Many readers of this mailing list still
have two unanswered questions:
1) How did the USDA de-fund the bee labs?
2) Why?
How did a respected and productive group
of scientists doing work that is mission-
critical to the very survival of bees and
beekeeping suddenly find themselves faced
with unemployment?
The cause was a few simple words that were
misunderstood. What words? "Review",
"Consolidate", "Consistent", and "All".
WHO MISUNDERSTOOD WHO?
1) A USDA task force misunderstood Congress.
2) The task force misunderstood the Secretary of Agriculture.
3) The USDA misunderstood the task force's report.
The surprising end result of these misunderstandings
was summed up in memo dated Feb 7, 2002 from Edward B.
Knipling, Acting Administrator of the USDA ARS to all
employees of the ARS, which says:
"...There are also other reductions in
ongoing base programs, which amount to
$15,000,000 and result from location and
laboratory closures and consolidations as
recommended by the "Strategic Planning Task
Force on USDA Research Facilities..."
"Consistent with specific recommendations
made in this report, the ARS budget includes
a number of location and laboratory closures
and consolidations as follows:... closure of
the honey bee research laboratories located at
Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Beltsville, Maryland;
and Tucson, Arizona. A portion of these honey
bee programs will be consolidated with the
honey bee laboratory at Weslaco, Texas."
But how did this task force come to such
recommendations?
They didn't.
What the task force recommended was that:
"...all honey bee research be
consolidated at Weslaco, Texas"
The USDA somehow did not understand the word "all".
The USDA de-funded all honey bee research, except
for one token project from each lab closed. The
task force never suggested anything so drastic as
what the USDA now proposes.
The USDA proposal is not "consistent with specific
recommendations", but is instead, clearly
inconsistent with the recommendations.
But even the consolidation itself was not
supported by any justification. Consolidation
was recommended without any facts or rationale
to support it.
Due to a lack of subject-matter knowledge, the
location suggested for consolidation simply
cannot support any of the bee research projects
to be consolidated.
The term "consolidation" gives the impression
that money will be saved on "bricks and mortar",
and the same valuable science can be done without
the "waste" of having separate facilities.
In fact, no money is saved by closing facilities.
The changes proposed only "save" money by firing
people and by withholding research funding.
Even the token projects still funded will likely
go unstaffed and undone, simply because bee research
cannot be done in an area infested with Africanized
Bees. The money will likely be spent on other things.
The budget cut (roughly $3 to $4 million), is a mere
0.004% of the USDA total budget, but is nearly 25% of
the USDA's $15 million reduction in "base programs".
In short, the USDA proposes to end bee research at a
time when new and serious pests and diseases threaten
the survival of bees and crop pollination in the US,
including, just to name the most well-known:
Tracheal Mites (1984)
Varroa Mites (1987)
Africanized Bees (1990)
Resistant Foulbrood (1997)
Parasitic Mite Syndrome (1994?)
Hive Beetles (1998)
The amazing thing is that the USDA intends to continue
to fund research projects on the crops that bees must
pollinate if one wants a decent crop, or any crop at all.
Here's the details, blow by blow:
==============================================
CONGRESS ORDERS A PLAN
In 1996, Congress approved the drafting of a 10-year
strategic plan for federal research facilities as part
of the "Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act
of 1996", or "FAIR" (Citation: Public Law 104-127
Subtitle D, Section 884, Section 4).
The Congressional goals for the task force were rational.
They wanted to focus Federal money on USDA ARS facilities
where the work done was both "Uniquely Federal" and
"Appropriately Federal", meaning that duplicate efforts
were not being undertaken by states or private industry,
and the subject matter of the work was a valid concern
of the federal government. These were reasonable goals.
A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE
The Secretary of Agriculture's influence on the task
force apparently had the effect of slanting their
views about a subset of ARS efforts, including the
bee labs. If one reads the report of this group, the
full title and citation being:
Report of the Strategic Planning Task Force
USDA Research Facilities
Call number A 1.2:ST 8/2 [[0010 (MF)]]
(Available from any US Depository Library, a
list of which can be found at
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/findlibs )
One finds that:
a) The bee labs were "reviewed" only because the Secretary of
Agriculture specifically requested that the task force
review them (pages 32 - 34).
b) If not for the specific request, the "bee labs" would have
been rated among the best investments of ARS funds. The
task force's report ranks the bee labs much higher than a
large number of other labs not being threatened with closure
or project cancellation, and the total amount required to
fund the bee labs is very small. Good bang, small bucks.
