Here’s yet ANOTHER charge that the Bush administration has changed scientific data to make sure its policies are put in place and negative info is downplayed or simply disappears:
The Bush administration altered critical portions of a scientific analysis of the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands before announcing Thursday that it would relax regulations limiting grazing on those lands, according to scientists involved in the study.
A government biologist and a hydrologist, who both retired this year from the Bureau of Land Management, said their conclusions that the proposed new rules might adversely affect water quality and wildlife, including endangered species, were excised and replaced with language justifying less stringent regulations favored by cattle ranchers.
The cases we’re seeing are truly unprecedented in the history of this country. MORE:
Grazing regulations, which affect 160 million acres of public land in the Western U.S., set the conditions under which ranchers may use that land, and guide government managers in determining how many cattle may graze, where and for how long without harming natural resources.
The original draft of the environmental analysis warned that the new rules would have a “significant adverse impact” on wildlife, but that phrase was removed. The bureau now concludes that the grazing regulations are “beneficial to animals.”
Governments are supposed to be stewards for public good. If scientists reach a conclusion and it is not just removed but apparently MISREPRESENTED isn’t that one of the gravest violations imaginable? MORE:
Eliminated from the final draft was another conclusion that read: “The Proposed Action will have a slow, long-term adverse impact on wildlife and biological diversity in general.”
Also removed was language saying how a number of the rule changes could adversely affect endangered species.
“This is a whitewash. They took all of our science and reversed it 180 degrees,” said Erick Campbell, a former BLM state biologist in Nevada and a 30-year bureau employee who retired this year. He was the author of sections of the report pertaining to the effect on wildlife and threatened and endangered species.
“They rewrote everything,” Campbell said in an interview this week. “It’s a crime.”
The official response is predictable:
A bureau official acknowledged that changes were made in the analysis and said they were part of a standard editing and review process. Ranchers hailed the regulations as a signal of new openness from the administration.
“We’re hopeful that some of the provisions will strengthen the public lands grazing industry and give our members certainty in their business,” said Jenni Beck of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Assn. “We are encouraged that this [environmental impact statement] demonstrates the benefits of grazing on public lands.”
Interesting but:
- Unless the news media was 100 percent negligent all these years, until this adminstration took over we have not heard so many allegations of scientific conclusions being downplayed, re-written or edited out. The tradition in our country has been to accept scientific conclusions and adjust policy to IT — not eliminate scientific conclusions that don’t fit a preconceived policy. So if this is indeed “standard” review then it is “standard” under this administration and has not been under others.
- The Cattlemen are praising an environmental impact statement that apparently did NOT originally just detail the benefits of grazing on public lands. The actual conclusions of the scientists were actually stated as being the opposite or downplayed. What they’re praising is a rigged report.
THIS REPUBLICAN must be turning over in his grave.
PS: That Republican linked above once said this:“In utilizing and conserving the natural resources of the Nation, the one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight…. The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.