The Washington Post this morning ran a great story detailing the way in which a high-level Bush appointee at the U.S. Department of Interior, Julie MacDonald, repeatedly reversed key decisions made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect highly endangered wildlife species like the Gunnison sage grouse and white-tailed prairie dog.  We’ve been working on the issue for months, along with Union of Concerned Scientists and a bunch of other partners, digging up the many documents showing her intervention in what are required by law to be strictly biological decisions.  The Department of Interior’s Inspector General has apparently already begun an internal investigation, and I’m especially pleased that Congressman Rahall (D-WV) is calling for Congressional hearings.

It’s also fun to see that the bloggers have already started running with the story. Corrente ("More Interior Department Shenannigans: Endangered Species Edition"), Copeland Institute for Lower Learning ("It isn't just rights that are endangered under Dubya"), and Take it Personally ("No warm, fluffy-bunny sentimentality for Bushco") all focused on the obvious problems with a Bush political appointee – not a scientist – overturning what are absolutely required to be scientific decisions.

We've got the documents showing MacDonald's illegal political interference on the white-tailed prairie dog posted on our web site, and you can visit the Union of Concerned Scientists to see a bunch of documents showing the same on a bunch of other species.

So how do we fix this?  Let's start with Julie MacDonald.  She was way over the line, repeatedly, and ought to be dismissed.  The Congressional hearings that Representative Rahall is calling for would be a great follow up as well.  The new Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne should also immediately fix all the tainted decisions - including white-tailed prairie dog, Gunnison sage grouse, and a bunch of others - and let the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service do its job.  Finally, Kempthrone needs to step up and fix the underlying problem, which is the administration's culture of suppressing science for political purposes.