WEBVTT

00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:09.999
Funding for The GOD SQUAD
was provided in part by

00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:14.999
Film Arts Foundation dedicated
to the education, funding,

00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:19.999
and presentation of independent film Nu Lambda
Trust, Pacific Pioneer Fund and individual donors.

00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:28.000
[sil.]

00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:34.999
The goal of the Endangered Species
Act is nothing less ambitious

00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:39.999
than to bring species back
from the threat of extinction

00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:44.999
and make sure that we don\'t lose any
of the gene pools, and the diversity,

00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:49.999
and the mystery that species
provide to our lives.

00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:54.999
To part of America, this is a
fundamental religious creed

00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:59.999
and for another part of America,
this is the most insane,

00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:04.999
bizarre, whacko idea that they can imagine.

00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:09.999
For millions of years species
have been going extinct

00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:14.999
and it is the final chapter of
biological evolution is extinction

00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.999
uh… but yet we\'ve passed the law that says

00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:24.999
we\'re gonna stop extinction
and uh… the way the…

00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:29.999
the law is written,

00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:34.999
it\'s front-end loaded with science

00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:39.999
and uh… the only time that the human factors are even
considered in it is at the very, very end of the process.

00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:44.999
[sil.]

00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:49.999
You who sit on the throne of God making
historic decisions have to ask yourself,

00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:54.999
what is your vision of the future? You have the awesome
power to stop forest destruction and species extinction

00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:59.999
or give you an official
stamp of approval to it.

00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:05.000
This is the magnitude of the
decisions that you have to make.

00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:23.000
[music]

00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:44.999
In 1991, a federal judge charged
the government with what he called

00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:49.999
a remarkable series of violations
of environmental laws.

00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:54.999
[sil.]

00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:59.999
To protect the northern spotted
owl, the judge halted logging

00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:04.999
on millions of acres of
Pacific Northwest forests.

00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:09.999
Timber interests
subsequently blamed the owl

00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:14.999
for the loss of thousands of jobs.

00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:19.999
It didn\'t take long

00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:24.999
before the Bureau of Land Management applied for
an exemption from the Endangered Species Act

00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:29.999
in order to cut trees
in spotted owl habitat.

00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.999
The debate that followed was about
more than owls in Southwest Oregon.

00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:39.999
It became a test of the nation\'s commitment
to the Endangered Species Act itself.

00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:44.999
We had a standoff.

00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:49.999
We had had a train wreck between these two
very important and valid concerns and values,

00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:54.999
the economic development of the region, which was depressed on one hand
where jobs are being lost, the protection of a species on the other.

00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:59.999
And what we saw in the
application for an exemption

00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:04.999
was a deliberate effort to uh…
undermine the integrity of the act

00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:09.999
by trivializing a very important safety valve, uh…
which provides that in instances of really serious

00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.999
and pressing national interest
an overriding public concern,

00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:19.999
uh… high-level officials in the
government can make a careful decision

00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:24.999
to allow a species to… uh… to go extinct.
That\'s why it\'s called The God Squad.

00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:29.999
In a highly charged political arena,

00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:34.999
the Endangered Species Committee was summoned
to make a deeply philosophical decision

00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:39.999
about the fate of the northern spotted owl.

00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:44.999
In the northwest, owls, trees,
forests, and whole communities

00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:49.999
are buffeted by powerful
political and economic winds.

00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:54.999
I think you have to understand the whole
issue in terms of a uh… stalemate

00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:59.999
that had existed for a couple of years
that had really tied up timber development

00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.999
in a significant region of the country. You had two agencies,
the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management,

00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:09.999
which felt they had a statutory obligation to get the timber
moving to keep it coming flowing to the economy to housing

00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:14.999
and all the other purposes timber serves and also
to protect those economies, the small communities,

00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:19.999
the timber for sawmills and the jobs that depended on
them. There was a significant degree of frustration.

00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:24.999
It was felt throughout the state and
it was shared in the White House.

00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:29.999
It was also an election year.

00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:34.999
The logging in the northwest
is very lucrative.

00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:39.999
These are among the most valuable
trees anywhere not on earth

00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.999
and the opportunity cost
of not cutting them,

00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:49.999
of using them as habitat for
the owl is indeed expensive.

00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:54.999
My initial thoughts were kind of skeptical.

00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:59.999
I thought, you know, this is a… a lot
of land to be taken out of production,

00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:04.999
a lot of timber to be taken off
the market, a lot of human impact

00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:09.999
uh… if all that really is at stake is uh… the
survival of a single vertebrate species.

00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:14.999
That was the beginning then
of my journey of learning.

00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:23.000
[sil.]

00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:29.999
In the 1970s, a graduate student
was the first to sound the alarm

00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:34.999
about the spotted owls decline
and for the next dozen years,

00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:39.999
biologists had repeated the warnings

00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:44.999
with increasingly tougher prescriptions.
But the results of their studies

00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:49.999
were often disputed by the timber
industry and the government.

