Owl plan doesn't fly

The Register-Guard editorial board says the science behind the spotted-owl recovery plan is flawed and the implications are big for proposed logging plans.

The Bush administration's efforts to reduce protections for the northern spotted owl in order to open Western Oregon's old growth forests to clear-cut logging have drawn well deserved allegations of political interference and tainted science by independent scientists and lawmakers from across the nation.

The administration proposes lifting restrictions on logging in 23 percent of the land now designated as critical owl habitat, arguing that spotted owls do not necessarily require large tracts of old growth forest. The draft plan for saving the owl is also based on the industry-favored premise that the invasion of the barred owl represents a more serious threat to spotted owls than habitat loss.

To say scientists haven't embraced this plan is an understatement. Six separate peer reviews by outside researchers - five of them funded by the federal government - have agreed that the draft recovery plan wrongly downplays the importance of protecting the Northwest's remaining stands of old-growth forests.

This week, 113 scientists sent a letter urging Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to toss out the agency's draft recovery plan and replace it with one free of political manipulation. "We are greatly concerned that, according to scientific peer review recently conducted by owl experts and three of the nation's leading scientific societies, much of this science was ignored," the letter states.

The scientists also asked Kempthorne to review the owl plan to determine whether high-ranking administration officials politicized what should have been a purely scientific plan.

Given the Bush administration's record of politicizing scientific decisions, whether they involve salmon survival in the Columbia River Basin or mercury emissions from power plants, the scientists would have been better advised to inquire which government officials messed with the science - and their respective ties to the timber industry.

Another letter to Kempthorne from 23 Democratic members of Congress was more direct and included a short list of administration officials who they believe may have politicized the plan.

Not surprisingly, they include Julie MacDonald, a former deputy assistant interior secretary, who resigned last spring amid allegations that she had intimidated and overruled scientists working on recovery plans for endangered species. MacDonald was a member of the Washington Oversight Committee, which directed the spotted owl recovery team to add an option to its draft recovery plan that would open Northwest forests to increased logging.

Others on the list include Interior Deputy Secretary Lyn Scarlett and Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey. Scarlett is Kempthorne's top assistant, and formerly headed a California think tank that opposes government regulation, while Rey is a former timber industry lobbyist who now oversees the Forest Service.

The recovery plan is vitally important for Oregon. It lies at the heart of the administration's push to dramatically increase logging on federal Bureau of Land Management lands and to restore timber revenue to Lane County and other rural counties throughout the Northwest.

It should be clear to the administration by now that there is little chance that the draft plan will survive judicial review. By moving forward with it, the administration is missing a prime opportunity to achieve a much needed increase in timber production by means other than bringing back clear-cut logging in old-growth forests and putting the spotted owl at heightened risk of extinction.

Kempthorne should heed the concerns of scientists and lawmakers, and send this flawed plan winging back to the drawing boards. Meanwhile, he should suspend any major forest management decisions regarding BLM lands until the government produces a new recovery plan, one based on scientific evidence rather than political machinations.