Via Pub­lic Employ­ees for Envi­ron­men­tal Respon­si­bil­i­ty:

The Nation­al Park Ser­vice has start­ed using a polit­i­cal loy­al­ty test for pick­ing all its top civ­il ser­vice posi­tions, accord­ing to an agency direc­tive released today by Pub­lic Employ­ees for Envi­ron­men­tal Respon­si­bil­i­ty (PEER). Under the new order, all mid-lev­el man­agers and above must also be approved by a Bush admin­is­tra­tion polit­i­cal appointee.

Under­min­ing the civ­il ser­vice sys­tem hurts us all.

The order applies to all hires for park super­in­ten­dents, assis­tant super­in­ten­dents and pro­gram man­agers, such as chief ranger or the head of inter­pre­tive or cul­tur­al pro­grams. Over­all, the pol­i­cy applies to more than 1,000 mid-lev­el man­age­ment and super­vi­so­ry posi­tions in the Park Service.

These are not polit­i­cal fig­ures, and their qual­i­fi­ca­tions aren’t polit­i­cal, but sci­en­tif­ic. To the extent these peo­ple are involved in pol­i­tics, it’s vital that they not be par­ti­san, because they are deal­ing with local pol­i­tics and local con­flicts. But most­ly, they are respon­si­ble for imple­ment­ing poli­cies hand­ed down from above, and offer­ing advice that will best rep­re­sent the state of knowl­edge in the field.