319 



have to look at. I am glad you raised this issue as something that 

 is a statutory problem, since the ESA is probably going to be con- 

 sidered by this Congress, and anything you can provide in terms 

 of the constraints you see on this Section 7 or other consultations 

 to open up those processes, I would find that very helpfiil in fram- 

 ing some potential amendments to the Act, and also to meet the 

 concerns of the tribes, whether perhaps the Act is inadequate there 

 too. So I think that that merits some examination. Then I just ob- 

 serve the Recovery Plan, and I think you are going to have the 

 same problem. I mean fi*om what I hear, this is something that is 

 being developed. If we are dealing with science and the scientists 

 are so certain of their opinions and the data and everything that 

 is going into it, why do they not sit in an open room where the 

 press can wander in and out and the public can wander in and out, 

 and hear how they got to where they are going to get. All of a sud- 

 den one day we are going to have a recovery plan and it is going 

 to be a big surprise to me what is in it and it is going to be a big 

 surprise to everybody in this room what is in it. And again, you 

 may be tied by the existing law, I do not know. But I am just say- 

 ing it is going to be a credibility problem; it is going to be how did 

 you get there, you know? I would say that as much as science is 

 determining public poHcy, it should be subject to the same scrutiny 

 as public policy. 



Mr. Smith, I really feel like this peer review process is a step for- 

 ward in that direction. 



Mr, DeFazio. Well peer review is, given a set of assumptions, 

 okay. Here are the assumptions that were given or here are the re- 

 quirements of the Act. A group of scientists get together, and given 

 those assumptions and that, they have come to a set of conclusions. 

 It is not to say that is the only potential conclusion, and we do not 

 know how we got to those conclusions. I mean you could put an- 

 other group of scientists together with those same mandates, and 

 you could come up with a very different outcome. I am just saying 

 it would be usefiil to people to understand — scientists are people. 

 They have public, private, poHtical opinions of their own. I do not 

 think they are Uttle nerds who just, you know, do science. And all 

 that goes into the decision-making. That is all I am saying. 



Mr. Smith. I understand. 



Mr. DeFazio. I am just talking about how we could build a Uttle 

 more public confidence in our processes here, that is my concern, 

 and also involve the sovereign entities who are involved, because 

 I think they have been extraordinarily patient, to tell the truth. I 

 think the tribes probably have some successfiil courses of litigation 

 they could have pursued that could have been very disruptive, that 

 they have withheld fi-om doing in the hopes that maybe we would 

 finally come around and deal with them honestly and meet our ob- 

 ligations. But I think maybe the patience is running out, and I am 

 worried about that. 



Do you have any further questions? 



Mr. LaRccco. Yeah, I have a couple of questions. It has been a 

 very peacefiil hearing so far and I suspect the panel might shatter 

 that a little bit, but let me say, Mr. Smith, in the next panel, there 

 is going to be testimony fi-om Mr. Al Wright and he says in his tes- 

 timony 'The latest silver bullet that is being promoted by some in- 



