Park Service pulls objection to fracking; used op-ed instead of scientific evidence

The National Park Service has officially withdrawn a controversial document objecting to fracking, scrubbing the record and acknowledging that it broke its own rules on sticking to strict science in its zeal to pressure a fellow federal agency. The embarrassing admission, which came from Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis in a letter to Rep. Rob Bishop, said the comments never should have been submitted, went out without his review, and shouldn’t have cited a New York Times op-ed as scientific evidence. “I have requested that the comments be withdrawn from the record,” Mr. Jarvis said in the letter, dated earlier this month, in which he said nobody “from management” at the agency or at the White House Office of Management and Budget ever reviewed the document before it was submitted. Mr. Jarvis didn’t acknowledge that the science his agency relied upon was bad, but Mr. Bishop said withdrawing the document is a tacit admission that the Park Service was “misleading” Americans. “It concerns me that the National Park Service attempted to pass off unsubstantiated information as ‘science,’” the Utah Republican said...more