More On The Mix of Politics And Science

[Chris J. Durden]

Bob,
    Thanks for the additional details.
    The whole flap has read like an incident from that brainwashing 
entertainment "The X-Files"! I wonder who is copying whom?
.....................Chris Durden

At 12:26 PM 3/24/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>Greetings:
>
>More info.
>
>Bob Parcelles, Jr.
>Pinellas Park, FL
>
>-------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>Oil and Websites Don't Mix
>by Jeffrey Benner
>Wired Online
>2:00 a.m. Mar. 23, 2001 PST
>
>Like oil and water, politics and science don't mix
>very
>well.
>
>And in the case of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
>
>website, the science
>of ecology got all mucked up when it
>was mixed with the politics of oil drilling.
>
>It all started shortly before President Bush set foot
>in
>the White House,
>when the "transition team" -- which
>included officials representing President Clinton and
>Bush
>-- instructed all
>federal agencies to remove information
>from their websites specifically related to the
>Clinton
>administration and
>its policies.
>
>Since Bush had made opening the refuge to oil
>exploration a
>campaign
>issue -- promising to reverse Clinton's rigid
>protection of the area -- the folks at the Alaska
>branch of
>the Fish and
>Wildlife Service, which oversees the Arctic
>refuge, found themselves in a tough spot.
>
>After all, the department's motto is "to conserve,
>enhance,
>and protect wild
>things on the last frontier."
>
>Complicating matters further was that the memo was
>vague
>and devoid of
>specifics.
>
>Faced with vague instructions to purge the website of
>anything Clinton, a
>duty to protect Alaska's wildlife, and a
>new boss rumored to be hell bent on oil, USFWS Alaska
>public affairs
>representatives Karen Boylan and Bruce
>Woods felt they were walking a fine line without a
>map.
>
>For instance, the website had a letter from former
>Secretary of the Interior
>Bruce Babbitt outlining the
>government's opposition to oil wells in the refuge.
>Then
>there was a section
>dealing with the arctic refuge, which
>provided extensive scientific information to support
>the
>administration's
>position that oil drilling would have a
>disastrous impact on wildlife in the refuge.
>
>The letter from Secretary Babbitt definitely had to
>go. But
>what about the
>analysis of oil's impact on the
>environment? That was a tougher call. Was it a
>political
>treatise, or a
>scientific document?
>
>"Dealing with the change in policy was tough," said
>Boylan,
>who was trained
>as a biologist. "The hardest part is to
>stay with the biological information that communicates
>the
>values of the
>refuge and not get into political territory.
>It's hard. We got into this business because of
>conservation."
>
>A few days before Bush took office, they posted a new
>version of the website
>that attempted to preserve the
>scientific information on the potential impacts of
>drilling, without putting
>the new administration in an awkward
>position. Boylan calls it "Version B." It's roughly
>what
>appears on the
>website now.
>
>"We were looking to get rid of positional documents
>from
>the previous
>administration," Boylan said. "We didn't want
>the department to have to tell us to take things down.
>
>Everyone was
>scrambling to do the right thing."
>
>But after a few days, Boylan and Woods decided that
>perhaps
>they hadn't gone
>far enough. They took down the
>entire section dealing with the potential
>environmental
>impact of oil
>development on the refuge's ecosystem. No
>instructions from anyone prompted this second revision
>
>("Version C"), Boylan
>said.
>
>The next day, acting FWS director Marshall Jones (he
>is
>still in that
>position) called Boylan and Woods from
>Washington. He told them a group called Defenders of
>Wildlife had complained
>about the information on the impact
>of oil exploration getting taken down. By the end of
>the
>conference call,
>they all decided it would be best to revert
>back to "Version B."
>
>"In the scrub of the website, we took out anything
>that
>would be counter to
>new policy," Boylan said. "We were
>trying to be proactive, but we pulled too much. So we
>put
>back most of what
>we pulled. Most is back up there."
>
>Still, when compared with how it appeared before the
>transition began, the
>final version still contains significant
>revisions to the section on oil and gas development.
>
>The Defenders of Wildlife collected screenshots of the
>site
>before and after
>the changes. According to faxed
>copies of these, the version that now appears on the
>website went beyond
>obviously necessary edits like
>removing position statements from Babbitt.
>A summary of a 1987 USFWS study of the environmental
>impact
>of oil
>development on the refuge has been
>removed, although there is still a link (PDF file) to
>the
>study itself.
>Also, unambiguous statements asserting that
>development will impact the environment negatively
>have
>been deleted or
>watered down.
>
>Woods and Boylan defend the revisions. The scientific
>information has been
>preserved, and only interpretations of
>the data have been altered, they said.
>
>"If you pulled up from before and after, you would
>find
>virtually no change
>in the science," Woods said.
>"Statements of opinion were changed."
>
>But a close look at the changes yields examples where
>the
>line between fact
>and opinion, science and politics, is
>tough to see.
>
>For example, the Clinton-era site stated:
>
>"In winter, only about nine million gallons of liquid
>water
>are available in
>the (section of ANWR where development
>is proposed), which is enough to freeze into and
>maintain
>only 10 miles of
>ice roads. Therefore, full exploration ...
>would require a network of permanent gravel pads and
>roads."
>
>That paragraph now reads:
>
>"In winter, only about nine million gallons of liquid
>water
>may be available
>in the entire 1002 Area, which is enough
>to freeze into and maintain only 10 miles of ice
>roads.
>Therefore, full
>development may likely require a network of
>permanent gravel pads and roads."
>
>In both versions, a list of potential impacts of oil
>development on the ANWR
>environment follows. Four of the
>original seven have been edited somehow. Two were
>deleted
>altogether,
>including this one regarding water
>supplies:
>
>"Increased freezing depths of rivers and lakes as a
>result
>of water
>extraction (for ice road and pad construction
>and for oil well reinjection), killing overwintering
>(sic)
>fish and aquatic
>invertebrates."
>
>Confronted with some specific examples of changes,
>Woods
>conceded that the
>editing process had not been easy.
>"The line between opinion and science became fuzzy."
>
>In a speech at the National Energy Summit on March 19,
>
>Secretary of Energy
>Spencer Abraham said the nation
>suffered from an "energy supply crisis." He also
>addressed
>what he called
>"myths" that were blocking an increase in
>supply. Myth number one: "It is impossible to balance
>energy exploration and
>environmental protection."
>
>While it sounds as though minds have already been made
>up
>at the top, Boylan
>and Woods say all they can do is
>try to inform their superiors about what they know
>best:
>wildlife.
>
>"We can just do our best to educate all the
>decision-makers
>in the areas in
>which we have expertise, which are
>biology and ecology," Woods said. "We don't have
>expertise
>in geology."
>
>The way things are going, in four years they will at
>least
>have learned a
>thing or two about politics.
>
>######################################################
>
>
>
>=====
>Bob Parcelles, Jr
>Pinellas Park, FL
>RJP Associates <rjpassociates at yahoo.com>
>rjparcelles at yahoo.com
>http://rainforest.care2.com/welcome?w=976131876
>"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your 
>life."- Confucius
>
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