From today’s Oregonian, yet another story about the Bush adminstration trying to stifle scientists who dare to express views inconvenient to the administration’s anti-environmental agenda:
The federal government has abruptly suspended funding for Oregon State University research that concluded federally sponsored logging after the 2002 Biscuit fire in southwest Oregon set back the recovery of forests.
The action came after a team of scientists from OSU and the U.S. Forest Service published their results last month in Science, the nation’s leading scientific journal.
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Administrators at OSU and scientists elsewhere said they could not recall another instance of the federal government suspending funding for research after controversial results emerge.
"It’s totally without precedent as far as I can recollect," said Jerry Franklin, a professor at the University of Washington who has studied Northwest forests for decades. "It says, ‘If we don’t like what you’re saying, we’ll cut off your money.’ "
The Bureau of Land Management gave the university a week to respond and hinted that funding might be restored if "corrective action" was taken.
Kit Stolz 
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I think I’m familiar with the research that prompted this.
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You’re welcome…frankly, I’m surprised this hasn’t made the national papers. Not only is it a direct and serious challenge to the current policy in national forests, but once again it’s a clumsy, hamfisted attempt by someone within the administration (a political appointee?) to stifle a scientific debate. If you want a follow-up, send me whatever you think is interesting, and I’ll do my best.
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