00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:54.999
Finally, in 1989, the US Congress
assembled its own team of scientists.

00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:59.999
They recommended even stronger medicine.

00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:04.999
To survive, they said, the spotted owl needed
more than 8 million acres of Northwest forests.

00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:09.999
One of the things that…

00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:14.999
that makes spotted owl somewhat extinction prone uh…
is that their reproductive potential is very limited.

00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:19.999
Uh… That\'s a very critical issue

00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.999
because it means should their populations
be driven very low in numbers,

00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:29.999
it would take a long time for them to… to recover. The
aspects of the habitat that seemed to be consistent

00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:34.999
across all the forest types
in which we find them

00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:39.999
are some elements of late zero stage
forests, big trees, big dead trees,

00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:44.999
large logs and there seems
to be a requirement

00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.999
at least for nesting for
elements of old-growth forests.

00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:54.999
One of the things that has had the greatest
ramification on developing a management strategy

00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:59.999
for northern spotted owls are
their area requirements.

00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:04.999
They\'re very large. Some home
ranges are 10,000 acres.

00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:09.999
To support a minimum population of owls

00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:14.999
which has a high likelihood of persistence over the
long term is gonna require vast expanses of forest

00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:19.999
and that\'s where the basis
of the conflict arises

00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:24.999
because of the amount of old forests

00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:29.999
that are required to support
a minimum population level.

00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:38.000
[sil.]

00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:44.999
The human element has almost
been removed from this.

00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:49.999
The… the needs of the local communities,
the needs of the people for the jobs,

00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:54.999
the… the basic need of the forest
if it\'s going to survive long range

00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:59.999
to be managed with the help of…

00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:04.999
of human hands their forests
that have just a bounty of…

00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:09.999
of timber that is… is ripe and over
ripe and… and really should be managed

00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:14.999
and a good harvest program,
the resources, the jobs

00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:19.999
that will come to that
the community activity

00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:24.999
uh… are all uh… what really we\'ve always
felt this country here was… was made up of.

00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:29.999
[sil.]

00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:34.999
[music]

00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:39.999
Oregon has always been
synonymous with trees.

00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:44.999
When 19th century settlers arrived, more
than 30 million acres of virgin forest

00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:49.999
covered the state. There
was enough standing timber

00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:54.999
to rebuild every house in America.

00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:59.999
But by the turn of the 20th century, those
trees were needed to construct the new cities

00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:04.999
and infrastructure of the American West.

00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:09.999
Initially, most of the logging was on
private land. Then in the prosperity

00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:14.999
and building boom that followed World War II,
the government opened up federal forests

00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:19.999
to unprecedented levels of harvesting.
Timber companies welcomed the new supply

00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:24.999
because by that time, they had cut
down most of the private forests.

00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:29.999
The law requires the
Bureau of Land Management

00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:34.999
to share its timber sale
revenues with local communities.

00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:39.999
That money funds schools, roads,

00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:44.999
and other public services. But while the
government has a commitment to provide timber

00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:49.999
and sustain rural economies,
the law also requires it

00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.999
to protect the environment. The Endangered
Species Act is fundamental to that commitment.

00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:59.999
It mandates that federal
agencies prohibit projects

00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:04.999
that will lead to the
extinction of a species.

00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:09.999
Never before I guess anybody seen such

00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:14.999
uh… the Endangered Species

00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:19.999
Act applied with such a great
degree of uh… of magnitude and…

00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:24.999
and impact… so such widely spread impact.

00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:33.000
[music]

00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:44.999
With so much unemployment in… in rural Oregon, in western
rural Oregon, in Northern California, in Washington,

00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:49.999
we lost uh… a whole bunch
of mills and in small towns

00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:54.999
in a very short period of time

00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:59.999
there was some real suffering going on
these committees during that period.

00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:04.999
Uh… The gals at the… the local Canyon
Crisis Center were swamped with…

00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:09.999
with families that had lost their jobs

00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:14.999
were losing their homes. Their…
their rate of alcoholism

00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:19.999
and wife abuse and child
abuse was off the charts.

00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:28.000
[music]

00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:54.999
The headlines that talk
about jobs versus owls

00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:59.999
characterize the issue in a way that was
very easy to understand by a lot of people.

00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:04.999
But it totally uh… mischaracterized it in reality
and it took an enormous amount of education

00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:09.999
for a lot of people even very well-educated people
to get to the stage where they understood that…

00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:14.999
that\'s not the issue at all. It\'s
a much broader set of issues.

00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:19.999
The loss of jobs in the timber industry

00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:24.999
reflected national and global
economic pressures beyond the owl.

00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:29.999
The United States was in a recession.

00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:34.999
Across the nation, hundreds of
thousands of workers lost their jobs

00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:39.999
as industries downsized. Housing starts were
at their lowest level since World War II.

00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:48.000
[music]

00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:54.999
The Bureau of Land Management claimed that they
needed that exemption because there was a crisis

00:13:55.000 --> 00:13:59.999
and this was the only way that we could
help Timber dependent communities.

