Special Interests Would Smother Truth
The National Biological Service, a small organization within the U.S. Department of the Interior, is under all-out assault. Its enemies misrepresent and raise fears to win their case.
With a shoestring budget, NBS provides the major source of scientific information for effective management of public lands. For $166 million this year - a pittance in the federal budget picture - NBS works with public and private partners to devise information resources so that decisions affecting our living national heritage will be made from knowledge, not in ignorance.
Its entire 1,950-person staff, nationwide, is smaller than the full work force of a single aircraft carrier in the modern Navy. Yet the House of Representatives has targeted this small gem of an agency for crippling cuts - proposing to slash more than a third of its budget.
NBS is an information agency, formed by combining the scientific research and analysis functions of seven existing Interior organizations, but principally the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service.
The mission of NBS is basic: Assemble, analyze and make available to all interested parties, especially the American public, the best, most current scientific information regarding America’s living resources.
NBS regulates nothing; it manages no lands or resources. It was formed with the conscious intent of separating it from the regulatory bureaucracy to minimize fears that regulatory objectives might skew scientific inquiry.
Why does it spark such anger? How can an organization that is so small, yet so valuable, become such a source of fear? Enmity for the agency appears largely based on a fear of information - and a fear of what the American public might want done based on that information. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has likened this attitude to removing the batteries from your home’s smoke detector; but while you are getting your undisturbed sleep, your house may be burning down around you.
Critics routinely conjure images of trespassers seeking information on private land to justify intervention in the property owners’ prerogatives. Yet the written policies of NBS well-known by members of Congress - explicitly demand its researchers obtain owner permission before visiting private property.
How dangerous is this threat to private property? Several major landowners, notably pulp and paper firms that are supposedly fearful of restrictive findings, have not just given permission, but even sought out the expertise of NBS scientific investigators to help mesh species and ecosystem protection with continued economic productivity.
And what sort of information does NBS gather and analyze? Using its own researchers, it systematically studies the fisheries of our major water systems, from the Great Lakes to the Chesapeake, San Francisco, and Tampa Bays, and the vast river systems of America - including the troubled Columbia and Snake. These studies provide an understanding of the health and stability of a wide range of commercial and recreational fish, including findings that have helped fish populations recover. Using the “dangerous” free information, NBS has tracked bird populations, which serve as indicators of our air and water quality. These are the birds millions of Americans enjoy seeing at back-yard bird feeders. They are the game birds that have been hunted across the country for generations. NBS has found management approaches that allow timber companies to sustain or even increase production from landscapes where endangered plant and animal species can thrive with proper consideration of their special needs.
NBS is not attempting a systematic survey of America’s entire plant and animal population. Even if it wished to do so, its small budget and staff would make such a huge undertaking impractical to attempt.
America can listen to the distortions of doommongers. And it can leave the exploiters of our landscapes to seek unchallenged approval for actions because no evidence can be mustered of the damage they might cause. Or, we can offer a small portion of the federal budget to ensure that we know the consequences of the choices we make.
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