638 million budget in 2024, for elimination.
“If the plug is pulled, the tribe will have to do something to protect our treaty rights,” said David Troutt, head of the Nisqually Tribe’s natural resources department. “And if we don’t have the ability to do it collaboratively, we’ll look to other means, and it may drive us more quickly and more regularly into the courts.”
Federal treaties signed in the 1850s guarantee Northwest tribes the right to fish and hunt in their traditional territories in exchange for giving up most of their land.
“It’s in case law. It’s in treaties, which are the supreme law of the land, so I don’t know what more obligation than that there could be,” Lummi Nation Councilmember Lisa Wilson said.
“The guarantees were made back in the 1850s to be sure that we will be able to catch salmon forever,” Troutt said. “Well, apparently, forever ends in 2026.”
The relationship between tribes and the federal government could switch from collaborating on watershed restoration to fighting in the courts.
Tribal and state officials say the federal salmon fund is critical to keep the region’s salmon and orcas from going extinct.
“It really anchors salmon recovery across the West Coast,” said Erik Neatherlin, head of the governor’s Salmon Recovery Office in Washington state.
West Coast states harbor 28 federally threatened and endangered salmon populations.
“What will suffer are the salmon,” Neatherlin said.
And the people who rely on them.