BLM scientists writing drilling permits

Add the Bureau of Land Management to the list of federal agencies in which the Bush administration is making it difficult for scientists to do their work. Based on the description in the Washington Post on Wednesday, the problems at BLM may be even worse than those at NASA, NOAA, and EPA.

The Bureau of Land Management, caretaker of more land and wildlife than any federal agency, routinely restricts the ability of its own biologists to monitor wildlife damage caused by surging energy drilling on federal land, according to BLM officials and bureau documents.

The officials and documents say that by keeping many wildlife biologists out of the field doing paperwork on new drilling permits and that by diverting agency money intended for wildlife conservation to energy programs, the BLM has compromised its ability to deal with the environmental consequences of the drilling boom it is encouraging on public lands.

Here are the words of a former Wyoming BLM biologist, Steve Belinda, who is able to speak out because he quit his job recently rather than spend nearly all his time on drilling requests:

The BLM is pushing the biologists to be what I call 'biostitutes,' rather than allow them to be experts in the wildlife they are supposed to be managing. They are telling us that if it is not energy-related, you are not working on it.

It is a huge attraction for biologists to work in western Wyoming. But in this [BLM] office, they want you to look at things in a single-minded way. I have spent less than 1 percent of my time in the field. If we continue down this trend of keeping biologists in the office and preventing them from doing substantive work, there is a train wreck coming for wildlife.

Apparently the BLM is devoting so much of its resources to handing out drilling permits, that the oil and gas companies can't even keep up. According to the Post, they've issued over 13,000 permits in the last two years for drilling on federal land, while industry has drilled less than 6,000 wells.

This BLM story fits perfectly into the broader picture of the Bush administration humiliating and demoralizing the scientists employed to study the various aspects of the planet we live on.

(Via Main St. USA.)