Lawmakers miss salmon opportunity

The legislative session is over, and it had the potential to be very positive for salmon recovery. There was bipartisan support for habitat restoration. Legislators also had a huge amount of money to allocate because the tax on CO2 emissions generated far more money than anticipated.

Despite that, the Legislature failed to make significant progress on salmon. It is one more wasted opportunity to protect an iconic state species.

The most glaring example of the failure is in the supplemental operating budget, where legislators added about $2.1 billion in new spending. Of that amount, only $1.4 m...