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Inslee listens to a constituent.

Montage of Wing Point in Bainbridge Island and the Edmonds Ferry.

Jay Inslee: Washington's 1st Congressional District

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Feds ax university study on logging;

Were unpopular findings to blame?

7 February 2006

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee wants to know if the Bureau of Land Management pulled funding from a study being conducted by a graduate student at Oregon State University (OSU) because findings didn't support the administration's position on logging.

Inslee, a member of the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health of the House Resources Committee, called on the Interior Department's inspector general to review the decision to stop funding a three-year, $300,000 federal grant for research on the effects of salvage logging after the 2002 Biscuit Fire in southwestern Oregon.

In a letter sent today to Inspector General Earl E. Devaney, Inslee wrote, "I'm concerned that in this case funding may have been frozen to punish researchers for reporting findings that are unpopular with the administration." He continued, "After all, there's no such thing as a democracy that silences academic research."

Findings of the OSU study, published last month in the magazine Science, were cited by opponents of a House bill that would expedite logging in national forests after fires or other disasters.

The legislation, the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act, H.R. 4200, was endorsed by the head of the Forest Service during a hearing on the bill in November. It also is backed by the timber industry.

Click here to read Inslee's letter to the Interior Department inspector general.