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For Immediate Release
Scientists Express Concern About Bush Administration's Environmental Policies in the State of California
CALIFORNIA -- Today, 43 scientists, ecologists, and conservation biologists delivered a letter to President Bush expressing concern about the Bush Administration's environmental policies in the State of California their disregard for scientific principles, and their suppression of scientific information.
"The Bush Administration is putting forth regulations, plans, and policies which significantly reduce the role of science in resource management and weaken protection for California's water, forests, deserts, plants and wildlife. These initiatives are likely to damage, not only the environment, but also the economy, public health, and quality of life in our state," declared Anne Ehrlich, Associate Director, Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University.
The scientists’ letter focused on four issues affecting California:
- In the Sierra Nevada, the Bush Administration has proposed major changes to the Sierra Framework, a science based management plan for 10 million acres of national forests developed by a team of more than 100 scientists. The "revised" Bush Framework junks the scientists’ plan in favor of a new developed by a five person team of non-scientists that will increase logging, grazing, and roadbuilding beyond sustainable levels, and will weaken or remove science based management standards.
- In the California Desert, the Bush Administration has relied on poor science to drastically weaken resource conservation on millions of acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The Bush administration plan relies primarily on information from a report by an industry-funded consultant that received no independent scientific review.
- California Water Quality: Despite the Bush Administration’s Earth Day announcement of a new commitment to protection wetlands, the Administration has continued to operate under a new policy "Guidance," issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, which has, in effect, withdrawn Clean Water Act (CWA) protection from 30-60% of the nation’s wetlands, streams and other waters, allowing them to be filled or polluted without a permit.
- The Bush Administration’s management of the federal Klamath Water Project has ignored decades of sound science, with disastrous results. In September 2002, the Bush administration reduced water flows much that more than 33,000 salmon died in the worst fish kill in U.S. history.
"The assault on good science and our environment must stop. That is why we have sent this letter to President Bush. He must fulfill his pledge that science would guide Administration decisions. It is only when we use the best scientific knowledge to guide natural resource management that we will be able to protect our nation's irreplaceable natural heritage for future generations, stated Barry Noon, Professor, Dept. of Fishery and Wildlife Biology, Colorado State University. Dr. Noon has worked on California wildlife and forestry issues for more than two decades.
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