Newsletter: When Government Advocacy Twists Science, Liberty Loses

Statement

Dear Friends,

I have an exciting role this year as vice chairman of the newly formed Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

On Wednesday, the subcommittee held a hearing titled, "Zero Accountability: The Consequences of Politically Driven Science." We heard troubling testimony about what happens when government manipulates science to get the result it wants.

One outrageous case involves an 80-year-old oyster farm in California which the National Park Service shut down in December, killing 30 jobs.

I had the chance to question Kevin Lunny, who owned Drake's Bay Oyster Company. His family has raised cattle in what is now the Point Reyes National Seashore since 1946.

Lunny told the committee how the full weight of the federal government moved to put him out of business so the area could be designated as wilderness. Parks officials were cheered on by environmental purists who didn't seem to care that oysters have been harvested there for over 1,000 years.

"We felt helpless, bullied and ignored," Lunny testified.

To the Park Service, facts didn't matter. They used a 70 horsepower Jet Ski to represent the noise of a 20 horsepower boat and a jackhammer to replicate a handheld pneumatic tool. They claimed the farm was responsible for an 80 percent decline in one harbor seal colony, when, in fact, the seals had simply relocated -- closer to the farm!

The Park Service took 250,000 photographs during three years of pupping season, but when the pictures showed no evidence the farm hurt seals they concealed the record.

California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein wrote that Park Service scientists behaved as advocates, falsifying and misrepresenting data in their quest to deep-six the farm.

Still, the Park Service converted the area to wilderness. An estuary that produced oysters for the Miwok tribe for centuries, and for modern markets since 1935, is off limits.

Now the Park Service is turning its attention to ranches at Point Reyes, despite the fact Congress established the National Seashore in part to protect agricultural uses dating to the California Gold Rush.

"We are terrified," Lunny told me during the hearing.

One of my favorite quotes captures the big picture of this shocking story: "When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

Holding the executive branch accountable is a vital responsibility of Congress. I'm glad to be on the forefront of the Resources Committee's efforts to root out government intimidation, malfeasance and waste.

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