House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) today sent a letter to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Dan Ashe seeking additional information following the Department of the Interior Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) Management Advisory, issued on July 11, 2013, regarding the FWS’s inaction on whistleblower complaints related to violations of the scientific integrity policy.

Click here to read the letter.

The Management Advisory states:

“The Office of Inspector General (OIG) requests that immediate action be taken to address an unreasonable and inappropriate response regarding the discipline of two Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) supervisors who engaged in scientific misconduct and apparently retaliated against three FWS employees in 2012. The failure to take timely and appropriate management action by FWS senior leadership, to include Director Dan Ashe, damages the credibility and integrity of the Department of the Interior (DOI) and FWS Science Program as well as senior leadership.”

“Concerns have been raised that the Service failed to take timely and appropriate management action against supervisors who may have engaged in scientific misconduct and then retaliated against whistleblowers who reported the misconduct to the OIG. The Committee takes allegations of violations of scientific integrity as well as whistleblower retaliation very seriously and expects to be kept apprised of this issue,” wrote Chairman Hastings.

FWS Director Dan Ashe is scheduled to testify tomorrow in front of the Natural Resources Committee at a hearing on “Transparency and Sound Science Gone Extinct?:The Impacts of the Obama Administration's Closed-Door Settlements on Endangered Species and People.”