Ideology--Science Collision

An obscure federal agency has become emblematic of the unfortunate clash between science and ideology wrought by the Republican upheaval.

The agency is the National Biological Service, created by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in 1993. It was established to consolidate research functions of seven Interior Department agencies, including the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service, and thereby divorce basic science from politically explosive regulatory functions. However, conservatives from Western states smelled a rat--an endangered one. They suggested that the service, originally called the Biological Survey, was really designed to provide groundwork for further federal controls on private property rights by documenting biological degradation in the environment.

The Republican “contract with America” vows to abolish the agency, along with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Biological Service, with a budget of $170 million and 1,950 employees, performs valuable work that cannot readily be done either by the states or private industry. It monitors migratory bird patterns and analyzes the causes of such problems as the recent unexpected deaths of bald eagles in several parts of the country. It also studies fisheries management and provides important information needed to preserve the health of both sport and commercial fisheries.

Critics feared that researchers would force their way onto private lands, but the agency has agreed not to do that. One suspects that the current attack has more to do with punishing Babbitt and President Clinton for bypassing Congress in creating the agency than with the scientific or regulatory realities.

The agency faces deep recisions for this year and then possible breakup when the House appropriations bill goes to the floor in May or June. Babbitt has not helped his own cause by recently denouncing critics for engaging in “the resource equivalent of book burning.” Instead he should stress that the service’s research has actually reduced the number of species listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. He should seek to persuade GOP moderates in both the House and the Senate that impartial science is better for the economy than impassioned ideology.