What more could one want? (Pages 96, 99, 100, and 103)
c) The request for a "review" of a lab by the Secretary of
Agriculture was a death sentence for the lab. Most of
those mentioned are slated for closure or "consolidation"
in the task force report. (Pages 32 - 34)
d) As for the bee labs, the task force report illustrates
that no attempt was made to gather facts, and
consolidation was suggested without any valid reason
or even an attempt to create an plausible excuse.
The process was flawed, and had the net effect of
ignoring the clear orders of Congress.
d) Even more compelling, the task force did not even
bother to look at any of the bee lab facilities or
meet with any bee lab staff. One reads in the report
(page 27) that while they visited Beltsville, and toured
multiple labs at Beltsville, they could not bother to
walk over to the bee lab, a facility that the Secretary
of Agriculture specifically requested that they "review".
e) Clearly, the task force over-reacted to the Secretary's
concerns, or their interpretation of the Secretary's
concerns, and took "review" to mean "unconditionally close".
A FAILURE TO OBEY THE LAW?
It is unclear if any of these actions are a violation
of the authorizing legislation of Congress, but the
result was to undermine the authority of Congress,
and subvert the intent of Congress.
A LACK OF COMPREHENSION OF SCIENCE
The task force document evinces a complete lack of any
attempt to understand any of the bee research projects,
and describes them with one word - "similar".
Here is the sum total of comments about the bee labs,
found in the report on page 32:
"Laboratories Specifically Reviewed at the Request of
the Office of the Secretary..."
"APIARY RESEARCH LABS
Hayden Bee Research Center, Tuscon, Arizona
Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology
Research, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Bee Research Lab, Beltsville, Maryland
Honey Bee Research Lab, Weslaco Texas
Pollinating Insect-Biology, Management
Systematics Research, Logan, Utah
The first 4 of the laboratories listed above do very
similar work related to honey bees. The Logan Utah
station does non-honey bee research related to
pollination. The Task Force recommends that the
agency consider co-locating the first 4 laboratories
into either one or 2 units. Given the condition of
facilities, the Task Force recommends that all honey
bee research be consolidated at Weslaco, Texas."
While the language sounds reasonable, the statement is
not only false, but can be refuted with ease.
Let's break it down:
"SIMILAR WORK"
Anyone even bothering to look at the websites of these labs can
see at a glance that the project goals and aims of these labs are
very different. The projects being funded at each lab have no
overlap, even if one does nothing more than list the "titles"
of the projects at each lab.
"CO-LOCATING"
While this seems a reasonable suggestion, does "co-locating"
save any money? Not a dime. The only savings are those from
the firing of scientists and the defunding of research projects.
Congress would have to changes laws to allow any ARS buildings
or land to be sold. The report says on pages 22 and 23, using
the large multi-lab Beltsville, MD facility as an example:
"...the research agency could, if permitted, dispose of
...high-value property, reinvest the funds in a new
state-of-the-art facility, and still have funds left over
to invest in improved research... providing incentives to
tackle this challenges requires a change in federal law."
"The research facility located in Beltsville, MD is the
flagship facility in the ARS... When constructed...
...was in rural Maryland... now... part of the urban
corridor... between Washington and Baltimore..."
In other words, the ARS owns 7,000 acres of prime real estate
in the middle of a highly desirable area. But they can't sell
any of it and move to a lower cost area more appropriate to
agricultural research. The buildings will still have to be
"maintained", even if they are empty, since even tearing them
down would cost more money than simple maintenance. The same
is true for Tucson and Baton Rouge.
"GIVEN THE CONDITION OF THE FACILITIES"
The task force clearly had no knowledge of and made
no attempt to rate the "condition" of any of the bee
lab facilities. In fact, the bee labs scored very
well using the task force's own criteria, as listed
in the report's appendixes (Pages 96 - 104).
-------- Criteria ---------
Bee Lab [1] [2] [3] [4]
------------- ----- ----- ----- -----
Logan 156 156
Tuscon 157 139 142
Beltsville 151 151
Baton Rouge 123 130
Weslaco 125 121
Highest Rating
for any lab 160 157 156
Where "Criteria [1]" is the rating for "Uniquely Federal"
work, [2] is the rating for the "appropriate" nature of
the lab's programs, and [3] is the rating for the
appropriateness of the location where the work is done.
What is interesting to note is that no assessment
was done of any bee lab in the area of "Criteria [4]
Facilities". The task force had NO information on
the "condition of the facilities", and made no attempt
to find out what the conditions were.
When one ranks the bee labs in comparison with other
USDA ARS labs, one finds that the bee labs rate very
well, and certainly were not in the "lowest 10%"
cited in the report as grounds for concern.
