fayfreethinkers.com

It never got down to actual book-burning, but the Republican choke-hold on government would clearly have taken us there. In August, under the guise of fiscal responsibility, the Bush Environmental Protection Agency began closing most of its research libraries, both to the public and to its own staff.

The EPA's professional staff objected strongly, insisting that closing the libraries would hamstring them in their jobs. In a letter to Congress protesting the closures, public employees said, "We believe that this budget cut is just one of many Bush administration initiatives to reduce the effectiveness of the US Environmental Protection Agency, and to continue to demoralize its employees."

The EPA's precipitous move to close the libraries was based on a $2 million cut in Bush's proposed $8 billion EPA budget for 2007. EPA bureaucrats did not wait to see if Congress might restore the funds or shift budget priorities in order to save the libraries; it acted immediately to box up documents for deep storage, and shut the doors.

...Just before the election, Barbara Boxer and other senators sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee calling for restored access to the libraries. There is every reason to hope that the Democrats will follow through with their newly won power and get those libraries reopened. But this will be just the beginning of a Herculean task to clean the muck out of the stables and restore an environmental regulatory function to government...

In the early days of the Bush reign, the Natural Resources Defense Council began compiling all of the Bush administration rollbacks and assaults on environmental quality. By the November 2004 elections, it had listed more than 300 Bush "crimes against nature." NRDC stopped counting a year later, but you can still see the list at their web site.



Read the rest here.

The amount of crap Dems have to undo is one of the reasons Pelosi is keeping Congress in session for most of January. That will come to a real shock to the "do-nothings" who sat some 50 days less than the famous 'Do-Nothing' congress under Truman. On the other hand, maybe they'll throw a snit and stay home. As long as we have a quorum, it would make things easier (though not particularly small d democratic). Maybe W could be convinced not to veto a bill that had 95% approval rate (if he didn't know it had that rate because 1/3 of the Rs didn't show up). It's a thought.

Democratic Reps Tell EPA to Suspend Closure of Libraries
In what may be a harbinger of new rigor in Congressional oversight, four Democratic members of Congress told the Environmental Protection Agency to cease and desist (pdf) from closing public document libraries and dispersing or destroying their contents unless and until EPA obtains specific approval from Congress.

Public interest groups including the Union of Concerned Scientists and the American Library Association had expressed alarm over the closure of EPA libraries and the reported destruction of documents. EPA said that it was modernizing and digitizing its collections and that no information has been destroyed.

"We request that you maintain the status quo of the libraries and their materials while this issue is under investigation and review by Congress," wrote Ranking Members Reps. Bart Gordon (D-TN), John Dingell (D-MI), Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and James Oberstar (D-MN) in a November 30 letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.

Read the rest here.

Nice to see some changes being made already. I have never believed the Dems would or will be able to get much over the presidential veto, but there's still a whole lot of progress to be made that isn't so "media grabbing."

DAR
They want to get rid of the information quick. This is amazing:

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EPA Scrubbing Library Web Site to Make Reports Unavailable
t r u t h o u t | Bulletin
From: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)

Friday 08 December 2006

Agency sells $40,000 worth of furniture and equipment for $350.

Washington, DC - In defiance of Congressional requests to immediately halt closures of library collections, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is purging records from its library websites, making them unavailable to both agency scientists and outside researchers, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, EPA is taking steps to prevent the re-opening of its shuttered libraries, including the hurried auctioning off of expensive bookcases, cabinets, microfiche readers and other equipment for less than a penny on the dollar.

In a letter dated November 30, 2006, four incoming House Democratic committee chairs demanded that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson assure them "that the destruction or disposition of all library holdings immediately ceased upon the Agency's receipt of this letter and that all records of library holdings and dispersed materials are being maintained." On the very next day, December 1st, EPA de-linked thousands of documents from the website for the Office of Prevention, Pollution and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) Library, in EPA's Washington D.C. Headquarters.