00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:04.999
If one has examined

00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:09.999
the timber industry\'s history in
the northwest or anywhere else,

00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:14.999
it is overwhelmingly clear that…

00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:19.999
that is one of the most unstable

00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.999
violently fluctuating industries
of any industry we have.

00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:33.000
[sil.]

00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:59.999
Automation plays a role

00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.999
in the timber industry just as
it does in any other industry.

00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:09.999
You substitute machinery for labor.

00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:14.999
That is you get new equipment, new
facilities that require fewer workers,

00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:19.999
no more sophisticated workers.

00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.999
If we were to crank up the timber industry,

00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:29.999
increase the level of harvest and so
on today and they hired new workers,

00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:34.999
those workers would not be the ones
they laid off 5 or 10 years ago.

00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:39.999
So a bitter irony of a
lot of this debate is

00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:44.999
even if we accelerate the harvest,

00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:49.999
we won\'t be helping the individuals
nearly as much as we should,

00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:54.999
the individuals who are frequently

00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:59.999
the ones on behalf of whom the industry
claims to be engaged in this whole dispute.

00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:04.999
[music]

00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:09.999
Timber workers were in trouble
long before most Americans

00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:14.999
ever heard of the spotted owl.

00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:19.999
The late 1980s were extraordinarily profitable for the
nation\'s three largest forest products companies.

00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:24.999
But at the same time, small
independent mills in Oregon

00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:29.999
continued to lay off workers
or shut down all together.

00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:34.999
Other timber related jobs disappeared

00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:39.999
as overseas buyers outbid local mills

00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:44.999
and shipped unprocessed
logs to foreign markets.

00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:49.999
The export markets typically take the…

00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:54.999
the higher-quality logs,

00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:59.999
the logs that really we would like to perhaps
have the most. And uh… as time has gone on,

00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:04.999
log exports have increased

00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:09.999
and now timber Supply has decreased. It…
it has become uh… much more of a problem.

00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:14.999
When the Japanese particularly
are in the log market,

00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:19.999
they establish prices that we just can\'t
compete with here in the domestic market.

00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:24.999
Ultimately, it will affect
the amount of… of the logs

00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:29.999
that will go into domestic production be it
in sawmills, plywood plants or… or whatever.

00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:38.000
[music]

00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.999
A number of factors influence the
economic swings of the timber industry.

00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:09.999
But the Bureau of Land
Management focused on the owl

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.999
and the protection of its habitat as the
source of unemployment in rural timber towns.

00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.999
Part of the solution the BLM said

00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.999
was to sell 44 timber tracts
in spotted owl habitat.

00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.999
That would create 3100 jobs. But
before those sales could go through,

00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:34.999
they needed approval from the
US Fish and Wildlife Service.

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.999
It refused. Harvesting
those 4400 acres, it said,

00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.999
would jeopardize the survival of the owl. But
the BLM insisted the sales were crucial.

00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:53.000
[music]

00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
Those 44 sales as I recall

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
was equal to about 1.5% of the lumber cut

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
by Oregon in a given year.
That\'s not very much lumber.

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
Uh… It clearly is a lot of
lumber for a small town or area

00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
that\'s right there where you can\'t cut. But for the total scheme of
things within the state of Oregon or within the lumber industry itself,

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
it\'s not very much. But
anyway, that was the issue

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
and uh… that\'s what caused a lot of
time a lot of money, a lot of hearings

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
in Oregon elsewhere and a lot of turmoil within
at least some parts of the administration

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
during a few days in the middle of May.

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
The exemption process became a partisan issue
in the Oregon senatorial campaign for 1992.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
Uh… Senator Packwood had
taken the position that

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
the administration needed to take economics into consideration
in their implementing the Endangered Species Act.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
Closed schools, ghost towns,
unemployed mill workers are at stake.

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
This became an important issue for
the Republican administration

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
and their support of a Republican
senator up for re-election.

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
Uh… It was important that they uh…
proceed with an exemption process

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
uh… that Republican Senate
have been asking for.

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
I think it was clear very quickly that
there was a whole lot more at stake

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
in the exemption proceeding
than 44 timber sales

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
that the Endangered Species Act for sure was
at stake because it was a test of the act.

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
It was a test to see not only whether the exemption proceeding
could work under the Act, but whether a statement could be made

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
that jobs were more important
than endangered species

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
and that the act ultimately could be amended and changed in
order to reflect that and once the political inertia was built

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
through a successful proceeding to do that.

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
Beyond that the… the entire Pacific
Northwest forest ecosystem,

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
the old-growth system was very much at stake
because the exemption proceeding in all likelihood

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
could set an important precedent for the
way the rest of the land was managed

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
and this was the tip of the iceberg. So it was clear
that there was a huge, huge ecosystem at stake.

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
And certainly, this was not
about the spotted owl that was,

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
you know, an indicator species that happened
to be the messenger delivering the bad news

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
that things were going downhill, but what was
really at stake ecologically beyond the owl

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
was, you know, several hundred stalks
of salmon and this entire system

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
that was really going down
the tubes in a big hurry.

