Gray Wolves:
When does science end and policymaking begin?
15 Mar 2009 in Regulatory Science, Regulatory Policy, Information Quality
Washington Post environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin has a Page One story about Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's decision to ratify the Bush Administration's decision in December 2008 to delist the gray wolf as an endangered species in parts of the West.
His decision is controversial. Those who support it (including of course Secretary Salazar) say it was based on science. Those who oppose it say the Bush Administration's decision was based on politics and that Salazar should have changed it to reflect the policy views of the Obama Administration. One thing is clear: it is difficult to discern where science ends and policy begins with respect to decisions made under the Endangered Species Act.
Eilperin's story begins with the "controversial Bush administration move that took gray wolves off the endangered species list in most of the northern Rockies." She doesn't say why this decision was controversial except to note that "it has alienated key Obama administration allies, including environmentalists and some lawmakers on Capitol Hill."
Salazar's spokeswoman defends the decision:
Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said Salazar had followed the unanimous recommendation of Fish and Wildlife Service scientists in setting the new policy, rather than letting political factors influence him. "This was a decision based on science," she said.
This is characteristic of political appointees under fire for exercising their statutory authority to make policy decisions. the Endangered Species Act clearly gives that decision-making authority to the Interior Secretary, not to Fish and Wildlife Service biologists. The reason is that such decisions are inherently policy-driven. There is no scientific formula that can answer the question Salazar is directed to answer by the ESA: whether any population of gray wolves warrants designation as "threatened" or "endangered," legal terms of art that have no objective scientific meaning.
Salazar defends his policy decision as based on science, just as Bush Administration Secretary Dirk Kempthorne did. Kempthorne's decision meet considerable editorial criticism for not being based on science (see, for example, the Los Angeles Times, Denver Post, the Akron (OH) Beacon Journal, and even the International Herald Tribune). Each newspaper's editorial board accused Kempthorne of making a policy decision when, in their view, the ESA requires a strictly scientific determination. They misread the law. If it could be determined scientifically whether gray wolves are "threatened" or "endangered," there would be no need for the Secretary to decide anything.
According to Eilperin, Salazar's policy decision under attack for being insufficiently responsive to President Obama's policy views and a partisan political interest in delivering a benefit to environmentalists:
"Making the decision to adopt the Bush administration's flawed delisting proposal the same week that the president pledged his commitment to the Endangered Species Act certainly calls into question whether the Interior Department was coordinating as closely as one would expect to have done with the White House," said Bob Irvin, senior vice president for conservation programs at the advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife. "This was a controversy that did not need to happen."
One House Democrat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, framed it in even more blunt political terms. "I just don't see what this does for us," the lawmaker said. "Here we are alienating people who did the most -- who did a lot to help us in the last election."
Eilperin quotes Washington-based experts in politics and political administration, suggesting that Salazar has not yet learned that his decisions are always subject to review by the White House to ensure that they conform to those of the President's policy views:
While the White House declined to comment on Salazar's move, it has clearly caused a headache for the administration. Lawmakers have called senior Obama aides to question the decision, environmental groups have filed a Freedom of Information Act request to probe the decision-making process, and experts inside and outside the administration predict that the issue will end up in court.
If the episode highlighted the delicate path that Salazar, a former senator, is navigating in his new job, it also underscored the learning curve that Cabinet members -- especially those who came from politics -- face when joining another politician's administration.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former House member from Illinois, veered off message last month when he suggested that the administration might tax motorists for every mile they drive. The White House made clear that the idea was not under consideration.
And Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a former senator from New York, clarified the administration's commitment to human rights this week after stating earlier that such concerns "can't interfere" with issues on which the United States needs Chinese cooperation.
Norman J. Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said Cabinet members often show flashes of independence during the early days of an administration, especially if they have served in the House or the Senate, "where they're used to making their own decisions and going ahead with them."
"It takes a while to get your sea legs on that front, especially if you're a member of Congress," Ornstein said.
Similar deference to the White House was rarely offered during the Bush administration. Indeed, such deference was criticized vehemently. On a wide range of issues, President Bush and his senior advisers were accused of interfering with decisions that opponents claimed were the statutory responsibility of his agency appointees.
Notable examples of this criticism include EPA's denial of a Clean Air Act waiver to California so it could regulate fuel economy and EPA's decision to delay deciding whether to list carbon dioxide as a criteria air pollutant under the Clean Air Act. It was widely believed that White House policy views were different from that of EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. Nonetheless, Johnson chose to execute his decisions in accordance with the policy views of the President. This deference became the subject of congressional ovesight hearings, subpoenas for confidential communications, and threats of bering held in contempt of Congress.
According to Eilperin, Salazar now faces the first round of what could be a similar challenge:
While the White House declined to comment on Salazar's move, it has clearly caused a headache for the administration. Lawmakers have called senior Obama aides to question the decision, environmental groups have filed a Freedom of Information Act request to probe the decision-making process, and experts inside and outside the administration predict that the issue will end up in court.
There is an important difference. Whereas former EPA Administrator Johnson was excoriated for subordinating his policy views to those of rhe President, Interior Secretary Salazar is being criticized for failing to do so.
Meanwhile, Eilperin says "some experts" say Salazar's decision is not supported by the science and quotes one:
[S]ome experts such as Carlos Carroll, who has advised Bangs's team on wolf recovery in the past, said recent studies indicate that the two wolf groups do not mix enough to sustain a diminished wolf population in the northern Rockies.
"The [Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service] needs to take a hard look at the new studies and data, and incorporate that into their recovery standards," said Carroll, who directs the Klamath Center for Conservation Research in Orleans, Calif. The current recovery standard was set in 1987, Carroll noted.
Evaluating this statement is difficult. Carroll is both a scientist and an advocate for more stringent policies. How does Salazar disentangle his scientific expertise from his policy views? Without a clear understanding where Carroll's scientific knowledge ends and his policy views begin, it is entirely rational for Salazar to be skeptical of Carroll's science. Scientists undermine the value of their work for regulatory decision-making when they choose not to keep their policy views separate.
