10,000 EPA SCIENTISTS PROTEST LIBRARY CLOSURES

[michaelwb]

I don't think that I've seen this posted around DU....

10,000 EPA SCIENTISTS PROTEST LIBRARY CLOSURES

In an extraordinary letter of protest, representatives for 10,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists are asking Congress to stop the Bush administration from closing the agency’s network of technical research libraries. The EPA scientists, representing more than half of the total agency workforce, contend thousands of scientific studies are being put out of reach, hindering emergency preparedness, anti-pollution enforcement and long-term research, according to the letter released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

In his proposed budget for FY 2007, President Bush deleted $2 million of support for EPA’s libraries, amounting to 80% of the agency’s total budget for libraries. Without waiting for Congress to act, EPA has begun shuttering libraries, closing access to collections and reassigning staff. The letter notes that “EPA library services are greatly reduced or no longer available to the general public” in agency regional offices serving 19 states.
....
“The Bush administration apparently decided that it was politically easier to close the libraries than to burn the books, although the end result will be the same,” Ruch added, noting that the EPA Administrator brushed aside an earlier request by the scientist unions to bargain about the library shutdowns internally.

In their letter, the EPA scientists cite library closures as “one more example of the Bush administration’s effort to suppress information on environmental and public health-related topics.” At the same time, other outside observers, such as the Chair of EPA’s own Science Advisory Board, are expressing growing concerns over the viability and coherence of EPA’s research program.

If you don't like the facts, hide them so no one can see them...

[mod mom]

1. UFB! The outrage never ends.

[mod mom]

2. You might want to X Post this on General Discussion so it gets the

attention it deserves. It needs to get up on the greatest page.

[IChing]

3. i agree important info nominated here 1st

[IChing]

5. not in GD in GDP it needs to be chewed and digested

otherwise it might be swallowed whole and forgotten in GD.

[michaelwb]

4. Good idea

I'll do that because this seems to definitely have fallen through the cracks (happened several weeks ago!)

[jpak]

6. I was a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow at an EPA lab

many years ago.

The research library was excellent - far superior to the libraries at the local colleges and university.

It was an invaluable resource, local students and non-EPA researchers used that facility all the time.

And now they want to shut them down????

Just goes to show how much Republicans HATE environmental science...

[Gman]

7. If there is no library, the information does not exist

and there's no problems. Very simple.

[xzyra]

8. nice catch

This sort of suppression is happening in countless ways all over the federal government.

It kills me because the price to restart or rebuild something that was really cheap to maintain will probably keep it out of existence for a long, long time. Not to mention the disruption will have countless, mostly unknown, impossible-to-correlate-absolutely-but-we-know-what-happened effects.

grrrrr


:grr:

[NNadir]

9. There is nothing worse for truth than closing libraries.

It is very clear what they are doing.

[Catbird]

10. The Dark Ages return.

Who will preserve the books this time around?

[mom cat]

13. It is not the Dark Ages:

Think of it as the Post Information Age. :sarcasm: ... thanks George!

[KaptBunnyPants]

11. Hiding tax dollar paid for research from tax dollar paid for scientists!

Conservatives ought to be mad. Bush is wasting our money by intentionally hindering the work of our own employees. If Bush doesn’t think there should be an EPA, he ought to come out and say it, but he’s going to be a coward instead and just sabotage his own government.

[autorank]

12. The "messenger of death" W is anti-intellectual too... K&R

$2.0 million deleted for libraries that are vital to our health.

$30000.0 million added for destruction of Iraq.

This is what is called asymmetrical horror.

[Old and In the Way]

14. Ignorance will make us a 2nd world country in a few years.

Very sad that we have allowed ourselves to take this country over.

[progressoid]

15. Christ, this administration is like a bunch schoolyard bullies.

:banghead:

[understandinglife]

16. Recommended.

Pro-Bu$h = Anti-America + Anti-Knowledge + Anti-Planet + Anti-Humanity

[ProgressiveEconomist]

17. Kicked and Recommended

[mod mom]

18. kick

[Kolesar]

19. The political war on science continues ... eom

[RedEarth]

20. This is unbelievable...... this is what Hilter and Stalin were doing

...next the conservatives will start killing people that want to speak the truth......