Freeing Agency Research from Policy Pressures: A Need and an Approach

The 29% of the area of the United States that is in public land contains a rich store of biotic and abiotic resources available to its owners, the American people. Deciding whether, how, and by whom these resources are to be used is the foremost challenge facing those who set public policy for natural resources. A number of land management agencies are vested with the responsibility of carrying out the prescriptions of public policy, and have, or had until recently, research arms charged with providing scientific information to enlighten policymaking and management. Ecologists understand very well that deciding whether and how public resources are to be used—that is, the process of setting public policy—is highly contentious because of the differing values attached to these resources by different subsets of American society. Those values commonly conflict, and resolution is not often mutually satisfactory. It is also not news to ecologists that the structure and function of biological resources, as well as the responses to their use and management, are among the most complex issues addressed by the field of ecology. Policy setting is most likely to be rational and socially optimal if this complexity is thoroughly elucidated by accurate and objective research. This is not to say that policies are set only on the basis of science. As Sabatier (1978) states, “No policy decision can be based solely on technical information. Normative elements invariably enter.” But if not enlightened by quality research, policy is based on guess, hearsay, and traditional knowledge, and ultimately is determined by power politics. Thus, the research carried out to enlighten the policymaking process not only copes with the conceptual and methodological challenges posed by the complexity of its subject matter, but is commonly conducted in the contentious climate of policy disputes within which the agencies function. As a result, agency researchers often struggle to produce the accurate and objective research that is needed to fully enlighten the policy process and management. These efforts are often successful, as shown by a long history of distinguished research on many natural resources issues. Hence, I find extremely disturbing the continuing flow of literature (e.g., Schiff 1962, Chase 1986, Smith 1988, Anonymous1989, Forster 1990, Hirt 1994, Yaffee 1994, Hutchings et al. 1997) describing instances in which research is manipulated to support agency policy positions. One of the most recent and troubling is a book by Todd Wilkinson (1998), Science under Siege. It chronicles the cases of eight scientists in five federal agencies and one state agency who were ordered either to condone management actions they knew to be environmentally damaging and contrary to their agencies' mandates; rewrite environmental documents which would condone management actions inimical to resource protection; make public statements contrary to their professional judgment that proposed activities would damage resources; or simply remain silent. These are, admittedly, extreme cases, used by Wilkinson to call attention to the problem. But on the basis of his investigations, he believes that the problem is widespread, although generally more subtle than indicated by the egregious instances described in his book. In those cases, the agencies were facilitating or supporting land-use actions by private economic interests that the scientists who spoke out considered detrimental to the natural resources in their care. In most cases, the economic interests sought the support of politically influential persons to pressure the agencies, under the threat of discontinued funding, into silencing, transferring, or dismissing the employees who were attempting to protect the resources. I argue in this article that agency research is more likely to be objective if it is conducted at some administrative distance from the policymaking process, either in a separate division or other administrative structure, or carried out in an organization that does not have sole responsibility for setting policy internally. I conclude with a case study of the difficulty of getting scientific objectivity when research is conducted in, or controlled by, the administrative body that sets policy. I propose that one means of preventing the kinds of pressures on science that Wilkinson and other authors describe is through organizational structure. Hence it is useful to understand the political history and institutional circumstances in which these pressures arise. The federal land management agencies were established in the late 1800s and early 1900s with assigned missions: the Forest Service, under the US Department of Agriculture, to protect and administer the use of timber resources in the national forests; the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the Department of the Interior, to oversee private livestock grazing and mining on public lands; and the Fish and Wildlife Service, also under the Department of the Interior, to protect and administer the use of wildlife resources not under the jurisdiction of the states (Nelson 1995a, 1995b). These agencies' missions were strongly oriented to consumptive use when the nation was largely rural and agricultural, and were therefore consistent with societal values. Since the commodity resources of the public lands are exploited by private interests—livestock grazing by ranchers, timber harvesting by timber companies, mineral extraction by mining companies—it was natural that alliances would develop between the agencies and the economic interests. At the requests of the latter, these alliances were watched over by local congressional delegations whose members served on the various House and Senate committees that controlled the agencies' funding. The result was triangular relationships between the agencies, economic interests, and local members of Congress. The first half of the 20th century also witnessed the development of research divisions in the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Much of these new divisions' efforts were focused on investigating the effects of maximum yields and efficient harvesting on, respectively, timber and wildlife resources. The National Park Service, another Interior Department agency, developed a small research effort dispersed among its regions and parks to provide data to guide resource management in the parks. The BLM never developed a formal research program. The prevailing political philosophy in the early 20th century was progressivism, most notably advocated by Teddy Roosevelt (Nelson 1995b). In the natural resources agencies, this philosophy was embodied by the premise that it was the technically trained