It's not often you get to see the word lambaste in a press release from a government official. But when you're dealing in the upside-down world of the BLM's WOPR, anything goes.

Today's lambaster, Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR) who uncovered the fact that the Bureau of Land Management had buried the scientific review of the Western Oregon Plan Revisions deep in it's website for the past few weeks. From the press release:

"I am shocked that the BLM appears to have quietly sat on the findings from its own Science Team,” Congressman DeFazio said.  “This doesn’t pass any credible attempt to fully disseminate this report and make the public aware that the Team’s findings were even available. Given the Science Team took issue with much of the findings in the WOPR, the BLM leaves the impression that it didn’t want this report to be widely known anytime soon."

Wait. A Bush administration agency doesn't want science to see the light of day? I won't hear of it. Obviously a conspiracy theory. Who would believe that a government agency would completely disregard their own scientists?

So much for all those claims by BLM officials that the agency was consulting with the best scientists and making sure that their plan met endangered species and clean water guidelines. Of course, the "Science Team" isn't the first group of lab coat wearing, field experimenting folks to get there hands on the WOPR and tear it to pieces. The EPA, federal fisheries managers and the Oregon DEQ have all found serious flaws in the plan that would boost clear-cut logging in Oregon.

Now, the question is: What will DeFazio do to stop the WOPR and protect the forest values that these scientists have identified?