Bush Administration Relaxed Dolphin-Tuna Laws Despite Evidence Of Bribery

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The U.S. Commerce Department has been aware for five years of allegations that government observers on Mexican tuna-fishing boats were regularly taking $10,000 bribes to concoct false reports that they were not netting dolphins, according to an internal agency e-mail obtained by The Chronicle.

Bush administration lawyers have argued that the allegations were not relevant to the government's 2002 decision to relax restrictions on foreign- caught tuna. The decision allows tuna caught by foreign boats that set nets on dolphins -- which follow the fish -- to be sold in U.S. as dolphin-safe, provided the dolphins are released.

Critics say the e-mail demonstrates that the Bush administration ignored key evidence and that its decision undermined longstanding environmental protections. "The whole basis for protecting dolphins in countries that set nets on them is that there are reliable observers on board," said Mark Palmer of Earth Island Institute, a San Francisco environmental group. "If the observers are being bribed, obviously, the entire program falls apart."

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The government says current dolphin kills are less than 1,500 a year. But dolphin species that were depleted by decades of losses have not recovered -- a critical fact in the current case and one that the government says it can't explain. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans ordered the rule change under a 1997 law that allowed dolphin-safe standards to be relaxed if supported by scientific research. Government lawyers have stated in court documents that the Commerce Department had "not considered or relied upon" the e-mail in reaching its decision to relax the standards. "

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