Last month without notice to its scientists or the public, EPA abruptly closed the OPPTS Library, the agency's only specialized research repository on health effects and properties of toxic chemicals and pesticides. The web purge follows reports that library staffers were ordered to destroy its holdings by throwing collections into recycling bins.

"EPA's leadership appears to have gone feral, defying all appeals to reason or consultation," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that Congress has yet to review, let alone approve, the library closures. "The new Congress convening in January will finally have a chance to decide whether EPA will continue to pillage its library network."

Meanwhile, in what appears to be an effort to limit Congressional options, EPA is taking steps to prevent the re-opening of the several libraries that it has already completely shuttered. In its Chicago office, which formerly hosted one of the largest regional libraries, EPA ordered that all furniture and furnishings (down to the staplers and pencil sharpeners) be sold immediately. Despite an acquisition cost of $40,000 for the furniture and equipment, a woman bought the entire lot for $350. The buyer also estimates that she will re-sell the merchandise for $80,000.

"One big irony is that EPA claimed the reason it needed to close libraries was to save money but in the process they are spending and wasting money like drunken sailors," Ruch added, noting EPA refuses to say how much it plans to spend digitizing the mountains of documents that it has removed from library shelves. "While the Pentagon had its $600 toilet seat and $434 hammer, EPA has its 29 cent book case and file cabinets for a nickel."

In spite of its pleas of poverty, EPA is spending millions on a public relations campaign to improve the image of its research program, as well as a $2.7 million program (more than its estimated savings from library closures ) to digitize all employee personnel files, in a program called "eOPF."

"No one believes that EPA is closing libraries and crating up irreplaceable collections for fiscal reasons," Ruch concluded. "Instead, the real agenda appears to be controlling access by its own specialists and outside researchers to key technical information."

link

Hopefully whoever is ordering these moves (delinking, "recycling", selling of furniture & fixtures at pennies on the dollar) will be investigated, arrested, fined the hell out of, and put into prison for long enough to rethink his/her/their political agenda.

I think it's wonderful - selling off govt plundered goods and returning them to voluntary society. If voluntary organizations like Sierra Club and Nature Conservancy don't have the libraries online, they have fumbled. Voluntary orgs like those certainly have more credibility than the EPA, and are funded voluntarily. I just don't see any downside to closing a biased govt regulatory agency's library, or even outright disbanding this agency that is "spending and wasting money like drunken sailors."

Hogeye wrote: I think it's wonderful - selling off govt plundered goods and returning them to voluntary society.

DOUG
a. They were not plundered.
b. They didn't first belong to the society, so they are not being "returned."
c. "Voluntary" society is a myth, a construct of paranoid tax-evaders.
d. An individual, i.e, not a society, bought the furniture.
e. Some assets, such as research material, are being destroyed and not given to anyone.

Hogeye wrote:If voluntary organizations like Sierra Club and Nature Conservancy don't have the libraries online, they have fumbled. Voluntary orgs like those certainly have more credibility than the EPA, and are funded voluntarily.

DOUG
Yes, which is why "voluntary" organizations can't hold a candle to govermental organizations in terms of large-scale, expensive projects. It would take millions to put together research materials and libraries such as what our government has, and non-profits just don't have the manpower or resources to begin to do that.

Hogeye wrote:I just don't see any downside to closing a biased govt regulatory agency's library, or even outright disbanding this agency that is "spending and wasting money like drunken sailors."

DOUG
The downside is that no other organization is in a position to have these research materials, so evidence for global warming is being destroyed. That is their intention. That is the reason for the sell-offs. The Bush administration can't compete in the marketplace of ideas, so they are cheating. That's what happens when people want desperately to deny reality, but they know they can't do it openly or they'll get called on it.

And they are disregarding the well being of our planet to further their narrow-minded agenda.

"a. They were not plundered."
Sure they were - they were paid for by stolen money (aka "taxation").

"b. They didn't first belong to the society, so they are not being returned."
The money was stolen from society. Obviously. It is appropriate that it be returned to those it was stolen from.

