Feds unaware of Cheney role

By David Whitney - Bee Washington Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., whose constituents are affected by Klamath River policies, testifies Tuesday before a House resources panel. McClatchy Tribune/Chuck Kennedy

The Interior Department's deputy inspector general said Tuesday that her office was unaware of Vice President Dick Cheney's involvement in decisions affecting the Klamath River when it concluded in a report three years ago that there was no evidence of political interference in the heated 2001-2002 endangered species battle.

Mary L. Kendall told the House Natural Resources Committee that if her office had been told about calls Cheney made to top Interior Department officials, they would have been checked out. But she also said she is not sure they would have mattered.

"It may not have changed the conclusion," she said. But she added, "We would have followed any tracks made available to us."

The committee hearing was scheduled at the request of 36 House Democrats from California and Oregon after the Washington Post reported in June that Cheney had intervened in the highly charged battle over water flows in the state's northernmost river.

According to the newspaper, Cheney called Sue Ellen Wooldridge, then Interior Secretary Gale Norton's point person on the Klamath, raising concerns about the Bureau of Reclamation's decision in 2001 to turn off irrigation supplies to basin farmers in order to send more water down river for endangered fish.

Cheney then recommended that the Interior Department ask the National Academy of Sciences to analyze the biology behind the decision. The academy concluded that shutting off the water to farmers was not justified, and a new biological opinion was put together by summer to keep the farms watered.

That fall, as many as 70,000 salmon died in the river's lower reaches when low flows and warm waters created an ideal environment for the spread of a deadly pathogen.

"This was the biggest commercial fishing disaster in history," Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, told the committee, adding that it cost taxpayers $60 million in disaster assistance this spring.

The 2004 inspector general's investigation, sought by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., had been focused on reports in the Wall Street Journal that Karl Rove, President Bush's political director, had pressured officials in connection with Klamath River decisions.

After its independent investigation, the inspector general's office found no one at the Interior Department who said they felt any political pressure.

But it was not until the Washington Post report that there had been any inkling that Cheney might have been involved behind the scenes, too. The Democratic-led committee invited Cheney and Dirk Kempthorne, who succeeded Norton as department secretary last year, but neither accepted.

"I am obliged to express disappointment at the difficulty we have in trying to learn the truth," said Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, D-W.Va., the committee chair, who nonetheless declared the Klamath "a case study in the political heavy-handedness so prevalent throughout this administration."

There had been concern among Republicans that the hearing could reignite old hostilities by plowing old ground while two dozen players in the Klamath controversy are engaged in historic negotiations to craft a solution.

During the peak of a drought in 2001, the shutoff of water affected thousands of farm families. A year later, so many salmon died that successive years of commercial fishing from California 's Central Coast to the Columbia River were ruined.

"I've never seen it as tough on the fishing fleet as its been the last couple of years," said San Francisco fisherman Larry Collins in a telephone press conference arranged by environmentalists Monday in advance of the hearing.

Opening witnesses at the hearing were Reps. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, Wally Herger, R-Chico, Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Thompson, who each have constituents hurt by the controversy.

But without Cheney or Kempthorne, tempers remained in check.

"I don't feel anything here compromised those negotiations," Rahall said.

Where the committee's investigation of Cheney goes now is unclear.

"We'll gather the committee to discern a future course of action," Rahall said.

Kendall said that since the report of Cheney's involvement, no one has asked the inspector general's office to reopen its investigation.

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Source:  http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/302399.html