An agency that conducts environmental oversight on federally-owned land secretly relaxed standards used in policy-making, according to a non-profit watchdog.
The Department of the Interior last week announced changes to its guidelines on scientific integrity without a review or public comment period. According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Director Jeff Ruch, the revisions mean that the department’s “use of science will remain politicized”
Under the old rules, he told The Sentinel, “managers could be held to account for making alterations to technical documents for non-technical reasons.”
“The new rules make the likelihood of calling the department on those changes more and more unlikely,” he said.
Ruch was particularly unhappy about the quiet manner through which the rules were formulated.
“The process Interior employed suggests that it should consider substituting the bison in its symbol with a weasel,” he said.
The changes, PEER stated in a press release, narrow the definition of scientific misconduct to “plagiarism, fraud and fabrication,” and classify politically motivated manipulation of science as “loss of scientific integrity.” They also forbid scientific reviews from recommending punishment for wrongdoing and force them to submit “adverse finding” to in-house counsel.
Additionally, the new guidelines give department managers the right to personally select officials in charge of investigations. Ruch argued that this brings the entire review process into disrepute.
“Are the gonna pick Sherlock Holmes or Inspector Clouseau?” he asked.
The rules were first adopted in 2011, about two years after President Obama issued an executive order forcing agencies to deliberate based on “the soundest science.” The Department of the Interior, under President Bush, had been plagued by politically-motivated rulings, including a last-minute decision to auction off rights to drill for oil and gas in prized National Park land (the sale was cancelled almost immediately by the Obama administration after the president’s inauguration). Career scientists routinely feuded with Bush appointees over a range of issues including “whether the federal government should allow California to regulate tailpipe emissions from automobiles and how best to prevent imperiled species from disappearing altogether,” the Washington Post reported.
But even the 2011 guidelines have proven to be a flashpoint for controversy. Ruch said that all but two of 27 complaints pertaining to scientific integrity were casually dismissed by Interior, and the ones that were upheld didn’t result in punishment for those behind the manipulation.
In one case, reported by Mother Jones, a department scientist named Paul Hauser (who was represented by PEER) only filed a complaint after he was allegedly fired for disputing the science, or lack thereof, behind a decision to remove a hydroelectric dam. Although he settled with the department over his dismissal in December 2012 and a review found that the scientific accuracy informing the dam decision was inaccurate, the complaint was ruled without merit on the grounds that the misrepresentation was not “deliberate.”
Ruch said that the new guidelines continue to leave the Department of the Interior open to lawsuits from environmentalist groups who have to demonstrate that the federal government’s use of data is “capricious.”
“This effects everything from insects, to wolves, to oil and gas,” he said. “You name it.”
An official with the Union of Concerned Scientists, however, praised the Department of Interior’s new guidelines, calling them “simplified, streamlined, and clear.”
In a Dec. 17 press release announcing the changes, the department declared that the rules will “ensure that all Interior employees and contractors uphold the principles of scientific integrity and that the Department thoroughly reviews alleged breaches of the policy while protecting workers.”
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the initiative was “an updated, strengthened policy to broaden, clarify and underscore our commitment to sound science and to reflect enhancements based on three years of experience with the current policy.”
