Seattle ? In a report analyzing the economics of protecting a threatened fish in the Pacific Northwest, the Bush administration this month deleted all references to possible monetary benefits.

Instead, in releasing the report on bull trout and their vast habitat in four states, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made public only those parts of an analysis that detailed the costs of saving the fish.

They were put at $230 million to $300 million over 10 years, adversely affecting hydropower, logging and highway construction.

Gone from the published analysis, which was written for the Fish and Wildlife Service by a Missoula, Mont., consulting firm called Bioeconomics Inc., were 55 pages that detailed the benefits of protecting bull trout.

Estimated at $215 million over 20 to 30 years, they include revenue from sport fishing, reduced drinking water costs and increased water for irrigation farmers, especially late in the summer when streams are run low.

An official for the Fish and Wildlife Service said the benefits analysis was cut because of its methodology. It was released by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Friends of the Wild Swan, two Montana-based environmental groups whose lawsuits have forced the federal government to list the bull trout as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The deletion was first reported in the Missoulian, a Montana daily.

On Friday, a number of environmental groups accused the Bush administration of publicizing facts that support its political objectives while ignoring facts that do not.

“The Bush administration will go to any lengths to do what its corporate sponsors want it to do,” said Michael Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

In Washington, officials at the Fish and Wildlife Service strongly objected to this characterization of their economic analysis.

“It is not politics,” said Chris Nolin, chief of the division of conservation and classification at the Fish and Wildlife Service.

She said the chapter on the economic benefits of protecting habitat for bull trout had to be deleted from the published report because it did not conform to analytical standards prescribed by the Office of Management and Budget.

Under a court order, the Fish and Wildlife Service must decide by Sept. 21 how much of a proposed 18,000 miles of streams and 532,000 acres of lakes should be protected habitat for bull trout in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.