[ECP] EPA Scrubbing Library Website to Make Reports Unavailable (More)

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EPA Scrubbing Library Website to Make Reports
The Education Department, under Bush II, wanted to scrub its site, but such a howl went up that it moved its reports to an "archive," with "ARCHIVED COPY" in irritating diagonals across the page, which, mercifully, Lynx does not pick up. 

++++++++++++++++

EPA Scrubbing Library Website to Make Reports Unavailable
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: News Releases
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=791

[NYT Op-Ed Column appended and a message from Bruce Sterling appended.]

For Immediate Release: December 7, 2006
Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337
EPA SCRUBBING LIBRARY WEBSITE TO MAKE REPORTS UNAVAILABLE -- 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 EPAs Washington D.C. Headquarters.

Last month without notice to its scientists or the public, EPA
abruptly closed the OPPTS Library, the agencys 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.

EPAs 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.

  ###

[22]Look at the materials removed from the OOPTS Library website

[23]Note the December 1, 2006 date at the bottom of the notice of
file unavailability for OPTTS collections

[24]See a letter from an outside librarian underlining the new
unavailability of OPPTS collections

[25]Read the November 30, 2006 letter from Democratic House leaders
requesting a moratorium on further library closures

[26]View the catalog of what EPA auctioned off from its Chicago
library

[27]Discover what EPA earned from its Chicago fire sale

[28]Revisit the order to recycle the OPPTS collection

[29]Compare the $2.7 million price tag for eOPF with the proposed
$2 million in library savings

[30]Trace EPAs campaign to shut down its libraries

[31]Contact PEER [32]Tell-a-Friend [33]Your Privacy
Ph: (202) 265-7337 o Fax: (202) 265-4192 o email: info@xxxxxxxx
all content © peer.org 2006

References
22. http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:zabNIdBHFNQJ:www.epa.gov/opptintr/library/pubs/archive/index.htm+oppts+archives&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1 
  23. http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_7_12_file_not_found.pdf
  24. http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_7_12_librarian_ltr.pdf
  25. http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_7_12_house_library_ltr.pdf
  26. http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_7_12_library_auction.pdf
  27. http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_7_12_chicago_lib_furniture_sale.pdf
  28. http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=786
  29. http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_7_12_eopf_cost.pdf
  30. http://www.peer.org/campaigns/epa_library/news.php
  31. http://www.peer.org/contact/index.php
32. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/PEER/tellafriend.jsp?tell_a_friend_KEY=742 
  33. http://www.peer.org/about/privacy.php


Keep the E.P.A. Libraries Open
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/opinion/08burger.html

December 8, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
By LESLIE BURGER
Princeton

IF you needed to find out how much pollution an industrial plant in
your neighborhood was spewing, or what toxic chemicals were in a
local river, where would you go? Until recently, you could discover
the answer at one of the Environmental Protection Agencys 29
libraries. But now the E.P.A. has obstructed the American public as
well as its own scientists and staff by starting to dismantle its
crown jewel, the national system of regional E.P.A. libraries.

Until now, any citizen could consult these resources, which include
information on things like siting incinerators, storing toxic waste
and uncovering links between asthma and car exhaust. E.P.A. staff
members and other scientists have counted on the libraries to
support their work. First responders and other state and local
government officials have used E.P.A. information to protect
communities. In the age of terrorism, when the safety of our food
and water supply, the uninterrupted flow of energy and, indeed, so
much about our environment has become a matter of national
security, it seems particularly dangerous to take steps that would
hinder our emergency preparedness.

Although lawmakers havent yet agreed to President Bushs proposed
2007 budget, which includes $2 million in cuts to the agencys
library system, the head of the E.P.A. has already instituted cuts.
The agencys main library in Washington has been closed to the
public, and regional E.P.A. libraries in Chicago, Dallas and Kansas
City, Mo., have been closed altogether. At the Boston, New York,
San Francisco and Seattle branches, hours and public access have
been reduced.

Anyone who needs to understand the environmental impact of, say,
living downwind or downstream from a new nuclear power plant, or
the long-term public health impact of Hurricane Katrina, cannot
afford to find the doors barred to potentially lifesaving
information. But neither can the rest of us, whose daily lives and
choices will be affected by global warming. We all have a right to
be able to get access to information about our air, water and soil.

Libraries and their professionals are integral to the work of
E.P.A. toxicologists, says an agency toxicologist, Suzanne
Wuerthele. Without access to their expertise and extensive
collections, it will be difficult to explain to the public, to
state agencies, industry and to the courts how and why E.P.A. is
protecting the environment over time.

Some members of Congress have begun to bring these cuts to light.
The Senate minority whip, Richard Durbin, urged the president to
reopen the libraries and rethink his budget request. Eighteen
senators sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee
asking it to make the E.P.A. keep the libraries open.
Representatives John Dingell, Bart Gordon and Henry Waxman recently
had the Government Accountability Office start an inquiry into the
closings and requested that the E.P.A. administrator, Stephen
Johnson, cease the destruction of library materials immediately.

