The Dumbing of the Environment

Behind every progressive movement for change offered by the present administration, one has to look deep and see what is this all about.You look at the outward message and then you ask the people who do the work, “How is this going to effect the health and safety of the American People?” Afterall, is that not the purpose of government to look after the public good?

Well, this latest piece of “newspeak” comes on the eve of the Labor Day Weekend 2006. The latest budget is going to cut the EPA library budget by 2 million dollars. The figure is not significant when you consider the costs of our numerous war efforts runs about that 2 million every 10 minutes of every day, but it is significant when this little drop in the bucket is an 80% cut. This leaves the EPA with about $800,000 to run all of its data collection, preservation, retrieval , administrative costs for an entire year.

The “newspeak” is that this cut is because the public is not using the libraries due to heightened security. The documents and reports are being digitalized and it is just more efficient. In fact the cuts will mean no public access. The cuts do not allow for the cost of dizitalizing all of these documents which is the size of the Rocky Mountains. The cuts also mean the preemptive closing of EPA library facilities in anticipation of these cuts.

The Public Employees for the Environment have tried within their of control to stop the closures. The scientist have sent pleading letters to the Congress begging for the funds and to stop the closures. See the letter to Conrad Burns the Committee Chairman http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_29_6_union_library_ltr.pdf

Across this great nation there are superfund sites dependent on the latest and historical data to keep the American people safe in their drinking water, air, and habitat. It would seem that even if you disagree with the concept of Global Warming or the possibility of harmful chemicals creating a toxic unliveable planet. burning the book is a harsh measure. As a member of the public while I may not travel today or tomorrow to a public library of the EPA, I would certainly like to know it is there.