http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030906/ap_on_go_pr_wh/rove_interior_2
Interior
Dept. to Probe Water Policy
Fri Sep 5, 2003, 11:17 PM ET
By PETE YOST, Associated
Press Writer
[ Picture
of hundreds of dead salmon in Klamath River... ]
CAPTION:
"Hundreds of salmon rot near the Cleveland Wall of the Klamath
River
Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2002, near Klamath, Calif. The inspector general
at the Interior Department will look into possible political
interference by the White House in developing water policy
in the Klamath River Basin. Water was diverted from the
Klamath River to irrigate farms which may have led to a
large fish kill. (AP Photo/Joe Cavaretta)"
WASHINGTON - The inspector
general at the Interior Department will
look into possible political interference by the White House in
developing water policy in the Klamath River Basin in the Northwest.
The inquiry follows
the disclosure that President Bush's top political
adviser, Karl Rove, briefed dozens of political appointees at
the
Interior Department more than a year and a half ago about diverting
water from the Klamath River in Oregon to irrigate farms.
Sen. John Kerry (news,
bio, voting record) of Massachusetts,
a Democratic presidential candidate, disclosed the inspector
general's plans on Friday.
Last September, 33,000
chinook salmon died in the Klamath River
in northern California. The California Department of Fish and
Game laid much of the blame on low flows controlled by the federal
government for creating conditions that allowed a fatal gill rot
disease to spread through the fish.
A report on the fish
kill by the Interior Department's U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service has not been released.
Kerry had asked for
the IG investigation after a story about
Rove's meeting with the political appointees appeared in
The Wall Street Journal.
Rove's briefing of
Interior's political appointees in January 2002
took place following a trip by Bush and Rove to Oregon, where
they
focused on the Klamath water issue. Rove made a second trip to
Oregon before the department decided to increase the water flow
to farms.
Seeking to help their
farm constituencies, Republican leaders
in the Northwest wanted to divert water to farmers.
In an Aug. 28 letter
to Kerry, the inspector general's office
said that it will look into whether decision-making on water
policy in the Klamath River Basin deviated from normal practices,
with special attention to any evidence of political interference
or suppression of data.
If any evidence of
political interference is found, "we have no
authority over members of the White House staff and therefore
would immediately notify the Department of Justice, Office of
Public Integrity," said the letter from Interior IG Earl
Devaney.
Decisions made by the
Interior Department were based on the best
available science from the National Academy of Sciences, said
Interior spokesman Mark Pfeifle. He said Interior is focused
on providing water for people who live and work in the Klamath
Basin, including farmers, fishermen and tribes, while also
restoring the basin's ecosystem.
Kerry called the probe
a positive step, saying he is concerned
that political pressure from the White House may have intimidated
staff and influenced policy.
Kerry says the Bush
administration acted as if agencies like the
Interior Department are "a division of the Republican National
Committee."
Pfeifle said candidates
on the campaign trail "seem only focused
on partisan sniping."
White House spokeswoman
Ashley Snee has said it is "entirely
appropriate" for members of the president's staff to occasionally
provide updates on the president's accomplishments and agenda.
Snee has said the president
established a Cabinet-level working
group on Klamath that is committed to sustainable agriculture
and
jobs, improved water quality and stronger fish populations.
Steve Pedery of the
conservation group WaterWatch said that the
Bush administration's approach is to pick one interest politically
favorable to its goals and say, "You get the water."
Pedery said
the solution should be to try to bring demand back into balance
with supply "so everybody can get a fair share."
The Interior Department's
Pfeifle, who attended Rove's January 2002
meeting at a weekend retreat in West Virginia, has said the Klamath
water diversion issue took up "probably 30 seconds to a minute"
of a 25-minute presentation to department political appointees.
Pfeifle has said other
matters touched on in Rove's presentation
included having a Hispanic media coordinator, reaching out to
suburbanites on environmental issues and outreach to segments
of organized labor that support oil and gas drilling in the
Alaskan wilderness.
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