For Immediate Release / Contact: Tom Kiley or Daniel Weiss
Audit Questions "Integrity" of Federal
Water Policy in California
Representative Miller Says this is Another Example
of Bush Administration Manipulating Science for Political Purposes
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A federal audit has found that the Bush Administration violated standard procedures and compromised the integrity of a fundamental biological opinion last fall that has significant consequence for the health of California’s salmon and steelhead populations, and that formed the basis for renewing long-term water contracts with some of California’s wealthiest agricultural water users.
The audit, performed by the Inspector General of the Department of Commerce, calls into question the soundness of a long-term federal plan to manage California’s complex water systems, including the legitimacy of the renewal of approximately 200 water contracts, worth tens of millions of dollars over the next 25 to 40 years.
The report also comes at a time when the San Francisco Bay Delta is thought to be experiencing its worst environmental crisis in history. The water contracts that were signed based on the now discredited opinion could result in even more water being pumped out of the Delta to agricultural users and thereby further undermine the ecosystem’s health.
The pumping has major consequences for California’s fisheries, as water taken out of the Delta for agriculture means less water available for endangered and threatened salmon and other fish runs in the state’s rivers.
“This report is extremely disturbing, and for two separate reasons,” said Representative George Miller (D-CA), a leading expert in Congress on California water policy. The IG report was initiated at the request of Miller and 18 other members of Congress in October 2004 following reported discrepancies between the draft and final versions of the biological opinion.
“The report calls into serious question the Bush Administration’s decision to rush important water policy decisions last year. Water in California has an enormous ramifications on the health of our state’s economy and environment from north to south, and the integrity of those policy decisions is now in doubt,” Miller said.
“The opinion that is now in question was intended to provide the environmental baseline data for the operation of the Central Valley Project in order to determine what impacts proposed changes to the management of the CVP would have on California’s critical fish populations and whether those changes would harm the Bay-Delta. The question is whether California’s endangered salmon are going to be wiped out by this Bush Administration policy. But the Administration chose not to have an honest and thorough review of that and other critical issues and as a result the entire federal plan for the management of California’s water is called into question.
“In addition,” Miller said, “the report provides more evidence of the Administration using politics, not sound science, to guide the most delicate decisions when powerful special interests are involved, despite the Administration’s own declarations that science would guide their decisions on energy and environmental policy.”
The IG found that flawed procedures used to formulate the October 22, 2004 biological opinion from the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, raise “questions about the integrity . . . of the [biological] opinion.” Specifically, the report found that numerous officials who should have reviewed the department’s report were not given the report for review. One official who was skipped over told the IG she would not have approved the final report because the science did not match the conclusions.
The IG report comes on the heels of a survey released two weeks ago by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group, that found that 58 percent of NOAA Fisheries scientists were aware of cases where Commerce Department political appointees or high-ranking managers had “inappropriately altered NOAA Fisheries determinations.”
“This water policy process has already generated litigation, and important policy and legal questions were raised even before the biological opinion was released. This report only furthers concerns that the integrity and legitimacy of federal water management in California is severely compromised,” said Miller.
Miller, a member and former chairman of the House Resources Committee and the author of the historic Central Valley Project Improvement Act of 1992, called for immediate action in response to the IG report.
Miller cited these possible actions:
The Commerce Department should rescind the defective biological opinion and begin a new process with the Bureau of Reclamation. This time the agencies must conduct a thorough review of the impacts, based on all now data available. In addition, they need to get the Cal-Fed science panel to weigh in on all of the interrelated problems raised by this biological opinion.
The Bureau of Reclamation should set aside all actions based on the defective opinion, and delay any future actions until the consultation is complete.
And in light of the new physical evidence of the Delta's decline, and Cal-Fed’s serious organizational challenges, state and federal agencies need to come together to ensure that the numerous proposed long-term actions do not undermine Cal-Fed goals, including its environmental aims.
To see the lawmakers’ original request for an investigation from October 2004, please visit: http://www.house.gov/georgemiller/press/rel10804.html.
A copy of the IG’s report can be found here: http://www.house.gov/georgemiller/newweb/OIG_Report.pdf. (pdf file)
Additional background information is below.
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BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT AND INSPECTOR GENERAL’S AUDIT
California’s Central Valley Project (CVP) is one of the largest water projects in the country, moving trillions of gallons of water throughout the state. Managed by the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the CVP diverts much of the natural inflow into the San Francisco Bay-Delta to agricultural, industrial, and urban consumers mostly in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.
