A federal judge's sternly worded decision confirms what animal advocates had suspected all along: The Bush Administration and the U.S. Department of Commerce were practicing politics, not good science, when they weakened the Dolphin Safe label on December 31, 2002.

In an extremely rare move, U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson agreed on August 9 to our motion for summary judgment and a permanent rollback to the original standards of the coveted Dolphin Safe label. The HSUS and Earth Island Institute, among other conservation groups, had sued the Commerce Department shortly after Secretary Donald Evans' final ruling in 2002, in which he determined that "the chase and intentional deployment on or encirclement of dolphins with purse seine nets is not having a significant adverse impact on depleted dolphin stocks in the ETP [Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean]."

That determination immediately allowed Mexico and other nations that widely employ massive purse seine nets, which they use to chase dolphins who swim above tuna populations in the ETP, to sell their tuna products in the United States as "Dolphin Safe"—as long as on board observers recorded that no dolphins had been injured or killed. Mexico, in particular, had been courting the U.S. State Department for years to ease the Dolphin Safe standards and open the lucrative American market to the country's tuna. (Incidentally, Henderson issued a preliminary injunction in April 2003 to keep the old standards intact until our case could be heard.)

The U.S. Congress understood the political and diplomatic pressures to change the label. That's in part why members of Congress ruled in 1997 that the Commerce Secretary's final finding should be based solely on science, and not any other factors. In his blistering 51-page ruling, Henderson systematically broke down the government's convoluted arguments that the best available science was "inconclusive" about the impact of purse seine nets on dolphin populations, calling Evans' final finding "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and contrary to law..."

What's more, the judge determined that Commerce ignored the findings of the government's own scientists, who were arguing that purse seine fishing was having a "significant" impact on depleted dolphin stocks.

"Indeed, it appears that while the scientists at [National Marine Fisheries Service] undertook their research mission extremely seriously, at the end of the day, the intense pressures to secure larger policy objectives led to a decision driven more by politics than science," Henderson wrote. "Indeed, the record reflects an agency that gave short shrift to the conclusions of its own scientists, dragged its feet on crucial research, and essentially ignored the explicit warning of the appellate court not to invoke 'insufficient evidence' as a justification for its finding."

In fact, Henderson wrote, "...this court has never, in its 24 years, reviewed a record of agency action that contained such a compelling portrait of political meddling. This portrait is chronicled in documents which show that both Mexico and the United States Department of State (DOS) engaged in a persistent effort to influence both the process and the ultimate finding, and that high-ranking officials in the Department of Commerce were willing to heed these influences notwithstanding the scientific evidence to the contrary."

"We couldn't have said it better if we wrote it ourselves," said Kitty Block, special counsel to The HSUS's United Nations, Treaties and International Trade section. "The Mexican tuna industry wanted a free pass to the American market, regardless of its impact on the dolphin populations of the Eastern Tropical Pacific, and the Bush Administration was willing to give them that access. Judge Henderson's ruling will go a long way toward protecting these dolphins that have not recovered even after years of conservation efforts."

Henderson's strict ruling, in fact, denies the Commerce Department another chance to fiddle with the Dolphin Safe standards. The judge admitted that in typical cases, he would remand the matter back to the agency for further action. But, Henderson wrote, "the court agrees with plaintiffs that this is not a typical case. Rather, the fact that defendants have repeatedly failed to heed both Congress' intent and the teachings of the appellate court leads this court to conclude that a remand for further proceedings would be futile in this case."

Instead, Henderson specifically ruled that Dolphin Safe shall "continue to mean that 'no tuna were caught on the trip in which such tuna were harvested using a purse seine net intentionally deployed on or to encircle dolphins, and that no dolphins were killed or seriously injured during the sets in which the tuna were caught'."

Henderson also ordered Secretary Evans to ensure that no so-called Dolphin Deadly tuna is sold this country under the Dolphin Safe label. He further insisted that all appropriate government agencies be notified about his ruling, including the U.S. Customs Service, the Federal Trade Commission, and the State Department.

The government has not yet decided whether to appeal Henderson's decision.

"We hope that Judge Henderson's ruling closes this ugly chapter in which diplomats and politicians were deciding the fate of dolphins, not the scientists actually required to make these determinations," said Wayne Pacelle, president of The Humane Society of the United States. "This is a win-win situation. A win for dolphins in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, and a win for U.S. consumers who can once again trust that the tuna they buy hasn't harmed some of the world's most intelligent marine mammals."