The Bush Administration has a long record of bold face lies, falsification & interference when its official policy positions are in conflict with scientific proof. I’ve cited numerous examples from media reports. (See 4/18/07) The Seattle P.I. today exposes another instance involving the timber industry and the endangered spotted owl. The newspaper reports that a high level team of Bush administration appointees in Washington, DC – including a former timber industry lobbyist – ordered changes in a plan produced by scientists to save the Pacific Northwest spotted owl. The timber industry has been lusting after old growth timber which also is the habitat of the spotted owl. If the industry had its way, it would clear cut national forests for the valuable trees and the Bush administration is a political friend of the timber industry. The paper reports that more then 700,000 acres will be left unprotected by the change that was made in the plan at the direction of the White House. One environmental scientist who was involved in producing the plan complained that the objective of the Endangered Species Act is to rely upon the best available science. He says:

"The political interference in the science derailed this (Northwest) team from meeting that objective. This administration has manipulated the process."

We have come to expect a degree of dishonesty by politicians for financial or political gain, but the extent of brazen falsification, suppression and fraudulent revision of scientific data by this administration in order to give industry a free hand in their profit taking is unprecedented in all but third world dictatorships.