[GreenYes] Re: EPA Closing Headquarters Library

["Mike Morin" <mikemorin@no.address>]

May be we should administer environmental health and well being through the already existing regions.

Solid regional economic planning sure beats Capitalism and the defensive regulatory approach.


Workin for peace and cooperation,

Mike Morin
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Gary Liss 
  To: crra_members@no.address ; GreenYes@no.address 
  Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 4:17 PM
  Subject: [GreenYes] EPA Closing Headquarters Library




    From: "Stephanie Barger" <stephanie.barger@no.address>
    To: "'Gary Liss'" <gary@no.address>
    Subject: FW: EPA Closing Headquarters Library, ENS 9-22-06
    Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 16:11:03 -0700
    Organization: Earth Resource Foundation
     
    This should alarm EVERYONE!!!
    Kurt

    EPA Closing Headquarters Library

    WASHINGTON, DC, September 22, 2006 (ENS) - The U.S. Environmental Protection
    Agency
    (EPA) is closing its Headquarters Library to the public, as well as its own
    staff, effective October 1. The decision, formally announced Wednesday in a
    Federal Register notice, cites lack of funding for the closure.

    The Headquarters Library collection contains 380,000 documents on
    microfiche, including technical reports produced by EPA and its predecessor
    agencies, a microforms collection that includes back files of abstracts and
    indexes, 5,500 hard copy EPA documents, as well as more than 16,000 books
    and technical reports produced by government agencies other than EPA.

    This shutdown is the latest in a series of agency library closures during
    the past few weeks, government watchdogs said, and as with the other library
    collections, the books, reports and research monographs in the EPA
    Headquarters Library have been boxed up and are currently inaccessible to
    anyone.

    "EPA is busily crating up and locking away its institutional memory," 
    said Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Executive Director
    Jeff Ruch, noting that more than 10,000 EPA scientists and other specialists
    are protesting the library closures as hindering their ability to do their
    jobs. "Despite its 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' public statements, EPA has no
    coherent plan let alone a timetable for making these collections available."

    The agency has not said when any of the materials at the library will again
    become available to its staff or the public either via the Internet or
    through inter-library loans. It has no dedicated funds for digitizing hard
    copies, making microfiche available online or re-cataloguing the tens of
    thousands of documents that will be relocated to large storage areas called
    "information repositories."

    Ruch criticized EPA for failing to at least issue public notice for its
    closures of its regional libraries in Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City. The
    three libraries provide services for the general public in 15 states and 109
    tribal nations.

    But the library closures have generated interest from Congress and House
    Democrats have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the
    effects that the EPA library closures will have on access to environmental
    information and the impacts on scientific research, regulatory quality and
    enforcement capability.

    * * *
  Gary Liss       
  916-652-7850    
  Fax: 916-652-0485
  www.garyliss.com 
  



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