Bush Administration to Close EPA Research Libraries, Despite Outcry

[Guest guest]

I thought that people on this list might be interested in how the Bush

Administration is restricting access to information on toxics and

polluters, (making it much more difficult to prosecute them...I'd

gather)

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

For Immediate Release: August 28, 2006

Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337

EPA ENFORCEMENT THREATENED BY LIBRARY CLOSURES — Prosecutions at Risk

from Loss of Timely Access to Key Documents

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

Washington, DC — 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.

In a memo prepared last week by the enforcement arm of EPA, called the

Office of Enforcement and Compliance (OECA), agency staff detailed

concerns about the effects of EPA's plans to close many of its

libraries, box up the collections and eliminate or sharply reduce

library services. Each year, EPA's libraries handle more than 134,000

research requests from its own scientific and enforcement staff. The

memo states:

" If OECA is involved in a civil or criminal litigation and the

judge asks for documentation, we can currently rely upon a library to

locate the information and have it produced to a court house in a

timely manner. Under the cuts called for in the plan, timeliness for

such services is not addressed. "

In addition, the memo raises negative side effects relating to –

* Forensics. " The NEIC (National Enforcement Investigations

Center) Library is the only specialized environmental forensic library

in the Agency. The NEIC library supports enforcement in the regions

when there is a need for NEIC's expertise or unique materials…Loss of

support for enforcement within the regions may cause an overwhelming

demand on the small NEIC library by requiring the NEIC library to

provide not only unique materials, but also items that the regional

libraries currently provide. There is no budget available to expand

NEIC's library capacity should this increased demand for NEIC library

services occur. "

* Lost Collections. " OECA is seriously concerned that these

documents may be distributed without adequate documentation and

cataloging and may become virtually lost within the system. "

* Institutional Memory. " OECA is concerned that the loss of

institutional memory as well as the loss of expertise from

professional librarians in the regions will hamper OECA's enforcement

program. "

" Cutting $2 million in library services in an EPA budget totaling

nearly $8 billion is the epitome of a penny wise-pound foolish

economy, " stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. " From research to

regulation to enforcement, EPA is an information-dependent operation

which needs libraries and librarians to function properly. "

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Read the EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance

" Position Paper on the 2007 EPA Library Plan " :

http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_28_8_oeca_position_paper.pdf

Look at the Bush administration plan to close EPA's technical research libraries

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=731