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The House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing today to examine the Bush administration’s interference with agency science. Recent months have exposed a pattern of political interference with science affecting the nation’s threatened and endangered wildlife. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has recently begun a review of endangered species decisions made by Interior Department official Julie MacDonald, who resigned in April after she was caught tampering with documents and pressuring agency scientists. Now Congress is investigating evidence that Vice President Dick Cheney interfered with water decisions in California and Oregon that resulted in the death of thousands of threatened salmon and led to the shutdown of a commercial fishery in 2002. Statement of Sean Cosgrove, Sierra Club Senior Representative On the Natural Resources Committee Hearing on "Crisis of Confidence: The Political Influence of the Bush Administration on Agency Science and Decision-Making"
"The closed-door decision making at the Interior Department needs to stop. Political interference with science harms people as well as wildlife. The White House’s meddling didn’t just kill 70,000 salmon, it hurt native tribes and fishermen." "Time and again the Bush Administration has intervened with a political agenda that has pushed many species closer to the brink of extinction. We can’t leave endangered species protections to the whims of political appointees like Julie MacDonald." "We have never needed strong Endangered Species regulations more than we do today. In every corner of America, wildlife face the looming threat of global warming. Polar bears are struggling to hunt because of disappearing sea ice, and in Yellowstone National Park, grizzly bears are watching their food sources disappear. The Administration should stop its attacks on the Endangered Species Act and ensure that agency professionals can do their jobs and protect our wildlife." "The Endangered Species Act works. We have three decades of success stories to prove it. Ninety-nine percent of fish and wildlife protected under the Endangered Species Act have been saved from extinction. Without these regulations, wildlife like the bald eagle would have gone extinct years ago." ### |
