Jay Inslee: “we have another concern today arising about the administration's potential abuse of the scientific process in making…”

“we have another concern today arising about the administration's potential abuse of the scientific process in making policy. Today, the Associated Press reported that the Bureau of Land Management under this administration has suspended funding for the final year of a study from Oregon State University on the impact of logging in national forests burned by wildfires. Findings of these studies were published last month in the magazine Science, and they suggested that the administration's stance on salvage logging runs counter to the real goals regarding forest regeneration and fire prevention. I am concerned in this case that we have seen yet another situation where funding may have been frozen to punish scientific results legitimately conducted at Oregon State University, and that is why I have called on the Interior Department's inspector general today to investigate whether or not this in fact has occurred. Did Daniel Donato and his research team from OSU lose funding because of this cause? Is this another punishment situation? We need to find out. We have got to respect science and use it accordingly. ____________________”