[SLA-SF] Intersect Alert, EPA Libraries Special Edition

Mon Sep 18 20:34:10 PDT 2006

Special EPA Libraries Edition

EPA Enforcement Threatened by Library Closures

"Prosecution of polluters by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "will be compromised" due to the loss of "timely, correct and accessible" information from the agency's closure of its network of technical libraries, according to an internal memo released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). EPA enforcement staff currently rely upon the libraries to obtain technical information to support pollution prosecutions and to track the business histories of regulated industries."

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=735

EPA Moves To Close Libraries

"In a bureaucratic form of hara-kiri, the federal Environmental Protection Agency is boxing up records and shutting down three of its regional libraries in anticipation of federal budget cuts. Libraries in Dallas, Chicago and Kansas City will close at the end of this month. Public access to records will be curtailed - all in anticipation of the new federal budget year beginning in October."

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-epa.artsep12,0,3282958.story?coll=hc-headlines-editorials

US EPA: EPA expanding library info access

Author: Marcus Peacock, Deputy administrator, U.S. EPA

"The Environmental Protection Agency is committed to ensuring agency-generated materials are available to the general public, the scientific community, the legal community and other organizations. This letter is in response to the Aug. 21 letter, "EPA Begins Closing Libraries before Congress Acts on Plan," which mischaracterizes EPA's library budget and our plans for modernizing library holdings. In fact, the EPA is providing comprehensive access to agency documents and materials through EPA's public Web site. Retrieving materials will not only be more efficient but also is easier to locate by using the agency's online collection and reference services."

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_40991.shtml

EPA Employee Responds to Official Spin on Library Closures

Author: EPA Employee

Response to the Marcus Peacock Letter to the Editor Published in Yubanet on 8/22/06

"Marcus Peacock's Letter to the Editor, sent in response to the PEER article, "EPA Begins Closing Libraries before Congress Acts on Plan," could not have been more discouraging. I am an EPA employee who, for obvious reasons, must remain anonymous. I was extremely upset to see that the US EPA's Deputy Administrator is peddling the same lies and half-truths that the Office of Environmental Information has been spouting for the past year. Why is the second-in-command at our Agency getting involved in these EPA library closures? The sad fact is that, if all ten of EPA's Regional libraries close, the public will not have easy access to our extensive collection of technical reports and studies. Three of the ten Regional libraries will close by September 31, 2006; as will the EPA Headquarters library. Large parts of EPA's collections will remain "in stasis;" which means locked away in a room until the Agency gets the funding to digitize all of these documents."

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_41345.shtml

EPA Enforcement Threatened by Library Closures - Prosecutions at Risk from Loss of Timely Access to Key Documents

"Prosecution of polluters by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "will be compromised" due to the loss of "timely, correct and accessible" information from the agency's closure of its network of technical libraries, according to an internal memo released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). EPA enforcement staff currently rely upon the libraries to obtain technical information to support pollution prosecutions and to track the business histories of regulated industries."

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=735

Bush Administration Plans Even Bigger EPA Cuts For '08 - Lab Closures, Buyouts and Other "Disinvestments" on the Drawing Board

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is preparing for a new even larger round of budget cuts for the 2008 Fiscal Year, according to an internal memo released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). These new cuts are being readied even as Congress is still reviewing administration proposals to reduce EPA spending by a record $100 million in FY 2007."

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=747

Editorial: EPA invites doubts with library closings

"Most Americans, even most American scientists, will never have cause to visit one of the regional technical libraries maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency. But to environmental scientists in Minnesota or any of 14 other states, working inside or outside EPA, the pending shutdown of these repositories will be a serious blow. The general public, too, should be concerned about what this means for EPA accountability, which has come under repeated challenge in recent years -- most notably over unduly rosy postdisaster assessments in lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks, and in New Orleans after last year's hurricanes. And perhaps every taxpaying citizen should be offended by the way in which this action was taken -- essentially, by EPA officials anticipating a $2 million budget cut for fiscal 2007 that has been proposed by the White House but not yet considered by Congress, which alone has the authority to appropriate or withhold federal funds. Certainly the relevant congressional committees should object."

http://www.startribune.com/561/story/675376.html

EPA Library Closings Continue Despite Protests

"Touting it as part of a plan to put more information online, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been closing its regional libraries in spite of protests by federal employees. The Chicago library shut its doors August 28, and the Dallas and Kansas City, Missouri, libraries are set to close by the end of September. On September 13, employees of the EPA Headquarters Library in Washington received notice that their physical space would close to walk-ins beginning October 1. The closures are part of President Bush's dramatic cost-cutting plan that includes a proposed reduction of $100 million for FY 2007 and further cuts for FY 2008."

http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2006abc/september2006a/epaclosings.htm

Please feel free to pass along in part or in its entirety.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.exo.net/pipermail/sla-sf/attachments/20060918/3dfa90a3/attachment.html