Who’da thunkit? A high DoI official puts the interests of extractive industries and industrial agriculture above endangered species. Yeah, shock and awe and all that.

A senior Bush political appointee at the Interior Department has rejected staff scientists’ recommendations to protect imperiled animals and plants under the Endangered Species Act at least six times in the past three years, documents show.

In addition, staff complaints that their scientific findings were frequently overruled or disparaged at the behest of landowners or industry have led the agency’s inspector general to look into the role of Julie MacDonald, who has been deputy assistant secretary of the interior for fish and wildlife and parks since 2004, in decisions on protecting endangered species.

Now as I write, 11 p.m. CST, this is high on the front page of WaPo.com. However if you look at the cutline it is appearing on an inside page—A3—in tomorrow morning’s dead tree edition. Which makes me suspect that by morning it will also no longer be on the front WaPo website page. That makes it a Sunday Night Data Dump entry.

The details are the sort of crap you’d expect. I actually don’t mind the acusations that she’s sarcastic—we would have a lot of trouble here at Corrente criticizing anybody for that, right?—but for chrissakes she’s just so blatant about what sort of Species she feels it is her job to protect:

“A lot of times when I first read a document I think, ’This is a joke, this is just not right.’ So I’ll ask questions,’ ” said MacDonald, a civil engineer by training who worked at the California Resources Agency before joining the Interior Department in 2002. “These documents have tremendous economic and social implications for people.”

Um, Julie honey? The job title says ” deputy assistant secretary of the interior for fish and wildlife and parks”. I know they didn’t teach this at Civil Engineering School but that means you are IT as far as the Voice of The About To Become Extinct. “People” last I checked are not quite in that category yet, which is sorta part of the problem.

And I gotta say you seem to have a very narrow definition of “people” anyway:

MacDonald has repeatedly urged employees to consider the position of industry officials more seriously when weighing whether to declare a species threatened or endangered. During a discussion of greater sage grouse populations in the first half of the 1800s, she wrote, “This paragraph completely ignores the comments received by the Owyhee Cattlemen’s Association and the Idaho Cattle Association.” The organization opposed the listing on the grounds that it would limit their use of land where the birds live.

See, the Owyhee Cattlemen can graze their cows in all sorts of places. The greater sage grouse doesn’t have quite the same freedom to change its living space. See the difference?

Greater sage grouse should just get a clue, hire better lawyers, and up their goddam donations to the RNC if they want to get DOI respect. But give this story a read if you’re into any of these issues, it’s the clearest sign yet that some folks in DC think it’s safe to come out of the Roveian/Republican Fellation Closet now.