yer vermillion flycatcher is no match fer my *science*

[Guest guest]

" Sound Science " Movement Threatens Endangered Species Act

 

Long-time opponents of the Endangered Species Act -- perhaps the most

efficacious, far-reaching environmental legislation in U.S. history

-- are back under a new guise. A movement to add " sound science "

provisions to the act, while it sounds innocuous, actually threatens

to paralyze enforcement. Inspired by a preliminary National Research

Council report on the decision to shut off Klamath River Basin flows

during a 2001 drought to protect endangered fish (the report

concluded that there was not " sufficient scientific evidence " to

support the decision), ESA opponents, led by Rep. Greg Walden

(R-Ore.), have introduced amendments to the act that emphasize " field

research " and " empirical data. " The real motivation, say enviros and

scientists, is to exclude population modeling, upon which most

species science is based, and thus cripple ESA decision-making. The

authors of the NRC report are among the many scientists decrying the

proposed changes to the act; they claim their preliminary report was

wildly misinterpreted by folks with a political axe to grind.

 

straight to the source: Legal Affairs, Chris Mooney, May/June 2004

<http://www.gristmagazine.com/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=2342>