Only Weslaco rated near the bottom of the heap
in both categories, forcing one to ask "why
consolidate at Weslaco"?
By the task force's "Criteria 1", we have:
Ranking
Within
194 Labs Bee Lab
--------- --------
19th Tucson
29th Logan
62nd Beltsville
175th Weslaco
178th Baton Rouge
So, while the bee breeding work done at Baton Rouge
gets lower scores for "uniqueness", this only
demonstrates the Task Force's lack of understanding
of the success of Baton Rouge's efforts when compared
to other similar efforts by states and private parties.
Ranking by "Criteria 2", we have:
Ranking
Within
194 Labs Bee Lab
--------- --------
5th Logan
13th Beltsville
134th Baton Rouge
148th Tucson
155th Weslaco
Again, the lower scores assigned to Baton Rouge and
Tucson indicate nothing more than a lack of understanding
of the research being done, and how "appropriate" it is
for the federal government do be doing this research.
"ALL HONEY BEE RESEARCH BE CONSOLIDATED AT WESLACO TEXAS"
Note that the task force suggested "consolidation", of
"all research", and did not suggest canceling any projects.
The USDA somehow chose to go further, and cancel projects,
for reasons unknown.
But Weslaco? Why Weslaco? This is the interesting part.
Yes, they did a few small pollination studies, but most
of the bee industry had never heard of Weslaco until
recently, let alone viewed it as a "bee lab".
The answer appears to be that Weslaco has a new 24,000
square foot building, and needs scientists to fill it.
They have excess space. It would be embarrassing to
have it go unused. Citrus and sugar researchers alone
will not be enough. (Does anyone smell pork? Why do
we smell pork, when no swine research is done at Weslaco?
Could it be that the building itself is pork?)
But regardless of pork-barrel politics, can ANY bee
research be done in Weslaco Texas?
In a word, no.
The task force demonstrated a lack of a basic grasp
of the problems being addressed by current ARS bee
research programs. They simply found a new building
with excess space, and assumed that bee research could
be done there.
It can't.
WHY NOT WESLACO?
The are a number of valid practical reasons why Weslaco
is as inappropriate for bee research as Antarctica would
be for corn research.
1) Weslaco is about 5 miles from the Mexican border,
near Brownsville, TX. It is in the "Africanized
Bee (AHB) Quarantine Area" imposed by the USDA
itself. One can see the quarantined area here:
http://agnews.tamu.edu/bees/quaran.htm
So there would be no moving of bees allowed from
the lab to other places. Even if they bred a
"super bee", they would not be able to distribute
it bee breeders or beekeepers. Even getting hives
"on loan" from beekeepers would be impossible, since
while bees can be moved in, they cannot be moved out.
2) The overwhelming prevalence of AHB in the quarantine
area, and the inability to keep any hive of bees
"pure", even with constant re-queening, would imply
that bees at Weslaco would soon become africanized,
rendering most of the needed research useless. We
clearly do not need research done on a type of bee
that cannot survive even a mild winter, except for
research aimed at trying to "domesticate" the AHB.
3) Weslaco is named the "Kika de la Garza Subtropical
Agricultural Research Center" (page 32). Only a tiny
bit of the US is "subtropical", and certainly very few
US bees are kept in climates that could be called
"subtropical", so one is forced to wonder why the USDA
would think that such a location would be appropriate
for any US bee research. Weslaco TX is at 26 degrees
North latitude, and Miami FL is at 25.92 degrees North,
so the only part of the US "South" of Weslaco is the
Florida Keys. Weslaco is so unlike the bulk of the US
that they even grow sugar cane there. See:
http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/CROP/sugarcane/
4) Open positions have remained unfilled at Weslaco for
extended periods, with no applicants. Scientists seem
to not want to live there. Even recent graduates do not
apply for these open positions. (Nothing against Weslaco
as a place to live, put people tend to vote on such issues
with their feet.)
5) Local ordinances prohibit the keeping of bees anywhere
near Weslaco. Again, concern over the AHB has resulted
in a law the prevents all beekeeping in the area, and
it is unknown how many hour's drive would be required
to commute between Weslaco and a location where beehives
were legal.
So, we are left with nothing more than a few simple words
that were not understood clearly. A translation chart is
provided below:
English Task-Force USDA
Word Definition Definition
------------ -------------- -------------
Review Close Close
Consolidate Consolidate Eliminate
All All Very few
Consistent (No such concept) Contradictory
Hey folks, your Congressperson will likely be "home"
the entire week of Feb 18th-22nd, since the House is
not in session. This would be a good week to make an
appointment for a face-to-face meeting.
ji
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