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
[sil.]

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
Okay. The less grim stuff, uh… did you hear
the environmentalist I read this in the paper

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
they\'ve launched a campaign
to save the spotted owl.

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
Were you aware of that? Apparently, it\'s a very vital
part the spotted owl of the ecological system.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
I… I like the new \"Save the owl\" slogan.
Have you hugged your hooters today?

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
The owl had become an easy
target for comedians,

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
politicians and special interests.
But to those involved

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
this was no laughing matter. Advocates on
both sides of the issue solicited volumes

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
of written testimony from biologists,
economists, and other expert witnesses.

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
In early 1992, lawyers spent
four weeks in Portland

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
questioning them. The information gathered

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
would become the official record
that The God Squad would review

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
before making its decision
on the fate of the forests

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:53.000
[music]

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
When there was a lot of mature

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
and old-growth forest for owls,
an incremental loss of habitat

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
may have had a very tiny effect
on persistence likelihoods.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
But when you perturb a system
that is already at risk,

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
that is already in decline, then that same
incremental loss of a critical resource

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
can have very dramatic effects
on stability properties.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
I believe that there is very strong

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
and convincing empirical evidence
that in terms of spotted owls,

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
the forest systems in Western Oregon
are in decline. They\'re unraveling.

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
The species in… is in precipitous decline.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
Its habitat has been and perhaps will
continue to be in precipitous decline.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
So that one needs to gauge

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
the effects of what otherwise
might seem to be a very small

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
and perhaps acceptable
perturbance to a system

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
relative to the current state of the system. And
in my opinion that\'s the very critical point

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
for the… the issue that is
the focus of these hearings.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
Uh… I found it to be very
difficult to define biologists

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
who were willing to… to go
against the prevailing opinion

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
in the biological community.
I called this professor up

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
and talked to him at some length
about how one goes about determining

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
uh… what levels of risk there are and
measuring that in mathematical way

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
and applying it to the situation
of spotted owl in Northwest.

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
And then I started talking more specifically about
a hypothetical that involved 44 timber sales.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
And then uh… he was giving
me some very good answers

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
that the risks would be very minimal
uh… from 44 is the difference in risk

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
whether you had these sails or not these
sales given the amount of habitat

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
that\'s available to the owl in the northwest and the
minimal amount have a relatively minimal habitat

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
they\'d be removed that you couldn\'t
distinguish a difference before-and-after

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
as to what you\'ve done to
change the rest of the species.

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
And that was all very good. And when I got the good answers, I said, well, I\'d be
very interested since I\'m an attorney representing the Bureau of Land Management

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
and the God Squad proceedings. And at that
point he said wait a minute, I\'m not,

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
you know, gonna be involved in this. Uh… He
disagreed with the policy of cutting trees

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
in the northwest and wasn\'t gonna do anything
to help the government uh… be able to do that

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
even though he, you know, the truth was
that there was very little risk to…

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
to doing it to the species as a whole. Uh…
He wasn\'t gonna do anything to help us

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
and he would help me said,
he answer my questions

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
and help me understand risk
of extinction theories

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
uh… as long as I didn\'t let anybody know who he was
because of he didn\'t want his reputation to be sullied

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
in the biological community.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
Uh… When I was on the stand right off the bat,
one of the attorneys came after me and said

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
wanted to know had I consulted with the… the attorneys
representing the Fish and Wildlife Service and the…

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
and the interveners in the case which was
a Sierra Legal Defense Fund and I said,

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
\"Yes, I had.\" And they asked
me, \"Were these my lawyers?\"

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
And I said, \"Well, I don\'t… I don\'t know. I\'ve
never thought about them being my lawyers.\"

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
\"Well, why did you meet with them?\"
\"Well, because I had been told to…

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
to cooperate by my bosses with cooperate
with the Fish and Wildlife Service.\"

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
Then continued to say, \"well, what did… what
did they tell you to say…\" and on and on

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
and I didn\'t quite understand. And finally, the
hearing officer asked the attorney. He said,

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
\"Well, what is it you\'re after
here\" And he said, \"I want to know

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
if Dr. Thomas is testifying as to
what he believes or he\'s saying

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
what he was told to say by the lawyers.\" And I stuck
up my hand and I said, \"Judge, can I say something?\"

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
And the judge said, \"Yes.\" And I said.
I call the attorney by name

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
and I said, \"Sir, I don\'t really believe that
anybody has told me what to say or think

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
since I was about 12 years old and
you know, I\'m not gonna start now.\"

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
Uh… It was almost as if we
personally were on trial

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
as opposed to attempting to
find the basis of the problem

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
in the Pacific Northwest. About two
hours into my cross-examination

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
by the timber industry
lawyer and the BLM lawyer,

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
I was asked to perform a series of
algebra problems in front of the judge

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
and the rest of the people. And the purpose
of this was not that doing algebra

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
had anything to do with the critical
issues. It was to personally embarrass me

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
to see if I would make a mistake doing
very simple mathematical problems

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
and then to infer from that if I
were unable to do simple math,

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
how could I have done the complex mathematics
that I had reported on in the ISC report.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
Uh… Clear demonstration that there…

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
it was not a hearing in an attempt
to get at the basis of the problem

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
and attempt to solve it. Umm… My response
was that was a refusal to do the problems

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
in that forum because
uh… in no way reflected

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
the form of the atmosphere in which I
do science. I don\'t do it with cameras.

