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Junkie
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I decided to move over to environment, and picked the first item from the chart, “B” for Bull Trout.
Here is what the Union of Concerned Scientists says:
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Officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service censored an analysis of the economics of protecting the bull trout, a threatened trout species in the Pacific Northwest, publishing only the costs associated with protecting the species and deleting the report's section analyzing the economic benefits. Furthermore, while the benefits of protecting the bull trout were deleted from the economic analysis, the costs associated with this species' protection were inflated.80 An exaggerated cost analysis and a deleted benefits analysis essentially give the FWS the economic justification, under the ESA, to disregard scientific information when designating critical habitat for the endangered bull trout. 81
As part of a 2003 court settlement, the FWS was ordered to develop a plan designating critical habitat in the Pacific Northwest for bull trout,82 which has been listed as a threatened species under the ESA since 1998. In conjunction with this effort, the FWS contracted Bioeconomics Inc., a Missoula, Montana-based consulting firm, to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of bull trout recovery in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana.
The firm's peer-reviewed research determined that protecting bull trout and its habitat in the Columbia and Klamath river basins will cost $230 million to $300 million over the next decade, costs associated with adverse effects upon hydropower, logging, and highway construction. The study also reported $215 million in economic benefits associated with a restored bull trout fishery.83
When officials at the FWS released the report, however, they deleted 55 pages of the analysis outlining the economic benefits of bull trout recovery.84 The censorship spurred an anonymous FWS employee to leak a copy of the deleted chapter to a Montana-based environmental group, which then released it to The Missoulian, a Montana daily newspaper. Upon questioning from the press, Diane Katzenberger, an information officer in the FWS regional office in Denver, told a reporter that the censorship did not occur in either the Denver or Portland regional FWS offices but rather "was a policy decision made at the Washington level."85
Chris Nolin, chief of the division of conservation and classification in the Washington, DC FWS office, told the press that the benefits analysis was cut because its methodology was discouraged by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).86
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http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_int...ans.html#Trout
The bottom line is that FWS failed to include where they did not include offsetting benefits to the inflated cost estimates of protecting Bull Trout. The benefit information cut used a methodology discouraged by OMB according to Chris Nolin at FWS. The Union of Concerned Scientists doesn’t comment on the methodology, but they do say the Bush administration use the same methodology in a different instance. What we don’t have is any objective argument explaining the conclusion that the costs were inflated or any objective support for the inclusion of the benefit analysis. However, what we do have is what FWS actually did:
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Complying with a court order, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced its final rule designating approximately 3,828 miles of streams and 143,218 acres of lakes and reservoirs in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana as critical habitat for the bull trout, a threatened species protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In Washington, 985 miles of marine shoreline also are being designated.
The final designation is based on the best scientific and economic information and recognizes the conservation efforts of states, tribes, agencies and landowners. It covers only areas that are occupied by bull trout and that contain physical and biological features considered essential to the conservation of the species.
As a result of the extensive public comments we received, and peer review, we found there are many areas that already have conservation efforts in place and do not need to be designated, said Dave Allen, regional director of the Service's Pacific Region.
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http://www.fws.gov/feature/269BCB5A-...54C2D914A.html
In order to believe that the Administration has manipulated this issue, we have to believe that the people at FWS manipulated and inflated data on behalf of the Administration, and that the methodology for benefit analysis concerns by OMB were made up for the purpose to mislead people on this issue. And further you have to conclude with this manipulation of data and a conspiracy involving multiple departments and people they were ineffective given what FWS actually did.
Also we have this question answered by FWS:
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Q. Why is the Service designating critical habitat?
In January 2002, the Service and the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Friends of the Wild Swan reached a court settlement establishing a schedule for the proposal of critical habitat for bull trout. The two environmental groups sued the Service for not designating critical habitat after listing bull trout in 1999 as threatened throughout its range in the lower 48 U.S. states. At the time, the Service had been unable to complete critical habitat determinations because of budget constraints.
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http://www.fws.gov/pacific/bulltrout...ised100605.pdf
It appears this issue was on the table prior to Bush. There is data showing the Bull Trout issue is over 17 years old.
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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."
Last edited by aceventura3; 07-18-2007 at 10:51 AM..
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