Senate Favors Salmon, Timber Aid

The Senate on Thursday sent to the House a measure to renew financial and education aid for hard-hit timber workers and to extend it to out-of-work salmon fishermen.

The bill, SB5342, was passed unanimously, but its outlook in the House is uncertain. A similar measure died in the House Appropriations Committee.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Sid Snyder, D-Long Beach, would reauthorize existing programs for job training while ex-workers are collecting unemployment benefits; family assistance such as food, medical care and mortgage help; and funding for public works projects that would help timber and salmon-fishing economies.

The programs were created in 1991 by then-Gov. Booth Gardner.