Non-Profit Group Unveils Winner of Scientific Integrity Contest (Cartoons)
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit group that advocates for scientific integrity, recently released the winners of its 2009 Science Idol contest. According to the organization,
The UCS asked 12 artists to draw humorous attention to the not-so-funny issue of political interference in federal government science. After more than 10,000 votes were cast, Jesse Springer of Eugene, OR came out on top with a cartoon about science and the Endangered Species Act (above).
The UCS famously blew the whistle on Bush Adminstration interference at the U.S. Interior Department, which led to a federal investigation and the resignation of Julie A. MacDonald, a high ranking administration official. The investigation found that MacDonald had repeatedly violated the Code of Federal Regulations “basic obligation of public service” by giving confidential information to oil and land developers and tampering with two-thirds of the Endangered Species Act decisions under her charge. Investigators also found that MacDonald’s “abrupt and abrasive, if not abusive” management style “demoralized…her staff as well as her subordinate managers.” U.S. Senator Ron Wyden said that “this report makes it crystal clear how one person’s contempt for the public trust can infect an entire agency. MacDonald caused significant harm to the integrity of the Endangered Species Act and untold waste of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars.”
All 12 entrants in the Science Idol contest will be featured in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ annual calendar, which can be purchased on their website for $10. The calendar is meant to serve as “a constant reminder of how vigilant we must be in defending science from politics.”
They’re certainly doing their part. Check out all 12 of the cartoons below. (more…)
Interior Inspector Devaney Rewarded With Stimulus Oversight Post
This should not go unnoticed, though it probably will.
President Obama has appointed Earl E. Devaney as chairman of the Transparency and Accountability Board for the 2009 stimulus plan.
Devaney, whose internal investigations led to downfall of political figures like Jack Abramoff and Gale Norton (and lesser-known people like Julie MacDonald)—as well as the discovery of a sex-and-drugs-for-influence scandal at the U.S. Interior Department—is a kind of folk hero to environmentalists who had given up hope during Bush’s second term.
No doubt most people haven’t heard of Earl Devaney, but he’s apparently known to Barack Obama. It’s great to see that he’s being rewarded for his integrity—even as he served an administration that tried to impose its own amorality from the top-down.
President Obama told a group of Governors this morning, “I am also proud to announce the appointment of Earl Devaney as Chair of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board. For nearly a decade as Inspector General at the Interior Department, Earl has doggedly pursued waste, fraud and mismanagement, and [Vice President Biden] and I can’t think of a more tenacious and efficient guardian of the hard-earned tax dollars the American people have entrusted us to wisely invest.”
[Halperin]
