The following graph compares the number of Endangered Species Act listings per year for each of the past six presidential administrations. (Source: Center for Biological Diversity).

The American tradition known as the Friday news dump brought us this item last week.

The Interior Department (DOI) said Friday that it would review and probably overturn eight decisions on wildlife and land-use issues made by a senior political appointee who has been found to have improperly favored industry and landowners over agency scientists.

The appointee, Julie A. MacDonald, resigned on May 1 as a deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks, after an internal review found that she had violated federal rules by giving government documents to lobbyists for industry. The agency’s inspector general also found several instances in which Ms. MacDonald browbeat department biologists and habitat specialists and overruled their recommendations to protect a variety of rare and threatened species.

H. Dale Hall, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said he had asked the agency’s regional managers to submit for review cases in which Ms. MacDonald might have inappropriately bent the process to fit her political agenda. Mr. Hall winnowed the list to eight instances in which he said he expected that her actions would be reversed.  - NY Times

Winnowed the list to eight instances? That’s approximately one-third of the decisions which were known to be in question. One item that the DOI chose not to revisit is the 2003 decision to remove the protection granted to the Sacremento splittail, a decision that directly impacts MacDonald’s ownership of an 80-acre California farm, from which she reaps profits to the tune of $100,000 to $1,000,000 annually according to financial disclosure reports.

The Union of Concerned Scientists view the stated scope of the review as less than adequate.

“While we welcome the revisiting of decisions where political interference has been documented, the list of species under consideration is neither comprehensive nor exhaustive.

If the agency truly wants to get to the bottom of this, then asking the regional directors to identify the problems is not enough. Any agency scientist should have been able to provide input.  - UoCS

Apparently, Hall was paring the list down even at the 11th hour, with two key decisions eliminated from agency scrutiny on Thursday.

Hall said the last-minute deletions were made because MacDonald’s impact on those decisions had been minimal or related to law or policy within her “legitimate purview” rather than scientific alterations, a distinction dismissed by critics as “arbitrary.”

“Illegal policy decisions are just as bad as illegal science decisions,” said Kristen Boyles, an attorney for Earthjustice, who had wanted the agency also to reconsider decisions involving the northern spotted owl and the delta smelt.

“When decisions by field officers are reversed by a political appointee, the label you put on that should not determine whether it is reevaluated,” Boyles said. - Washington Post

What do we know about the man who has determined which decisions should make the short list?

H. Dale Hall was appointed as director of the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2005 by then Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, who the Bush administration determined to be qualified for the position either because of, or despite, her experience as a former lobbyist for a lead-paint manufacturer that was defending itself from numerous environmental lawsuits. Hall’s appointment was received with mixed reviews by environmental groups, though none viewed him as a heckuva job Brownie crony appointment. Hall did have relevant experience after all.

So if Hall doesn’t fit the standard crony profile, why the crony tactics?

The Bush administration has been accused repeatedly of following an established template of presenting a united front to support a pre-determined agenda, rewarding loyalty and punishing dissent. The administration has also been accused repeatedly of choosing politics and/or ideology over science. Some examples:

• James Hansen, top climate scientist at NASA who claimed he was muzzled for his unrestrained pleas for meaningful attempts to reduce greenhouse gases.

• The resignation of Assistant FDA commissioner Susan F. Wood who wrote, “I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled,” in reference to what she viewed as political interference over the contraceptive known as Plan B. (In the interest of full disclosure, I must reveal that I was employed from 1999 to 2007 by Barr Pharmaceuticals, the makers of Plan B. - DS).

• Most recently, the congressional testimony of three former surgeon generals, including Dr. Richard Carmona, who served from 2002 to 2006.

(Carmona) said he was hushed when he tried to address issues such as global warming, stem cell research and sex education.

“I was told to stay away from those because we’ve already decided which way we want to go,” he said.… The administration, he said, wanted him on a leash. In addition to staying away from the Bush administration’s hot-button issues, he was told to mention the president three times on every page when he gave a speech. - The Ledger

Hall’s actions give the appearance of choosing loyalty to the Bush administration over loyalty to the environment.

The Endangered Species Coalition has compiled a list titled “Species Impacted by Julie MacDonald“.