Bush gets Bitchslap for EPA Library Closures
Not only was the budget slashed to the point where the EPA libraries couldn’t remain open in 2007, the agency actually started shutting them down before the budget went into effect, despite the “Demand to Bargainâ€? on the issue by EPA scientists represented by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal employee union.
What affect does this have? Any court case against a polluter that depends on evidentiary findings within the EPA library will be faced with documents deepsixed to some warehouse or basement, never to see the light of day. This means industrial polluters will get away with murder. Literally.
This has all been done under the aegis of Bush’s 2007 Budget Cuts. The problem here is that the hiding of documents will actually have the opposite affect.
“The central fiction is EPA’s promise to digitize its entire massive collection, making everything available online someday, without any dedicated funds amid sharply reduced budgets,� stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting EPA studies show the cuts will actually lose money due to additional professional staff time that will have to be spent tracking down research materials now assembled by the libraries. “The idea that library closures are a purely budgetary move is increasingly hard to swallow.�
Hmm. One wonders if the next “Exxon Valdez” type case will be lost amid the clutter and dross created by this latest Bush Boondoggle. And maybe that’s exactly the point.
A BitchSlap is MUCH too gentle for King Bush.
Technorati Tags: Bush, EPA, 2007 Federal Budget Cuts, EPA Library Closings
