Earlier last week, the Wicked Trio received an email from a professional colleague at the NIH libraries in Maryland about a proposal by the EPA admin to close a number of regional libraries, including the main one in DC… All we can ask is WTF?
Here is PEER’s take on the news: and here.
For Immediate Release: February 10, 2006
Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337
BUSH AXING LIBRARIES WHILE PUSHING FOR MORE RESEARCH — EPA Set to Close Library Network and Electronic Catalog
Washington, DC — Under President Bush’s proposed budget, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is slated to shut down its network of libraries that serve its own scientists as well as the public, according to internal agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In addition to the libraries, the agency will pull the plug on its electronic catalog which tracks tens of thousands of unique documents and research studies that are available nowhere else.
Under Bush’s plan, $2 million of a total agency library budget of $2.5 million will be lost, including the entire $500,000 budget for the EPA Headquarters library and its electronic catalog that makes it possible to search for documents through the entire EPA library network. These reductions are just a small portion of the $300 million in cuts the administration has proposed for EPA operations.
At the same time, President Bush is proposing to significantly increase EPA research funding for topics such as nanotechnology, air pollution and drinking water system security as part of his “American Competitive Initiative.”
“How are EPA scientists supposed to engage in cutting edge research when they cannot find what the agency has already done?” asked PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson is moving to implement the proposed cuts as soon as possible. “The President’s plan will not make us more competitive if we have to spend half our time re-inventing the wheel.”
Frankly, those in the know should have seen it coming down the proverbial path. Health Canada is doing the same thing in defunding at appropriate levels the various libraries that serve as a de facto national health library. One supposed that the Rt. Hon. Mr. Harper is assuming that the NIH libraries will take up the slack…
We have no idea what Mr. Bush is doing. Supposedly this will save $2 Million (US) out of a total $2.5 Million library budget. Frankly, this pittance is astonishing — one assumes that a single trip to the Brush Ranch or Kennebunkport costs at least that for a week of “deciding.”
Evidently this was a pure EPA decision, and it was done in order to court favor with the “faith based” environmental policy which BushCo, INC presently exercises, that is to say “I have faith that I shall still have breathable air and potable water for long enough for me to die of old age in bed.” In other words, a retake on “the public be damned” only add “the researchers working on public policy” along with “the public” and we have Neo-conservative policy at its worst.
We assume that reading the The Fountainhead again along with an appropriate Bible passage will function for researchers basic needs. What more could they possibly need?
Screeching Rats 