The Bureau has been finalizing a long-term operating plan for the management of the CVP in coordination with the operations of California’s State Water Project; this operating plan encompasses a number of other water policy decisions, including the recently-signed water service contracts that guarantee the state’s water to designated users for decades into the future. According to the Bureau of Reclamation, those contracts serve an area from Redding to Bakersfield, and account for approximately 5.6 million acre-feet of water annually. An acre-foot is about 325,000 gallons.
As this plan (the “Long-Term Central Valley Project Operations Criteria and Plan,” or OCAP) may have major implications for endangered salmon and other species, the Bureau was legally required to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) on the plan’s impacts.
In October 2004, NMFS released a biological opinion on the CVP-OCAP stating that the water plan would not jeopardize the continued existence of endangered and threatened salmon and steelhead. The opinion caused controversy because a leaked draft came to the opposite opinion; because of this conflict between draft and final, Congressman Miller and 18 other members of Congress asked the Commerce Department’s Inspector General to investigate. Based on that opinion, the Bureau has since signed water contracts with about 200 water districts and water contractors; NMFS stated that these contracts’ impacts on endangered fish “were previously analyzed” and therefore an opinion about each individual contract was not needed.
The Inspector General has now released its final audit of the biological opinion, which raises serious concerns. Among other things, the Inspector General determined that the agency did not follow its internal procedures. The Inspector General said “. . . the process used by NMFS in this instance understandably raises questions about the integrity of the OCAP opinion.” Additionally, the Inspector General found that:
The NMFS southwest regional office deviated from the agency’s established Endangered Species Act process by initiating its review without first receiving sufficient information from the Bureau of Reclamation. There is no indication that NMFS ever received sufficient information to make its “no jeopardy” determination.
The regional Endangered Species Act coordinator did not clear the OCAP opinion, and stated that she would not have done so if given the opportunity, due to her belief that there is a basic disconnect between the scientific analysis and the conclusion.
The Office of General Counsel did not clear the OCAP opinion even though that office is supposed to review highly controversial or politically sensitive opinions to ensure that they comply with pertinent laws, such as the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedures Act.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S POLITICIZATION OF SCIENCE
The audit issued this week by the Inspector General at the Department of Commerce – which found that the Bush Administration violated standard procedures and compromised the integrity of a fundamental biological opinion last fall – is just the latest example of how the Bush Administration manipulates science to achieve its political goals, instead of seeking the best possible scientific analysis to inform good public policy, as the Administration claims it does.
Ø The Administration says it puts science first.
“When we make decisions, we want to make sure we do so on sound science; not what sounds good, but what is real.” [President Bush, February 14, 2002]
“. . . I can assure you that this is an Administration that makes decisions based on the best available science.” [White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, February 18, 2004]
“. . . the facts are that our policies and our reports are based on the best available science . . .” [McClellan, June 8, 2005]
Ø The evidence says the Administration puts politics first.
“. . . scientists at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service report that agency science is suffering under political manipulation and inappropriate influence of special interests. According to the survey released today [of 460 NOAA Fisheries scientists] by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the agency is increasingly unable to carry out its charge of protecting imperiled fish, seal and whale populations from extinction . . . A strong majority (58 percent) said they know of cases in which high-level Commerce Department appointees or managers ‘have inappropriately altered NOAA Fisheries determinations . . . ‘ [Press release, Union of Concerned Scientists, June 28, 2005]
“The Bush Administration altered critical portions of a scientific analysis of the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands before announcing Thursday that it would relax regulations limiting grazing on those lands, according to scientists involved in the study . . . A government biologist and a hydrologist, who both retired this year from the Bureau of Land Management, said their conclusions that the proposed new rules might adversely affect water quality and wildlife, including endangered species, were excised and replaced with language justifying less stringent regulations favored by cattle ranchers.” [Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2005]
“A White House official who once led the oil industry’s fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents . . . the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists . . . had already approved.” [New York Times, June 8, 2005]
“Political intervention to alter scientific results has become pervasive within the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), according to a survey of its scientists released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) . . . Nearly half of all respondents whose work is related to endangered species scientific findings (44 percent) reported that they "have been directed, for non-scientific reasons, to refrain from making jeopardy or other findings that are protective of species." One in five agency scientists revealed they have been instructed to compromise their scientific integrity-reporting that they have been ‘directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information from a USFWS scientific document . . .’” [Press release, Union of Concerned Scientists, February 9, 2005]
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