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From L.A. Times July 10,
2010 L.A.
Times link ...
Scientists expected Obama administration to be friendlier
A culture of politics
trumping science, many say,
persists despite the president's promises. The use of potentially
toxic dispersants to fight the gulf oil spill is cited as just one
example.
Reporting from Washington — When he ran for president,
Barack
Obama attacked the George W. Bush administration for putting
political concerns ahead of science on such issues as climate change
and public health. And during his first weeks in the White House,
President Obama ordered his advisors to develop rules to "guarantee
scientific integrity throughout the executive branch."
Many government scientists hailed the president's
pronouncement.
But a year and a half later, no such rules have been issued. Now
scientists charge that the Obama administration is not doing enough
to reverse a culture that they contend allowed officials to interfere
with their work and limit their ability to speak out.
"We are getting complaints from government scientists
now at
the same rate we were during the Bush administration," said
Jeffrey Ruch, an activist lawyer who heads an organization
representing scientific whistle-blowers.
White House officials, however, said they remained
committed to
protecting science from interference and that proposed guidelines
would be forwarded to Obama in the near future.
But interviews with several scientists — most of whom
requested
anonymity because they feared retaliation in their jobs — as well
as reviews of e-mails provided by Ruch and others show a wide range
of complaints during the Obama presidency:
In Florida, water-quality experts reported government
interference
with efforts to assess damage to the Everglades stemming from
development projects.
In the Pacific Northwest, federal scientists said they
were
pressured to minimize the effects they had documented of dams on
struggling salmon populations.
In several Western states, biologists reported being
pushed to
ignore the effects of overgrazing on federal land.
In Alaska, some oil and gas exploration decisions given
preliminary approval under Bush moved forward under Obama, critics
said, despite previously presented evidence of environmental harm.
The most immediate case of politics allegedly trumping
science,
some government and outside environmental experts said, was the
decision to fight the gulf oil spill with huge quantities of
potentially toxic chemical dispersants despite advice to examine the
dangers more thoroughly.
And the Union of Concerned Scientists, a
Washington-based
organization, said it had received complaints from scientists in key
agencies about the difficulty of speaking out publicly.
"Many of the frustrations scientists had with the last
administration continue currently," said Francesca Grifo, the
organization's director of scientific integrity.
For example, Grifo said, one biologist with a federal
agency in
Maryland complained that his study of public health data was
purposefully disregarded by a manager who is not a scientist. The
biologist, Grifo said, feared expressing his concerns inside and
outside the agency.
Most of the examples provided by Ruch, Grifo and others
come from
scientists who insist on anonymity, making it difficult for agencies
to respond specifically to the complaints. Officials at those
agencies maintain that scientists are allowed and encouraged to speak
out if they believe a policy is at odds with their findings.
The director of the White House Office of Science and
Technology
Policy, John P. Holdren, said in
a statement last month that the president effectively set policy
in his March
2009 memorandum calling for administration-wide scientific
integrity standards.
"There should not be any doubt that these principles
have
been in effect — that is, binding on all executive departments and
agencies," Holdren said, adding that "augmentation of these
principles" will be coming soon.
Still, Grifo said, the volume of the complaints
indicates a real
problem and makes it "vital" that the Obama administration
issue additional instructions. While overall respect for science may
have improved under Obama, several scientists said in interviews that
they were still subject to interference.
Ruch, referring to reports from government scientists in
Alaska,
said that under Bush, the agency that issues oil and gas drilling
leases "routinely prevented scientists from raising ecological
concerns about the effects of oil spills, introduction of invasive
species, and any other issue that might trigger the need for fuller
environmental review."
In keeping the Bush Interior Department managers and
policies in
place, Ruch said, Obama appointees have "turned a blind eye
toward federal court rulings that said Bush-era lease reviews were
environmentally deficient, as well as a GAO report documenting how
agency scientists were routinely stifled and ignored."
Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman at the Interior
Department,
disagreed with Ruch's assertion, saying that Interior Secretary Ken
Salazar "has made it very clear that decisions will be made
based on a cautious, science-based approach."
Ruch's organization, Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility, also said it had been contacted by an EPA
toxicologist who said a request for review of the toxicity of oil
dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico was rebuffed.
EPA analyst Hugh B. Kaufman, a 39-year veteran, said he
had heard
similar complaints from colleagues. Kaufman believes that his agency
"gave the green light to using dispersants without doing the
necessary studies."
A past EPA administrator, William Reilly, said in an
interview
with CBS last month that he had refused to allow the toxic chemicals'
use after the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off the coast of Alaska
because of the potential effect on salmon.
Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, who has
proposed
legislation to prohibit dispersant use until further scientific
studies are completed, said the EPA "has been entirely
irresponsible" in its review of dispersants.
In May, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson acknowledged that
dispersants could be problematic, but that "they are used to
move us toward the lesser of two difficult environmental outcomes."
EPA Press Secretary Adora Andy said, "The data we have
seen
to date indicate that dispersant is less toxic than oil."
"If the science indicates dispersants are causing more
damage
than they're preventing, [Jackson] will be the first to sound the
alarm," Andy said.
White House officials say the administration's
commitment to
science has not wavered.
"It is important to appreciate that this administration
has
made scientific integrity a priority from Day One — in the people
we've appointed, the policies we've adopted, the budgets we've
proposed, and the processes we follow," says Rick Weiss, an
analyst and spokesman for the Office of Science and Technology
Policy.
White House science advisor Holdren told the House
Science and
Technology Committee in February that his office had been delayed in
releasing its guidelines on scientific integrity due to "the
difficulties of constructing a set of guidelines that would be
applicable across all the agencies and accepted by all concerned."
Scientists and environmental groups have lauded Obama
for
appointing highly regarded scientists to top posts within the
administration. But so far, critics said, those appointments have not
eliminated the problems faced by lower-level government scientists.
For example, Ruch said, he has been contacted by two
federal
scientists who charged that their efforts to implement stricter
water-quality rules had been suppressed.
In the Pacific Northwest, Ruch said, his organization
has heard in
the last 16 months from multiple federal fisheries biologists who
report that they are under pressure to downplay the impact of dams on
wild salmon.
And in Western states, federal biologists report that
they are
under pressure not to disclose the full impact of cattle grazing on
federal lands, according to Ruch's group and others.
Katie Fite of the Western Watersheds Project, an
organization that
monitors grazing, backs those allegations. Fite said that scientists
had complained to her that "all of the incentives are geared to
support grazing and energy development," which could adversely
affect plants and other animals.
"Basically, science is still being scuttled," Fite said.
"We are heartbroken."
Most critics said they were disappointed that protection
of
science and scientists did not become more of a priority after the
election.
Eric Glitzenstein, a Washington attorney who has filed
suit to
block projects approved by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Fish and
Wildlife Service and other agencies, said he had expected the culture
to change under Obama.
"The administration's been in long enough that if that
was
going to happen, we should have seen it by now," he said. "We
simply haven't."
tom.hamburger@latimes.com
kim.geiger@latimes.com
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