agency people, with the most knowledge of the resources, who should tell the American people what was in their best interests. Motivated by their agencies' historic missions and their professional training in resource extraction, agency leadership prescribed policies advocating efficient, science-based harvesting of resources. Thus, management policies were set within these executive branch agencies (Nelson 1995a), with strong influence from the three-way alliances among the agencies, economic interests, and congressional delegations. Associated with the urbanization of the 20th century, societal values concerning nature and the outdoors changed. Simultaneously, the science of ecology developed a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of natural ecosystems and the effects of commodity extraction on them. As a consequence, the public became less accepting of the agencies' stewardship of natural resources. The result was a shift in political pressures that prompted Congress to legislate two important changes in progressive-style, natural-resources management. First, the Forest Service and BLM received mandates to broaden their respective missions: the Forest Service by means of the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 and the BLM through the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. These acts ordered the agencies to move away from their historic, almost exclusive emphasis on commodity resources toward a more evenhanded commitment to all resources on their lands. Second, a series of legislative and administrative changes were made, which weakened the internal policy-setting powers the agencies had enjoyed since the Progressive Era. The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974 ordered the Forest Service to engage in extensive, long-term planning for each of its national forests, and the National Forest Management Act of 1976 directed that agency to include representatives of all concerned public interests in the planning process. National forest policies were thus being set by combinations of interested parties. No comparable legislation was applied to the BLM. But that agency has adopted a number of analogous planning procedures that bring together representatives of interest groups—the livestock industry, wildlife advocacy groups, environmental organizations, and wild horse advocates, as well as agency representatives—who deliberate on how many animals of each class are to be carried on the herd management areas of the public domain lands. One such procedure is termed coordinated resource management planning. Greater public involvement in BLM policymaking has also been effected by administrative action. Unlike the Forest Service, whose basic administrative unit is the national forest, the BLM is segmented into administrative units conterminous with the states. Each state with significant public domain land has its own BLM office, director, and staff. Until 1996, each state had its own advisory board, disproportionately consisting—in the eyes of critics—of individuals representing commodity interests. In 1996, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt revised these boards, renaming them “resource advisory councils” and stipulating that they have a balanced membership of individuals representing all groups concerned with management of public domain lands. Thus, the policy setting process for the national forests and public domain lands has been changed from one of almost complete discretion by the Forest Service and the BLM during the Progressive Era to procedures that today are more responsive to the full array of societal values. In the lexicon of political science, these arrangements are termed interest-group pluralism. A national forest supervisor recently commented in my presence: “I no longer set policies. I just carry out what I am told by others.” In democratic political theory, this is as it should be. The policy literature now converges on the view that public policies are set to satisfy societal values (Kennedy 1985, Wagner 1994). The executive agencies are staffed with technically trained individuals who are experts in their professions, but whose values do not necessarily coincide with those of the American public. Their responsibility is to execute, not, in a sense, legislate, as they did under progressivism, and under frequently broad legislative mandates that allowed much latitude for internally initiated policy change. A prime example of this change is the Forest Service's shift from a primarily custodial management role in the national forests in the first half of the 20th century to one of coordinating large-scale timber harvesting in the second half (Hirt 1994, Nelson 1995a). The new procedures give all concerned interests a voice in the decisions, and by default reduce the powers held by the economic interests under progressivism. One more administrative change has widened the administrative space between policymaking and research. While research and resource management in the Forest Service continue in the same agency, research is in a separate division from forest management. In the Department of the Interior, Secretary Babbitt removed biological research from all Interior agencies in 1993, moving them into the newly formed National Biological Survey (later to become the Biological Resources Division of the US Geological Survey). He did this for several reasons, one of which was to remove research from policy pressures, thus enhancing objectivity and providing investigators full freedom to report their results uninfluenced by agency and political pressures. Thus, the policy and administrative trends in the management of natural resources on public lands in the latter half of the 20th century were toward reducing the policy setting prerogatives of the executive agencies by moving those prerogatives more into the hands of representative arrays of concerned interests; and, both by this means and administrative change, distancing research from the policy process. These changes have been made in part to help free research from policy pressures. The literature on the role of research in policymaking describes several ways in which the policy positions of agencies color research objectivity (Wagner 1989). These range from organizational loyalty on the part of researchers who find it uncomfortable to report research results that challenge their organizations' policies, to overt coercion of scientists by administrative higher-ups, as in the cases described by Wilkinson (1998). Agencies have the prerogative and responsibility to set research agendas that provide the information needed to enlighten management efforts. But the ethical line is crossed when evidence is selected that supports policy positions while