Washington ? Ten years ago, a Canadian icebreaker was parked in an ice pack 300 miles north of Point Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost point in the United States, and allowed to drift so scientists could study the Arctic environment and global warming’s effect on it. The icebreaker drifted with the ice for a year and more than 1,800 miles as researchers tracked changes in the Arctic ice pack.

Top-secret U.S. spy satellites were among those tracking the icebreaker. With the approval of a little-noticed government body known as the Civil Applications Committee, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency released nearly 60 photos to scientists.

The committee, under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Geological Survey, reviews civilian requests for classified reconnaissance information and makes recommendations to the intelligence community, which has the final say about what gets declassified. Such intelligence data can be helpful to scientists studying everything from volcanoes, forest fires, earthquakes and landslides to climate change, hurricanes, flooding and pollution.

Now, however, the Bush administration plans to abolish the committee and create an office in the Department of Homeland Security to review such requests and others from law enforcement agencies. Scientists are concerned that their requests could be sidetracked or delayed as security and law enforcement needs get priority.

The shift would be a “grave mistake,” and the administration should rethink its plan, said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., the chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees the USGS and a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Dicks said he’s heard from federal scientists who don’t like the plan. “They are worried,” he said. “The scientists say this information is very valuable to them, and they are concerned this new office will be looking more at homeland security and law enforcement.”

The proposed change also has raised concerns on Capitol Hill that military spy satellites and other intelligence assets could be used to give federal and local law enforcement officials data that they could use to target illegal immigrants and drug smugglers, among other things.

“We believe the elimination of the civilian orientation of the Civil Applications Committee represents explicit harm in the near term to USGS and other civilian federal agencies, and it represents a potentially serious harm over the longer term to the constitutional protections U.S. citizens expect and deserve,” Dicks said in a letter to administration officials.

Much of the intelligence information that’s been released remains sensitive, and federal agencies and scientists refuse to provide details about it.