From staff and wire reports | Posted: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:00 am
A high-ranking Interior Department official tainted nearly every decision made on the protection of endangered species over five years, a new inspector general report finds, concluding she exerted improper political interference on many more rulings than previously thought.
Julie MacDonald, a former deputy assistant secretary overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service, did pervasive harm to the department's morale and integrity and may have risked the well-being of species with her agenda, Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney said in his report out this week.
MacDonald exerted undue influence, according to two federal investigations, over habitat and status reviews of such animals as the greater sage grouse, the Canada lynx and the Preble's meadow jumping mouse - decisions with broad ramifications for the Cowboy State.
"Her influence reached far beyond Washington, D.C., even into Wyoming," said Duane Short, wild species program director for the Laramie-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. "We certainly had word that she had some direct and (unusual) involvement here in Wyoming with Fish and Wildlife folks, trying to influence what happened."
The Interior Department last year reversed seven rulings that denied certain species increased protection, after an investigation found that MacDonald had applied political pressure in those cases. The new report looked at nearly two dozen other endangered species decisions not examined in the earlier report.
It found MacDonald directly interfered with at least 13 decisions and indirectly affected at least two more.
MacDonald, a civil engineer with no formal training in natural sciences, resigned in May 2007. Department employees reported that they used her name as a verb: Encountering political interference from senior managers was called "getting MacDonalded."
Devaney said "MacDonald's zeal to advance her agenda has caused considerable harm to the integrity of the ESA program and to the morale and reputation" of the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as potential harm to animals under the Endangered Species Act.
"Her heavy-handedness has cast doubt on nearly every ESA decision issued during her tenure," from 2002 until 2007, the report said. MacDonald was deputy assistant secretary from 2004 to 2007 and a senior adviser in the department for two years before that.
MacDonald did not return telephone messages left for her in Washington and California. In a letter to Devaney refusing to be interviewed for his second report, she said that he showed "breathtaking arrogance" in conducting his previous investigation.
She resigned weeks after the report by Devaney last year found that she broke federal rules and should face punishment for leaking information about endangered species to private groups. That report also said MacDonald censored science and mistreated staff.
The new investigation reaffirmed those findings and said MacDonald's influence was even more far-reaching. It also faulted her boss, former Assistant Secretary Craig Manson, as well as several other high-ranking Interior officials, including Randal Bowman, a special assistant to Manson, and Thomas Graf, a department lawyer.
Manson, who left office in 2005, told The Associated Press in the spring that he took an active role in the endangered species program and his actions were "perfectly proper."
Short suggested this latest investigation might not be the final chapter of the MacDonald story.
"It remains to be seen just how many Wyoming imperiled species have been denied protection under MacDonald's tyranny, but it appears we may find out soon," Short said. "It must be clear that political interference with scientific decisions reaches far beyond MacDonald's meddling. Investigators are uncovering a culture of political interference permeating Bush administration agencies that has seriously stifled the protection of imperiled species and handcuffed science itself."
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who requested the investigation, said Devaney "makes it crystal clear how one person's contempt for the public trust can infect an entire agency."
Interior Department spokesman Shane Wolfe said officials had just received the 147-page report late Monday and were reviewing it.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently in the process of revisiting its sage grouse review, as ordered by a federal court, and the agency has also agreed to redo its analysis of the jumping mouse and lynx, an official said Tuesday.
Sharon Rose, regional spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said MacDonald's tampering was an extraordinary state of affairs.
"I've been in the federal government for over 35 years, and this was a very unusual situation," Rose told the Star-Tribune on Tuesday. "This was an unfortunate experience for all of us, because we do the best job we can on the ground gathering the information and putting it forward based on sound science. And that's what we did with these species, and that's what we will continue to do. It's just unfortunate there was the involvement at that level."
The Fish and Wildlife Service is a good agency that has dedicated scientists and biologists, she said, who "spend many hours past their normal work schedule working on things that are near and dear to their heart," and science will continue to guide their decisions.