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“The record is replete with evidence that the Secretary was influenced by policy concerns unrelated to the best available scientific evidence. This court has never, in its 24 years, reviewed a record of agency action that contained such a compelling portrait of political meddling.”
— U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, from an August judgment overruling the decision by Secretary of Commerce Donal Evans and the Bush administration to relax “dolphin-safe” tuna labeling to allow fishermen to chase and net the dolphins that often swim with schools of Pacific yellowfin tuna — a practice that has killed as many as 7 million dolphins in the last 45 years.
