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It seems the Bush administration has made the decision to close large numbers of EPA libraries (used for making publically available research about the environment) as well as to discontinue carrying several journals which have been vocal about the need to take action against global warming. The Administration claims it is just budget cuts however the administration continues to funnel money at organizations it likes while continually slashing the EPA and blocking investigations for political reasons. I'm leaning towards political meddling in an attempt to attack scientists who point out the negative effects of Bush policies.
EPA gets an earful on library closures
Decision derided as harmful to agency's own employees
By ROBERT McCLURE
P-I REPORTER
A national controversy over cutbacks and outright closings of Environmental Protection Agency libraries came to Seattle over the weekend as librarians from around the country told EPA officials the agency is undercutting its own workers, its scientists and the public.
Across vast stretches of the heartland, EPA scientists, university researchers and others have scrambled to locate documents once easily found by librarians in the agency's regional headquarters, said participants in the America Library Association annual conference.
It's a development that critics fear could befall the Seattle EPA library, where hours of operation already have been reduced.
With a congressional investigation pending, agency officials responded that they are merely trying to move the EPA libraries' contents onto the Internet, where people worldwide can use them more readily.
But critics, including current and former EPA workers, say that's not how it's working out. Nearly all the documents not actually written by the EPA would not be put online, EPA officials told them, because of copyright restrictions.
"Academic scientists are very unhappy with this," said Michelle McKnelly, a librarian at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
Complaints at the library association's Saturday session at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center came mostly from librarians who work in a 15-state swath of the country stretching from Ohio and Minnesota to New Mexico and Louisiana. The three EPA regional libraries serving those states were shut down.
"When the Chicago (EPA library) closed we suddenly got an increase in inquiries from EPA employees," Aimee Quinn, who worked until recently at the University of Illinois-Chicago, told EPA officials. "The burden you put on my library was very difficult."
Mike Flynn, director of the agency's Office of Information Analysis and Access said that the whole affair has caused misunderstanding of the agency's true aim: to make the EPA's information more widely available.
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"One of the key things here is increasing access," Flynn told the librarians. "I know I have a lot of skeptics in the room, but our intention is to maintain access to the documents."
The EPA libraries were well used. Internal EPA documents obtained by the Seattle P-I show that more than 20,000 requests for quick reference and another 20,000-plus requests for extended research were filled by EPA librarians in fiscal year 2005, the latest statistics available. The figure for database and literature searches exceeded 85,000. Of those, the three now-closed EPA libraries in Chicago, Kansas City and Dallas handled more 32,000 requests, records show.
The documents in those libraries were boxed up and sent to headquarters to be put on the Internet. But in the meantime many documents remain unavailable. Even more harmful, critics said, is that librarians who had become experts on those collections were given their walking papers.
Also closed were EPA's headquarters library and an EPA library in Washington, D.C., specializing in the effects and properties of various chemicals. Hours were reduced in Boston, New York and San Francisco, as well as Seattle.
The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has launched an investigation, and congressional hearings are planned.
An EPA cost-benefit analysis said the libraries provided "substantial value" to the agency, with every dollar spent there saving from $2 to $5.70 in costs -- not including "unquantifiable benefits such as the higher quality of information typically found with the assistance of a librarian," the Congressional Research Service concluded.
Inside the agency, managers at the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance described themselves as "concerned" in an internal August memo that said, "Our employees need information which is current, timely, correct and accessible. ... OECA needs to ensure that its employees continued to have access to the information that is critical for them to do their jobs."
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an environmental group, has heard many complaints from workers inside the agency, said Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who called the closures "positively Orwellian."
"Our view is that it takes a special talent to make libraries controversial," Ruch said.
Decision derided as harmful to agency's own employees
By ROBERT McCLURE
P-I REPORTER
A national controversy over cutbacks and outright closings of Environmental Protection Agency libraries came to Seattle over the weekend as librarians from around the country told EPA officials the agency is undercutting its own workers, its scientists and the public.
Across vast stretches of the heartland, EPA scientists, university researchers and others have scrambled to locate documents once easily found by librarians in the agency's regional headquarters, said participants in the America Library Association annual conference.
It's a development that critics fear could befall the Seattle EPA library, where hours of operation already have been reduced.
With a congressional investigation pending, agency officials responded that they are merely trying to move the EPA libraries' contents onto the Internet, where people worldwide can use them more readily.
But critics, including current and former EPA workers, say that's not how it's working out. Nearly all the documents not actually written by the EPA would not be put online, EPA officials told them, because of copyright restrictions.
"Academic scientists are very unhappy with this," said Michelle McKnelly, a librarian at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
Complaints at the library association's Saturday session at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center came mostly from librarians who work in a 15-state swath of the country stretching from Ohio and Minnesota to New Mexico and Louisiana. The three EPA regional libraries serving those states were shut down.
"When the Chicago (EPA library) closed we suddenly got an increase in inquiries from EPA employees," Aimee Quinn, who worked until recently at the University of Illinois-Chicago, told EPA officials. "The burden you put on my library was very difficult."
Mike Flynn, director of the agency's Office of Information Analysis and Access said that the whole affair has caused misunderstanding of the agency's true aim: to make the EPA's information more widely available.
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"One of the key things here is increasing access," Flynn told the librarians. "I know I have a lot of skeptics in the room, but our intention is to maintain access to the documents."
The EPA libraries were well used. Internal EPA documents obtained by the Seattle P-I show that more than 20,000 requests for quick reference and another 20,000-plus requests for extended research were filled by EPA librarians in fiscal year 2005, the latest statistics available. The figure for database and literature searches exceeded 85,000. Of those, the three now-closed EPA libraries in Chicago, Kansas City and Dallas handled more 32,000 requests, records show.
The documents in those libraries were boxed up and sent to headquarters to be put on the Internet. But in the meantime many documents remain unavailable. Even more harmful, critics said, is that librarians who had become experts on those collections were given their walking papers.
Also closed were EPA's headquarters library and an EPA library in Washington, D.C., specializing in the effects and properties of various chemicals. Hours were reduced in Boston, New York and San Francisco, as well as Seattle.
The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has launched an investigation, and congressional hearings are planned.
An EPA cost-benefit analysis said the libraries provided "substantial value" to the agency, with every dollar spent there saving from $2 to $5.70 in costs -- not including "unquantifiable benefits such as the higher quality of information typically found with the assistance of a librarian," the Congressional Research Service concluded.
Inside the agency, managers at the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance described themselves as "concerned" in an internal August memo that said, "Our employees need information which is current, timely, correct and accessible. ... OECA needs to ensure that its employees continued to have access to the information that is critical for them to do their jobs."
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an environmental group, has heard many complaints from workers inside the agency, said Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who called the closures "positively Orwellian."
"Our view is that it takes a special talent to make libraries controversial," Ruch said.
). Its minimum wage is set by some federal commission. The original legislation the House passed removed the exemption in the Marianas (which doesn't have a similar commission, AFAIK). Supposedly that was due to more frequent labor abuse in the Marianas (see Jack A), but I don't really know how well that claim holds up. Anyways, after the uproar, the House closed the Samoan loophole.
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