WALLY HERGER: “each of us remembers last summer's dramatic national headlines about the several Federal biologists who turned off 100…”

“each of us remembers last summer's dramatic national headlines about the several Federal biologists who turned off 100 percent of the water to hundreds of family farmers in the Klamath Basin of northern California and southern Oregon and shut down an entire community. This week the National Academy of Sciences, perhaps the most highly respected scientific body in this country, has concluded, quote, ``There was no scientific or technical information to justify that decision.'' Let me repeat that statement, Mr. Speaker. There was no scientific or technical information to justify the decision that stripped 1,500 family farmers of their livelihoods, drove a community of 70,000 to the brink of economic collapse, and caused irreparable social harm and changed the lives of thousands of people forever. All of this was done, Mr. Speaker, because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service biologists merely theorized that withholding water deliveries would benefit the fish. There were no certain facts to back up those theories. There was no hard evidence, no historical proof, only guesswork. In fact, the historical proof told them the opposite, but they consciously chose to ignore it. And the steps they said had to be taken, the Academy's report tells us, are probably harmful. How could the Academy have reached such a vastly different conclusion? Because, Mr. Speaker, the Klamath Basin tragedy is nothing short of scientific sabotage.”