The E.P.A. cannot hide behind the fig leaf of fiscal
responsibility. While the agency says the closings are all part of
a commitment to modernize and digitize, we are not assured that its
public plan is adequate or its skills sufficient. Users within the
E.P.A. and the American public need information specialists, like
librarians, to manage paper collections and to help them get access
to digital material and organize online information.

Fortunately, theres still time to reverse this dangerous threat to
a healthy future. The administration could immediately reopen the
closed libraries. Congress could conduct oversight hearings to
reverse these decisions and prevent any more E.P.A. libraries all
of them containing invaluable information about our environment,
all of them paid for by our tax dollars from closing. The American
public deserves no less.

Leslie Burger is the president of the American Library Association
and director of the Princeton Public Library.

---------

The eco-chic Yves Behar "Leaf Light."  Wow, that
would make an ideal desk lamp for vengeful lawyers
dismantling Exxon-Mobil and their fellow
conspirators.
http://www.dwr.com/productdetail.cfm?id=10859&CMP=EMC-WR0179981131

(((The Purge at work:)))

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/mg19225765.000-climate-change-special-state-of-denial.html

Climate change special: State of denial
KEVIN TRENBERTH reckons he is a marked man. He has argued that last year's devastating Atlantic hurricane season, which spawned hurricane Katrina, was linked to global warming. For the many politicians and minority of scientists who insist there is no evidence for any such link, Trenberth's views are unacceptable and some have called for him step down from an international panel studying climate change. "The attacks on me are clearly designed to get me fired or to resign," says Trenberth. The attacks fit a familiar pattern. Sceptics have also set their sights on scientists who have spoken out about the accelerating meltdown of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and the thawing of the planet's permafrost. These concerns will be addressed in the next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global organisation created by the UN in 1988 to assess the risks of human-induced climate change. 

http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/other/12/06/6skilling.html
"In my view, this means we should continue to fund ongoing scientific research without conditions or preconceived outcomes (((we mean fund denialists more than any actual scientists))) to increase our understanding of all of the forcings which are part of this very elegant, but very complex climate systems in which we live (((Nature is pretty, but only oil folks are fit to deal with it))) == including ongoing study of not only the possible forcing effects resulting from mankindÿÿs socioeconomic activity, (((nice "socio" there, Mr Free Market))) but equally if not more important understanding of the natural forcing elements that are and have been apart of the climate system since the dawn of time. (((The takeaway? "Blame anybody or anything for the climate mayhem we've been creating and obscuring for years, but don't blame us. At least, not now. Blame nature. Blame lesbians. Blame the Chinese, blame anybody, but not us, not during our lifetime. We never thought, we never dreamed that the bill would come due this fast. That was never supposed to happen in a time-frame where we could be held to account." They haven't learned a damned thing. They're too stupid to live. Exxon threw a climate-war for oil, and not only are they 
losing the oil, they're going to lose the climate.)))
http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/Newsroom/SpchsIntvws/Corp_NR_SpchIntrvw_RWT_301106.asp
Exxon's actual, years-long, entirely consistent policy of funding logjammers, reputation assassins and Beltway bandits. Basically this composes a list of likely future indictees for crimes against humanity. Everybody in the world is going to want a piece of these people. Except for a few blinkered Australians, whose stricken nation is in spectacular flames as we speak, these American malefactors are the biggest global-climate patsies around. Everyone's responsible for climate change, but the one thing every player can surely agree on without demur is that these guys are the worst and must culpable. Everyone else can pretend to be all caught unawares and shocked, shocked by a climate crisis: these people are without any question its deliberate aiders and 
abettors.
There aren't, in fact, many of them. Their budgets have always been quite small. Their chances of defending themselves from a worldwide outcry are slim. If Jeff and Ken couldn't save themselves 
after buying a President, these guys are in ten
times deeper.
I don't doubt that Exxon-Mobil's hasty new clean-air PR campaign, meant to ingratiate themselves with the new Democratic Congress, costs five times as much as they've ever spent on these minor organizations. But: they did fund them, and in some cases simply invented them. And when their empty pretense that the climate is fine and dandy is proved as utterly hollow as the bold pretense that Enron makes money and Iraq loves freedom, someone is going to have to take the fall. And it's a huge, huge fall. And it's all 
theirs.  Who else is there?  They're finished.
Wait and see.
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php
Who would actually go and get them? Rich people. ANGRY, PANICKY, VENGEFUL, RUTHLESS rich people. "Alpine communities have coped with warm winter weather before, but this year there is a sense that it could be the beginning of the end of the European skiing experience." That must be a lot of fun for well-to-do Esso investors. 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2482390,00.html
ASEAN summit politicians flee an Asian typhoon. Makes you wonder what the Davos Forum will look like when there's no Swiss snow. Hey, 'world leaders,' you will be brought to the climate or the climate will be brought to you. You can run, but you can't hide. Who do you plan to blame for this -- for the way climate change makes you flee like rabbits? 
How do you sleep with that kind of humiliation?
It's going to happen time and time again.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/12/08/asean.summit.ap/

Tornado in London.  Not actually in 10 Downing Street,
but, well, not too far.  Wait till next time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weather/Story/0,,1966688,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1
"Exxon: facing the toughest energy challenges." The toughest of all? Avoiding the melancholy 
southern-Gothic fates of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/16091653.htm

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/39356/story.htm



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