A politically charged decision that left a Texas lizard off the endangered species list has exposed blatant disregard for science at the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), as well as a culture of whistleblower retaliation.
Testimony published on Wednesday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) shows how supervisors at the FWS bowed to political and industry pressure, bullied employees into abandoning their scientific employees, and punished those who refused to remain silent.
Rick Coleman, a former Scientific Integrity Officer at FWS testified that after the decision was made, a supervisor called a meeting in which he “congratulated [the staff] for essentially getting this over the finish line without having to list the lizard.”
“There was no way we were going to list a lizard in the middle of oil country during an election year,” the supervisor said, according to Coleman’s testimony.
“My jaw just about hit the ground, because that to me showed that that was a pre-decisional determination on his part, and they did not want to list that lizard and they were going to make sure that they found a way not to,” Coleman added.
The feud started at the state level, the sworn statements show, Gary Mowad, a 28-year-veteran and high-ranking FWS official was pressured by the Texas State Comptroller while preparing to recommend placing the animal–the dune sagebrush lizard–on the endangered species list.
“You need to understand you work for us, you know, we in Texas got your position funded, that’s why your position exists, and your job is to make sure we get what we want,” Mowad recalled being told by state officials.
At one point, after Mowad refused to rely on what he described as a “problematic” scientific model to justify not including the lizard on the endangered spices list, he said he was told by state officials that he is “making [himself] look bad,” and that his supervisor, Joy Nicholopoulus, the Deputy Regional Director, would be notified.
“They were using their unrestricted and unbridled access to get what they wanted, and they were using their access to her to essentially overrule the sound science that my staff was using and that I was using,” Mowad said.
After the decision to leave the lizard unprotected was made, Mowad went to higher-ups at FWS and voiced concerns about the integrity of scientific research used by the agency during deliberations. Subsequently, he was reassigned from his post in Austin to a different position in Albuquerque, N.M. that left him with few responsibilities or influence—a move he interpreted as being retaliatory, in nature.
A Whistleblower Ombudsman with the Interior Department’s inspector general office agreed with Mowad. However, transcripts from the complaint hearing before the US Merit Systems Protection Board last August showed that despite the IG’s findings, FWS “didn’t take any steps to punish those who were found to have committed misconduct and had lost their integrity.”
Mary Ann Garvey, the presiding judge concluded that there is a “history” within FWS whereby “whistleblowing retaliation is tolerated or even condoned.”
“Apparently someone got promoted or something good happened to them after they retaliated,” she added.
A number of scientists working at FWS are represented by PEER. The group’s Executive Director Jeff Ruch reacted to the released testimony by saying that “political skewing of science in today’s Fish & Wildlife Service is just as rife and blatant as it was during the darkest days of the Bush years.”
He then implicated the highest-ranking officials at the agency.
“The Service’s entrenched culture of corruption persists with the full knowledge and blessing of Director Dan Ashe,” Ruch said.
PEER also has said that it only expects more politically-motivated environmental regulations to crop up this year. In December as The Sentinel reported, the group accused the Department of the Interior of quietly weakening its scientific integrity standards, whistleblower protections and the rigor of internal investigations in response to employee charges of deliberately unscientific decision-making.
