U.S. agency may reverse 8 wildlife decisions
The appointee, Julie A. MacDonald, resigned May 1 as a deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks after an internal review found that she had violated federal rules by giving government documents to lobbyists for industry. The agency's inspector general also found several instances in which she browbeat department biologists and habitat specialists and overruled their recommendations to protect a variety of rare and threatened species.
H. Dale Hall, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said he had asked the agency's regional managers to submit for review cases in which MacDonald may have inappropriately bent the process to fit her political agenda. He winnowed the list to eight instances in which he said he expected that MacDonald's actions would be reversed.
"We wouldn't be doing them if we didn't suspect the decision would be different," Hall said in a telephone conference with journalists. "It's a blemish on the scientific integrity of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of the Interior."
MacDonald did not return a call seeking comment.
MacDonald's actions had sparked an outcry among agency biologists and environmental advocates and led to a series of hearings in Congress on whether the Bush administration was politicizing science.
Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, D-W.Va., chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, said he was pleased that the agency was taking steps to address what he called political meddling in decisions that should be based on impartial scientific study.
"I am heartened to hear that the Department of the Interior is stepping up to the plate to beginning address the 'politics trumps science' ploy endemic throughout this administration," said Rahall. "What we have learned to date raises concerns about political tinkering with science that has affected many endangered species-related decisions — and goodness knows what else — that deserve further scrutiny."
The conflict between science and political ideology has been a recurrent theme in Washington in recent years, with complaints arising from inside and outside the administration about decisions on oil exploration, timber rights, global warming and public health. Just last week, the former surgeon general, Richard H. Carmona, said that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to water down or suppress important public health reports for political considerations.
Environmental advocates said that numerous cases of potential political interference by MacDonald or others in the department were left off the list of decisions to be reviewed. They cited as examples decisions affecting the status of the marbled murrelet, a small sea bird found in the Pacific Northwest; a plan to help speed the spotted owl's recovery; and the habitat of the bull trout.
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