Editorial: Scientific data tainted

Sunday, Dec. 2, 2007 | 1:14 a.m.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reviewing seven of its recent decisions on threatened species because agency officials say they were "inappropriately influenced" by a high-ranking Interior Department official.

That official, Julie MacDonald, resigned as interior deputy secretary in May after the department's inspector general found that she routinely pressured Fish and Wildlife Service biologists to alter scientific reports.

Now that more has been revealed about MacDonald's time at the agency - one scientist called it a "reign of terror" - a reassessment and possibly even reversals of decisions are under way regarding protections for such species as the Gunnison sage grouse and the white-tailed prairie dog.

In a letter to Rep. Nick Rahall II, D-W.V., chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources, Kenneth Stansell, the Fish and Wildlife Service acting director, said revising the decisions "is supported by scientific evidence and the proper legal standards."

The animals under consideration for protection all live in areas of the West in which cattle ranching or oil and gas drilling occurs. The Bush administration's efforts to increase drilling and grazing activities likely would be curtailed if species dwelling in the region were listed as threatened or endangered.

MacDonald, appointed to the deputy interior secretary's post in 2004, had repeatedly refused to accept - and even ridiculed - her scientific staff's recommendations regarding several species, including the grouse and the prairie dog, which scientists said were on the brink of extinction. In one instance, she demanded that biologists reduce the habitat range of an endangered bird - which, coincidentally, overlapped California land owned by her husband's family.

Subverting scientific data in order to favor industry interests is an ongoing and tiresome theme with the Bush administration. Nevadans still are fighting the results of political pressure concerning a proposed high-level nuclear waste facility at Yucca Mountain, including the falsifying of scientific geological data. We certainly hope the insidious meddling that has thrived under Bush stops with the next White House administration.