Ashland ecologist will testify before Congress about science vs. politics

Dominick DellaSala sits on the Spotted Owl Recovery Team

By Paul Fattig

Mail Tribune

May 09, 2007

In testimony before the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee this morning, forest ecologist Dominick DellaSala of Ashland is expected to testify that politics trumped science in the Bush administration when it came to enforcing the Endangered Species Act.

"In the case of the draft (Northern) Spotted Owl recovery plan, science took a back seat to politics," DellaSala concluded in written testimony obtained by the Mail Tribune.

DellaSala, executive director of the National Center for Conservation Science & Policy in Ashland, was a member of the Spotted Owl Recovery Team, whose draft plan was released earlier this month. The owl is listed as threatened under the ESA.

But DellaSala said the original draft plan was derailed by political interference from the Washington Oversight Committee, whose members included Julie McDonald, deputy assistant secretary for parks, fish and wildlife in the U.S. Department of Interior. McDonald resigned May 1 after an Interior Department inspector general's report revealed that she had interfered in scientific decisions at the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service.

During today's hearing in Washington, D.C., the congressional committee chaired by U.S. Rep. Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va., will consider "Endangered Species Act Implementation: Science or Politics?" Oregon U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, is a member of the congressional committee.

Lynn Scarlett, deputy interior secretary and a member of the Washington Oversight Committee, will be one of about a dozen witnesses testifying along with DellaSala.

When the draft spotted owl plan was released late in April, DellaSala publicly expressed his concern about what he perceived as political interference from the oversight committee.

However, Interior Department spokesman Hugh Vickery countered the oversight committee's work was above board. Since the ESA makes the interior secretary responsible for its administration, it was logical for agency leaders to give guidance, he observed.

"There's nothing wrong with that — that's the way our government works," Vickery told The Associated Press at the time.

DellaSala adamantly disagrees, noting that many of the oversight committee's members were political appointees, including Mark Rey, undersecretary of agriculture.

"Examples of interference and manipulation of the Endangered Species Act is pretty deep in this administration," DellaSala said during a telephone interview Tuesday. "It was aimed at giving polluters and the industry more say."

The original draft plan for the spotted owl, an indicator species in Northwest forests, called for fixed habitat reserves but was rejected by the oversight committee because it didn't provide enough "flexibility," according to DellaSala's testimony.

The oversight committee then directed the recovery team and federal agency staff to rewrite the plan and include an alternative that did not rely on fixed habitat reserves, he added. The team was directed not to spend any more time on the original plan because the oversight team preferred the alternative, he stated in his testimony.

"The oversight committee wanted to put a plan in place that is clearly politically motivated rather than science based," DellaSala said. "The process was interfered with by higher-ups in the administration. They wanted to blame the spotted owl's decline on the barred owl."

In the option preferred by the oversight committee, the recovery plan envisions 18 study areas, in which 12 to 32 barred owls would be removed, lured to their deaths by recorded calls and an owl decoy, then shot at close range.

However, the draft plan also includes two different options to conserve blocks of spotted owl habitat. One would identify conservation area boundaries in which most of the recovery actions and criteria would be targeted. The second option would also rely on a network of habitat blocks but it does not identify conservation area boundaries.

But DellaSala reiterated the option preferred by the oversight committee was not a product of the recovery team.

"We repeatedly expressed out opposition to it to the point we felt we were banging our heads against the wall," he said Tuesday. "Julie McDonald was part of the oversight committee until about January. But she was only the tip of the iceberg. There is something deeper going on that involves higher level interference to undermine the Endangered Species Act."

The hearing can be viewed live via Webcast at http://resourcescommittee.house.gov