theoriginalblurker | The Bush administration hates whales...and science (Reply)

Scientists have proposed a measure to protect the endangered North American right whale and, as expected, the administration is trying to shoot it down in favor of the shipping industry.

Highlights:

Because this animal is an endangered marine mammal, NMFS, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is charged with designing a recovery plan for them.

More than four years of NOAA research showed that speed kills whales. Above a speed of about 10 knots, a right whale's encounter with a large ship would likely be fatal.

Many in the shipping industry oppose the speed limit, saying it would be too costly. A federal study concluded that slowing the ships down near the whales will cost shipping companies about $112 million, or less than one percent of the $340 billion East Coast shipping industry income.

I love this next one:

The group even suggested that if large ships went faster through the whales' habitat, the chance of a collision would be lower.

"A quickly moving vessel will pass through the area quickly, and exposure will be small," the shipping council wrote in a document challenging the limits. "A slowly moving vessel will take longer to pass through the area, exposure will be greater, and the whale will have longer to surface or move in a way that increases jeopardy."

In response to the group's theory, NOAA's Lecky said: "Would you speed through a school zone?"

And here, we see the continued effect of this administration on the scientists who are trying to do the right thing. We have seen this over and over when it comes to environmental issues.

Rep. Henry Waxman said the long, drawn-out process within OMB and Vice President Dick Cheney's office is demoralizing career government scientists.

"I think many of the scientists who work for the government are very frustrated, and scientists outside of government are astounded to see the scientific method so abused by this administration. There's been a politicization of science to either ignore the science, rewrite it, or to suppress it," said Waxman, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Waxman said the Bush administration thinks the "science shouldn't bind them. They're going to do what industry wants."

Got to go and wipe the blood leaking out of my eyeballs now. Save the whales, dude.