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
I don\'t do it in front of lawyers.

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
I will not do calculations
under these circumstances.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
Uh… It\'s simply… it is too high a
likelihood of committing an error.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
Too much pressure for you, Dr. Noon.
Oh, your honor, strike that please.

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
This was a really boring trial.
And it dragged on and on,

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
and tensions and frustrations grew because from my
perspective because we were spending a lot of time

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
quarreling about issues that weren\'t even relevant
and… and because it was so clearly a political circus.

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
In about the third week of the hearing,

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
one of the lawyers for the timber industry and I
had a particularly long and vitriolic exchange

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
which the judge let go on and
on and on and I got frustrated

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
not just with what the lawyer was saying on the other
side but with the fact that the judge wasn\'t stopping it.

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
And we finally wound down and
I got up and stormed out

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
to buy a soda or something and as I passed the… the
Fish and Wildlife Service security guard by the door,

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
he lifted up his coat and said,
\"Do you want to borrow this?\"

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
He had a gun under his armpit and I said, \"You don\'t even
have enough bullets in there for what I have in mind.\"

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
And he said, \"No problem.\" He had
one on the other side as well.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:28.000
[sil.]

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
Frustration and anger were also mounting
among citizens excluded from the process.

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
In response, local Oregon congressman
pressed for another hearing,

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
this one for their constituents
to voice concerns.

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
In February, they got their chance. I am
here representing my 67 remaining employees

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
and their families

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
reduced from 118 employees I had
just one and a half years ago.

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
We\'re decent hard-working people. And I
believe we are the environmentalists

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
working to provide our country
with a viable product.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
Trees were placed here by higher authority than the
Congress for serving the human race for shelter,

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
packaging and communication. My grandmother\'s relatives
were pioneers who came over the Oregon Trail.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
When they settled in Eastern Oregon, they thought
the native bunch grass would always grow back

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
and that we would always have enough trees.

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
We\'ve been cutting trees faster than they\'ll grow for over a 100
years and now that we\'re finally running out of the big old trees,

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
the timber companies are
searching for a scapegoat.

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
They\'re blaming owls. They\'re blaming environmentalists.
30 of them blaming the federal agencies

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
that they\'ve corrupted and controlled just as
certainly as the politicians that they\'ve bought.

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
As I see it, the real truth of the
matter is that in this country

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
through the wills of its
political and economic leads,

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
this country trashes both workers
and the environment. It\'s too bad

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
that my relatives can\'t be here to testify for themselves.
The birds can\'t be here to let you know their fear

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
and their pain.

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
None of the animals can be here
to testify of their fear and pain

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
losing their shelter. It is
instinctive in all animals

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
to seek their own
preservation above all else.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
And I firmly believe that my wife and kids
are more important is that bad to say

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
or more important than the
survival of any owl or salmon

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
or snail darter or marbled Merlin?

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
Well, uh… I\'m a lumberjack too. I
lived and worked as a lumberjack

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
uh… and I packed out many
of my buddies smashed up

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
and we reach in our pockets

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
to help the widows and the kids.
Uh… I know your life

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
and it\'s… it\'s a shame,

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
but I think that many of
us in this line of work

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
are going to have to find other ways

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
to make a living. Thank you.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
During a break, I went upstairs

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
to use a telephone and uh… there\'s
a all-day protest going on

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
outside the hearing room. I think it was just a bunch
of people milling around the science what-have-you.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
And I walked into a room that had a window that was… that was tinted
and… and possibly had one of these two-way mirrors arranged on it.

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
And a number of people from the
uh… the City Police Department

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
along with some people from interior

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
had Polaroid cameras and video cameras set up
in that room and they were taking photographs

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
of virtually everybody in the crowd and had stacks
and stacks and stacks of Polaroid pictures of folks

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
who are in that protest and then
we\'re capturing them on tape.

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
And we\'re very suspicious of every last
one of them and you know, saying well,

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
we\'ve seen that person somewhere before. And it was
an eerie feeling because you have the impression that

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
uh… you really couldn\'t go
anywhere and be visible

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
uh… as a part of this issue
without being tagged.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
The ominous atmosphere of
surveillance at the public hearing

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
masked a bitter irony. This
testimony would not be included

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
in the official record provided to the
Endangered Species Committee in Washington DC.

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:50.000
A committee is comprised of six federal agency heads
and one representative of the affected State.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
The idea was to create a balanced jury

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
that came to the table with different
perspectives and areas of expertise.