contrary evidence is ignored or suppressed (Schiff 1962), or when research is instituted that will provide answers supportive of policy while studies that are likely to shed critical but valid light on policy are avoided or never initiated (Chase 1986). Freeing the executive branch agencies from the role and prerogatives of policymaking should reduce their sense of ownership of the policies, a tendency to defend them, and thus their resistance to contrary research results. At the same time, the administrative distancing of research in the Department of the Interior has also been done in part to facilitate research objectivity and full disclosure of scientific results, whether or not they support current policies (Wagner 1999b). There appears to have been progress toward greater objectivity and fuller disclosure in the past 10–20 years. For instance, conflicting views on the environmental impact of the Exxon Valdez oil spill have been reported openly. Although there were early efforts to control the information flow on the spotted owl issue (Anonymous 1989, Yaffee 1994), relevant information on the matter is now in the public domain. Overexploitation of marine fisheries now appears to be conceded by all sides of the issue, and major disagreement is primarily over solutions. Thus, it is disconcerting to read about the cases described in Wilkinson's (1998) book; hear his assertion that these situations are still common, if less extreme, in the agencies; and ponder his comment, “It means that science is forever a to science and One has to that these are of a progressivism. Unlike the Forest Service and the the National Park Service for the most part does not commodity extraction on the lands it the Park Service has not been to the same political pressures by the other two pressures to on the parks. of include economic of the activities of and the of local wildlife and environmental groups (Wagner et al. the parks in of for and that the pressure groups to be based and to each Hence, they are less likely to power as the timber has done in with national forests, and the livestock and mining in with BLM lands. Thus, one from individuals in parks about a of the National Park Service has the of federal land management agency in the United as a result, the Park Service has not been the subject of national legislation the National Forest Management which mandates major public involvement in its most recent policy Management Park Service that policy will be by the of the National Park be set by within formal delegations of Thus, to a the Park Service still internal policy setting under the Progressive Era The national parks do the public involvement procedures of the National Policy Act and the National Park a major environmental impact for as did National Park for and National Park public for on But these efforts to be directed more to management efforts than of policies that provide long-term philosophy and for management. As I have the National Park Service also had its own research until 1993, when that function was into the newly formed National Biological Although the Park Service never developed a research effort to the range of resource management in the National Park scientific et al. and describe research that several major include research the for the use of to natural in forests in the the of quality in the and the effects of and use on the quality in the National Thus, although in research in the Park Service appears to have and in a number of parks under the National which has had the of research of national has a history of over its science. has been with changes in management policies set internally by primarily in with Management of the biological resources in the have through since its in as the first national in the United States and the The first continuing until about the management considered at that time, and that in the and of from The second by which the range had to at which that range resources were Park control by and the which to by the of the century, had been to animals At that the local congressional to of and among their ordered the to the herd Senate In the a new policy in commonly termed the policy Park Service The emphasis of the new policy was on management actions and resources to be by In to and which set and control of forest In a proposed a the the herd would its own at and that it would do impact on the range Thus, in a sense, the scientific the management policy. of the range has been over the of the policy and its effects on the is a I do not and on which I do not a It is the scientific that is relevant to this and which I on It has over conflicting of the evidence on how the policy the range and whether the evidence the natural There is now that science has been over the past to significant challenge to the natural policy and the of the The case of the the and of this control of science. In and who had conducted of research on and were the most scientists about the ecology in the were to research This was by the over the effects of the policy change on the and their challenge to the of those effects and 1994, et al. 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Hutchings et al. in a of the of and science to on resources in this on a in many ways of that at these authors but politically new natural resource science that by and political But such an as by the of Interior Department research to the National Biological has not been on its own to the on science. The needed second is to change from the internal policy setting of the to with strong public of interest pluralism. such a change would an of the a policy an agency to defend its and in to science that is critical of its of the ownership of policies by them set by in a more democratic process, agencies would be less likely to defend them and less to to influence the of the science. As I have the Forest Service and the BLM have adopted such procedures in their policy But the National Park Service has such a change for the Park Service is not new with have for greater public involvement in national policy setting (Wagner The by the National and et al. the of and Management A between Park Service employees and members of the of and the Park Service's own et al. that the the role of the public in resource stewardship activities and the to public In I that the on science have been directed primarily at the science of National I do not that they are of the National Park although there have been of the science in other such as and (1998). But the for greater public involvement in policy setting were directed to the the literature attention to policy on science a problem of some among the is a if science is to its for providing to environmental interest groups, and have a responsibility to ways of providing that