Let’s say you’re the outgoing administration, and you’re pretty sure that the new guys coming in are going to try and undo everything you’ve done on environmental policy, in part by replacing the people that made these policies.  What do you do to try to cement your policy, keep these people in jobs, and make it slightly harder for the next administration to do their thing?  The Washington Post has one idea, and it’s called burrowing:

Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department’s top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies — including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions — into senior civil service posts.

This means that some key jobs which were Bush appointments now are civil service jobs, which obviously do not roll over every new president.  Now, to be fair, this is certainly not new.  The Post states that, “In its last 12 months, the Clinton administration approved 47 such moves, including seven at the senior executive level.”

It’s interesting that so many of these shifts, though, are happening where environmental policy are made.  It seems that the Bush people think they’ve hit on some pretty good rules concerning taking care of nature.

The personnel moves come as Bush administration officials are scrambling to cement in place policy and regulatory initiatives that touch on issues such as federal drinking-water standards, air quality at national parks, mountaintop mining and fisheries limits.

If you’re wondering what that track record on “policy and regulatory initiatives” is, you might do a search of “E.P.A.” on this site and see what pops up.  There’s also some concern over the secrecy with which these switches are taking place.

Outside groups are trying to monitor these moves but are powerless to reverse them. Alex Bastani, a representative at the Labor Department for the American Federation of Government Employees, said it took months for that agency even to acknowledge that two of its Bush appointees, Carrie Snidar and Brad Mantel, had gotten civil service posts.

The article does not acknowledge the candidness other administrations had when doing the same thing.  But it goes without saying (though I’m saying it anyway), environmental groups may not be too amped on all this.

“What’s clear is they could have done this during the eight years they were in office. Why are they doing it now?” said Robert Irvin, senior vice president for conservation programs at Defenders of Wildlife, an advocacy group. “It’s pretty obvious they’re trying to leave in place some of their loyal foot soldiers in their efforts to reduce environmental protection.”
takepart and visit the Defenders of Wildlife website.  They give you plenty of different ways to help endangered species, and as of right now there’s a super cute picture of a wolf cub on the main page.