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
Politics weren\'t supposed
to be part of the equation.

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
But they were hard to ignore. When
the Secretary of the Interior

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
one assumes with some prior notice and acquiescence in the part of the
White House proposed to exempt application of the Endangered Species Act,

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
I think we generally understood
by the people who came together

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
as the God Squad that that was the desired outcome from the point of view,
certainly, the Interior Department and probably also the White House.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
It was the fourth year of
George Bush\'s presidency.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
His Secretary of the
Interior, Manuel Lujan Jr.

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
Was in charge of hundreds of
millions of acres of public land

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
and the diverse wildlife that lived there.
Yet he rejected Darwin\'s theory of evolution

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
and he believed humans were more
important than other creatures

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
that they were on what he called a higher scale.
He let committee members know how he felt.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
I know that John Canales

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
who ran the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration had responsibilities therefore

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
for the Marine Mammal Protection Act felt a
particularly regard and concern for the Wildlife.

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
Uh… I was former president of World
Wildlife Fund and I did too.

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
And he and I had one conversation after he
had come from the White House where he had

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
uh… had a briefing on the
issue from their perspective

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
and a briefing with
secretary Lujan as well.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
And he reflected his anxiety about that decision. We discussed
the costs and the benefits both from the point of view

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
of the wildlife and timber also
professionally of a decision

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
that I\'d go against the
grain, go against the crowd.

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
I was umm… leaving for Greece

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
on the 30th of April. The 1st of May
I had a long-standing invitation

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
to give a keynote address at a World
Fisheries Congress in Athens.

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
And I was been looking forward to that vacation. I was taking
my wife with me and Lynne and I were gonna spend a week there.

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
And I didn\'t see any
reason for changing that.

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
Umm… We weren\'t scheduled to meet on the… the
committee wasn\'t scheduled me to the 14th and I…

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
I was gonna be back to the 10th. I thought I\'d have
plenty of time to hear about how things were going.

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
And quite frankly, if there\'s gonna be a lot of arm-twisting, I
would rather not I thought these will be out of the country.

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
[music]

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
The committee is only allowed under
the statue to talk to each other

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
in open public meeting.

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
It\'s a… a very open process subject
to Sunshine rules essentially.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
Uh… There were rumors that these were…

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
these procedural requirements were violent.

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
I recall two meetings at the
White House that involved me.

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
One was with Clayton Yeutter in his office.
He was assistant to the president for social

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
and economic policy. At that
meeting, he and secretary Lujan

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
went through the arguments in favor of granting an
exemption which they knew I would regard as a very serious

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
in difficult choice. I can recall later

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
at a luncheon with the president
involving three or four people I believe

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
and Clayton Yeutter was one of them. I was there. I think Mike Dillon,
the Chairman of the Council of Environmental Quality was there

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
and the president. And umm…
it was about other issues,

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
environmental issues in general. I don\'t recall that
the Endangered Species Act was even on the agenda.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
I brought it up however to say
what a poor decision I thought

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
it would be to file an exemption to approve
an exemption to Endangered Species Act

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
the first such exemption in all of the history
of that law. And it was a tense moment.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:13.000
[music]

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
We knew uh… that ultimately

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
the staff people involved not just in our agency
but broadly in all the agencies on this issue

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
that sooner or later we were gonna be
asked to… to make a recommendation to…

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
to vote yes even though we knew that the numbers
on the data really wasn\'t there to support it.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
And so it was a… it was a big question for
a long time how exactly that would happen

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
and when it would happen. And…
and I can remember very clearly,

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
exactly, how it happened in our agency.

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
And uh… the way it all unfolded was that a fairly
senior political appointee with our agency

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
had a breakfast meeting at the White
House one morning and was shooed out

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
by a number of people at the White House who were dealing
with campaign issues of which this was… was one,

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
came back to EPA and located
another senior political official

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
who happened to be in charge of
the… the shop that I work with and…

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
and shoot that person out. And then
subsequently a meeting was set up

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
where a couple of advisers at the technical level who
were involved in this were asked to sit down and explain

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
why there was a problem while we weren\'t able
to come up with some sort of a recommendation

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
that would allow our committee member to vote
yes and uh… gee, isn\'t there some option

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
that\'s out there? And our answer was to him candidly
no and we wish there was… we wish we could say yes.

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
I mean, we looked as long as hard as we
could, but there is no mitigation option.

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
And we were pushed on that
relentlessly to find some way

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
that we could interpret the science
and interpret the economics

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
and ultimately the resolution of that was
for the person who was running the meeting

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
to turn to a person who was sitting next
to me who happens to be a PhD ecologist

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
umm… and say, \"I know this sounds
like I\'m asking you to be a whore

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
but I guess that\'s what I\'m asking you
to do.\" And the request very flagrantly

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
and deliberately was I want you to fudge the numbers.
I want you to interpret these things to say yes

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
even though you and I both know the answer
is no. And that\'s what it came down to.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:38.000
[music]

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
Initially, I probably
would have thought that

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
all of us might approach uh… the subject quite
the same, but looking back on the experience

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
umm… I was the only one
not from the Potomac.

