Taking the Lid off Dolphin-safe Tuna

"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.