U.S. District Judge James Redden has choreographed his Portland hearing Monday on the Obama administration’s salmon and dam plan right down to the introductions.

You might remember that Redden changed the date of the hearing so Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could be there. Hearings like this don’t have testimony so there is no obvious way for her to interact with the judge. But in a second letter to attorneys laying out some new questions about the substance of the case, Redden asked the federal attorneys to introduce their clients and to briefly outline the Adaptive Management Implementation Plan the Obama administration offered in September as a sort of addendum to the biological opinion that is the subject of he suit.

This may be Lubchenco’s moment.

Redden also laid out new questions for both sides. Can the federal government modify its biological opinion at any time? Can Oregon, the Nez Perce environmentalists and fishermen acknowledge any improvements in the federal adaptive management plan? Do they have further suggestions?

Then he gets tougher: “Federal Defendants claim that if Early Warning Indicators or Significant Decline Triggers are tripped, they will implement "on-the-shelf' rapid response actions that will provide immediate benefit to the species. What are those actions? In light of the Endangered Species Act ("ESA") mandate that the agencies give first priority to the species, why not implement those measures now?”

Then he refers to documents the Obama administration has presented to him but not the plaintiffs and not the public, which I believe is the report of an independent science panel that analyzed the plan. I have been told that the science team gave the plan high marks.

I have asked for, I but so far the federal agencies have been unwilling to give it to me' on advice of the U.S. Department of Justice. Here’s what Redden asked in his Nov. 18 letter:

“How can the court properly evaluate whether Federal Defendants did in fact use the best available science when they refuse to disclose the "science" that was used to develop the Adaptive Management Implementation Plan? How do Federal Defendants justify withholding those documents?”

I want to know too?

He ends the letter on a high note for the federal government but not the Bush administration, which had taken the process in a whole different direction.

“We have come a long way since the 2004 BiOp. In many ways, we have come full circle.
Federal Defendants have finally made a good faith effort to address the flaws in the 2000 BiOp; they deserve credit for working with local, tribal, and state entities to attempt to ensure that this BiOp's tributary and estuary habitat mitigation measures are reasonably certain to occur. Federal Defendants can do more to ensure that those habitat actions are reasonably certain to result in the predicted benefits. The AMIP suggests that they agree.

After we discuss whether the AMIP is properly before the court, I want the parties to
focus on its positive attributes, and suggest additional measures to further improve the BiOp (through negotiation, or the appropriate procedural avenues)."

As always Redden would prefer that all the parties reach a settlement instead of forcing him to order the region to take the steps necessary. We’ll see soon whether those steps lead to more delays, a path to a solution or perhaps his approval of the plan.