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
Umm… I was the only one who
walked a number of the sales.

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
Umm… so, I probably really came at it umm… quite
differently. I looked at the four criteria

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
and the law says that for
an exemption to be granted,

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
each sale had to meet each of the criteria.
Committee members had to decide

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
whether the sales were in the public interest?
Would the economic benefits of these sales

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
add up to regional or
national significance?

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
Were there any reasonable alternatives to them? And had the
BLM already committed itself to the point of no return,

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
the law was clear about the questions.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
The answers were trickier.

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
One of the considerations
that was in my mind

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
during the run-up to the meeting was a very
personal one and that is my wife has been

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
a very avid birder since 1977.

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
So for 15 years prior to the meeting
umm… I had been exposed more and more

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
to my wife\'s interest in birds

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
and she\'s gone to a number of
countries on her own on bird trips.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
I\'ve been with her on many bird trips on my own. So
I was very sensitive to her feelings in the matter.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
And that again is a personal influence
that you have to as a public servant

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
try to erase from the radar screen as
you\'re trying to make up your mind

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
about an issue of national importance

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
and importance to the country and not
just to yourself or to your wife.

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
It wasn\'t the most attractive proposition to suddenly find
yourself in the middle of a major controversial issue

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
that you yourself and your
agency were not responsible for.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
We all of us wondered why it was really
necessary for us to be there that day I think.

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
To my knowledge, every single one of
the committee members was advised

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
possibly with one exception by their staff
people that were very, very grave doubts

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
about whether this exemption could be granted
legitimately given the criteria that were required.

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
And one good friend who was
uh… a very senior advisor

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
for another one of the committee members told that
person prior to the vote politics or politics

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
but the numbers just aren\'t there to justify
the exemption and didn\'t change the way

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
his committee member voted. But I think that describes
in a nutshell the views of the… the technical staff.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
There\'s a very, very strong
consensus of technical people

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
who were involved in this on the
inside that it just wasn\'t there.

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
[music]

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
The day before the actual vote,

00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
the Secretary had contacted each one of the…
the members of the committee independently.

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
And he had a pretty good idea of who
where everyone sat on this thing.

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
They knew that Tom Walsh was probably
not going to vote for an exemption.

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
They knew that Bill Reilly probably
wouldn\'t… I think two weeks before

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
he actually told the president that he
probably would not be voting for an exemption.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
They thought they had five more votes and
when they contacted Canal Sober and Noah,

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
he indicated that he did have
some problems with this.

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
From that point they went into this negotiation that went
well into the night I think till probably 3ː00 A.M..

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
I think it was clear that it
would have been gone this far

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
probably would have been an embarrassment if they
couldn\'t have gotten some kind of an agreement.

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
So there was an… they were anxious to

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
if I could come forward with a proposal that
I would feel comfortable with to vote for.

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
That was probably clearly I think in
the administration\'s best interest.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
As of an hour before the…

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
the hearing they had in recent agreement.
I actually wrote a statement saying that

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
the Endangered Species Committee meeting had
been cancelled. We had all the major networks,

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
every major paper and all the Western
papers involved in this. They were in town.

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
We had… we had been working with the staffs.
This thing had been going for months.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
It was this huge, huge effort that when we boiled
down to I had a one-sentence uh… statement in my hand

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
saying that the whole
thing had been cancelled

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
and I… it was at that moment I realized
that how big a mess this really was.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
On a warm spring day in May 1992,

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
the God Squad met to make its decision.

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
To pass the sales needed approval
from five of seven committee members.

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
John Knauss held the deciding vote.

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
While he had reservations about the proposed exemptions,
he didn\'t want to vote against the White House.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
Quite frankly, in the meeting,

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
I had essentially two pieces of
paper that I had put together

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
early that morning at 8 o\'clock, one giving my
negative vote and one giving my positive vote.

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
And so I had to simply cut
and paste as we went along.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
When secretary Lujan proposed 13
sales instead of 44, Knauss agreed.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
But his vote came at a price.
In exchange for his approval,

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
Knauss required the BLM write a
long-range forest management plan

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
protecting all species. That
was what environmental groups

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
had wanted all along. The US Fish and Wildlife
Service would have to approve that plan

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
before the BLM could sell
any timber in the future.

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
All vote in favor of… of that
to raise their right hand.

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
One, two, three, four…

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
Measure passed five to two with William
Reilly and Oregon\'s Tom Walsh dissenting.

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
But it was a bitter pill
for the BLM to swallow.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
As a result, the Bureau of Land Management
was rather disappointed in the decision

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
and never intended to go
forward with those 13 sales

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
under the conditions that
have been placed on them.

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
Uh… However, the obligation
given that the politics

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
and the media presentation of the decision was that uh…
the bureau had to appear to be happy about the decision.