"c. Voluntary society is a myth, a construct of paranoid tax-evaders."
Yes, heroic tax resisters use the concept of society (= the amalgamation of all voluntary human interaction), and definitely prefer it to slavery by State.

"d. An individual, i.e, not a society, bought the furniture."
Yes, an individual in his role as government agent bought the furniture with stolen loot for the EPA.

"e. Some assets, such as research material, are being destroyed and not given to anyone."
That's a shame. Are you saying that the research was kept secret by the government EPA? Or are you saying that it was publicly available but no one ever bothered to make copies or publish it? Considering governmental and regulatory bias, wouldn't most of this "research" be tainted?

Doug wrote:It would take millions to put together research materials and libraries such as what our government has, and non-profits just don't have the manpower or resources to begin to do that.

It takes pennies to scan in and publish on the internet. It sounds to me like the govt EPA outfit was keeping it secret. Why do you support a government that does this, routinely, early, and often? Why would you trust the "research" of such an outfit? Why would you trust such a corrupt agency with "the well being of our planet"?

Of course Hogeye is going to defend the destruction of the EPA libraries. That's where a whole lot of evidence against his position resides.

Hogeye wrote:"a. They were not plundered."
Sure they were - they were paid for by stolen money (aka "taxation").

Tax money is not stolen. You don't have to pay it. If you don't want to pay taxes, you can move to another country.

Thanks, Sav.

I hope one of the many investigations coming up will be of the EPA "upper management". The Dems have a whole lot of "housecleaning" to do, and unfortunately, not all the Dems really want it done (Yes, absolutely, clean up the house - except my room).

DAR
A $2 million cut. Note:

"The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, according to the group’s analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes."

So this EPA cut saved enough money to fund the war for four minutes.

But George Bush is a good man.

EPA Closure of Libraries Faulted for Curbing Access to Key Data
By Christopher Lee
The Washington Post

Friday 14 March 2008

A plan by the Environmental Protection Agency to close several of its 26 research libraries did not fully account for the impact on government staffers and the public, who rely on the libraries for hard-to-find environmental data, congressional investigators reported yesterday.

The report by the Government Accountability Office found that the EPA effort, begun in 2006 to comply with a $2 million funding cut sought by the White House, may have hurt access to materials and services in the 37-year-old library network.

Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, said the report reveals a "grim picture" of mismanagement at the EPA. The panel's oversight and investigations subcommittees held a hearing on the reorganization yesterday.

The libraries provide technical information and documentation for enforcement cases and help EPA staff members track new environmental technologies and the health risks associated with dangerous chemicals.

They also are repositories of scientific information that is used to back up the agency's positions on new regulations and environmental reports and data that are tapped by people such as developers and state and local officials. The collections include hard-to-find copies of documents on federal Superfund hazardous waste sites, water-quality data and the health of regional ecosystems.

...

But the GAO found that, because of copyright issues, only 51,000 of the system's more than 500,000 hard copies of books, reports, journals and maps are expected to be transferred to digital format. That means users in areas where libraries have closed must obtain materials through interlibrary loans, delaying access for as long as 20 days.

The GAO report faults the EPA for not consulting agency staff, outside experts or stakeholders before undertaking the reorganization, and failing to do a cost-benefit analysis or name a national manager to oversee the effort. Investigators noted that users of the Chemical Library - which served EPA scientists who review industry requests to sell new chemicals - did not learn of the facility's closure until after it occurred.

"The agency's modernization effort is characterized by poor planning, failure to communicate with its employees, the public or Congress and failure to protect unique government assets," Gordon said in a statement. "As a result, EPA library services are impaired, employees will have a harder time doing their jobs and the public has lost access to government information."

O'Neill said the EPA has taken steps to address some of the problems identified by the GAO, including better coordination with other agencies and more outreach to library users.

LINK

The "close the libraries" plan not only fully accounted for the impact on gov't staffers, the public, and basically any and investigators needing environmental data - that's the reason they did it.