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
Uh… Our reaction was that…
was that the committee

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
had ultimately given us everything that we had asked for. But
they had cloaked it in a decision that granted the exemption.

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
And in terms of the larger political issues

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
about the future of… of the
Endangered Species Act,

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
that was a result that we couldn\'t allow to
continue to stand because the process had been

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
so incredibly politicized and…

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
uh… and umm… it… it actually been for
the most part a sham in the farce.

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
I watched the final result of this whole
thing unfold after I\'d been in that,

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
you know, for eight or nine months.

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
And uh… it was really like
watching uh… a part of me,

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
I don\'t know what to say, it died or it disappeared
or whatever. But it… it… it didn\'t turn out well.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
And uh… I\'d given an awful lot
of myself to the whole issue

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
and it was kind of like being in… in a relationship
where you tried as hard as you possibly could

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
to make it work right. You gave it everything
you had and no matter how hard you tried,

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
it just wasn\'t going to go in that direction.
And you know that\'s life, and that\'s politics,

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
and that\'s a part of these kinds of things.

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
But umm… it\'s not a game and
there\'s a whole lot at stake.

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
I was uh… very discouraged about the way our
government did things at certain times.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
And so I took a long walk back to EPA from interior and
I was walking across the Washington Monument grounds

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
is bright and sunny in and… and the
tourists were just starting to come out

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
in full force. And I remember

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
uh… things turning over in my mind and thinking about all the
people who come to Washington DC to see our center of government.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
People come from all over the world to see this as a
shining example of what democracy is supposed to do

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
and that they have a lot of expectations

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
and uh… a lot of admiration and
that on that particular day

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
I knew we let them down big time. I
think the judgment on that decision

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
has to be that it didn\'t work. It
didn\'t work politically for Bush

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
who didn\'t carry Oregon. It
didn\'t work economically

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
for the timber workers because
finally all the 13 of the tracts

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
were not included in the exemption
by the Interior Department.

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
And then the new administration disavowed the whole
process. It finally didn\'t work for the judge.

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
The judge has not to this day lifted the
injunction and you still have the conflict

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
between those two values which nobody has
found the satisfied means to resolve.

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
When you call the God Squad, it… it should be
a… a very serious and more generic question

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
than one manipulated to… to
focus on a very small issue

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
of 44 timber sales that
really wasn\'t the question.

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
What should have been in question was, do… do we have any
intention of making whatever needed sacrifices there are

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
for the benefit of the… of that
particular threatened species

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
or the system that it represented. Those
were the more significant questions.

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
[sil.]

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
The decision to grant an exemption
from the Endangered Species Act

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
took place just about two weeks prior to
the convening of the conference of the…

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
of the United Nations on environmental
development in Rio de Janeiro in June of 1992.

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
I was head of delegation for the United States at that
conference. And the decision by the United States

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.999
to exempt the application of our Endangered Species Act, one
of our major systems for protection of biological diversity

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:29.999
along with the decision not to sign
the biological diversity Convention

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.999
needless to say put me under a fairly
significant cloud as I arrived in Rio.

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.999
I remember the London Times showed
my picture on the front page

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
after my first press conference there about as angry
and hostile a press conference as I\'ve ever had

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
with the caption \"Arrival
of the arch fiend in Rio.\"

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
That failure to make the connection between a major
domestic policy decision in our foreign policy

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
where the whole world was
going to be watching

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
what we were doing and saying was a very bad conjunction
whereas a country that had probably the best record of any

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
for protection of the environment
and particularly of species

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
with a law that was stronger than was seen in any
other country the fact we just exempted that

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
removed relieve me the credibility that I needed to talk
about our commitment to the protection of places like

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
the Amazonian rainforest

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
and other vital resources for… for Biological
Diversity. One of my biggest disappointments

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
as a witness in the God Squad
hearings was that I had hoped that

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
it would be a forum for the critical
issues to be put on the table

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
and openly discussed in an attempt to solve
what I perceive to be the real problem

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
in the Pacific Northwest and that is that
we as a society have harvested those for us

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
at a rate and at a spatial extent

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
that is unprecedented historically.
The old-growth spotted owl issue

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.999
simply has repeated a
pattern of human behavior

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.999
and that is to take a
renewable natural resource

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.999
to exploit it to the point of collapse beyond the point at which
you can renew and then look for the next resource to exploit.

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:19.999
We have now run out of
new sources of resources

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.999
to move to the scale of human activity
relative to the scale of biological processes.

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
It has never been at the
point at which it is now.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.999
So what we\'re going to ultimately have to come
to grips with is a much larger responsibility

00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.999
an ethical issue. And that
is what is just the quest

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.999
in terms of natural resources
for future generations.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:50.000
[music]

00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:48.000
[music]

00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:39.999
Funding for this program was provided in part by
Film Arts Foundation dedicated to the education,

00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:44.999
funding, and presentation of
independent film Nu Lambda Trust,

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:50.000
Pacific Pioneer Fund and individual donors.