They'll Never Learn

EPA closure of research libraries was a stupid idea, says GAO

Posted at 3:29 PM on 14 Mar 2008

The U.S. EPA decision to deal with a 2006 funding cut by closing several research libraries was not very well thought out, says a new report from the Government Accountability Office. To take just one example: The EPA promised to compensate for the closures by making information available on the internet, but due to copyright issues, only some 10 percent of the library system's documents are even able to be digitized. Before closing the libraries, the EPA should have consulted agency staff, done a cost-benefit analysis, and appointed a manager of the effort, said the GAO. Its failure to do so, says House Science and Technology Committee Chair Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), means that "EPA library services are impaired, employees will have a harder time doing their jobs, and the public has lost access to government information." A spending bill passed in December approved $1 million for reopening the closed libraries, which the EPA has yet to do.

sources: The Washington Post, Library Journal

ADVERTISING POLICY

Comments: (3 comments)

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have a Gristmill account, log in below. If you don't have a Gristmill account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

That is dumb.

Thankfully we still have our library at the EPA lab where I work. The Administration needs to start funding the Agency's research arm, which has been hit with some nasty funding cuts recently ... perhaps then we wouldn't have people in Washington deciding to close libraries just to keep the ink black.

by el mono at 9:29 AM on 16 Mar 2008

God save the GAO

I guess the GAO is the place where all the competent people are now taking refuge from the sheer lunacy that otherwise prevails under the Bush regime.

By the way, I like what the GAO used to be called, the Government Accounting Office, if I remember right.

Calling it the "Government Accountability Office" makes only too painfully obvious that this is the ONLY government agency that still acts responsibly and deals in facts rather than feeding people flattering and self-serving lies.

Just because the GAO tells the truth should not mean that every other government official has license to lie!

by JakobFabian01 at 11:14 AM on 16 Mar 2008

Research libraries & science

The Bush administration strictly curtailed most all DOE science research programs throughout its life. There is one research program that Pres. Bush forced the DOE to pursue with a 41% leap in funding in the last year of the Bush administration! It is a coal research initiative. Who will benefit most from this DOE one-only-science-supporting-Bush-administration move? With the Chinese ready to build 1000(!!!!) coal-fired powerplants in China, the U.S. DOE will support strongly Chinese efforts to this end.
Yes, the Bush administration hates science. But Pres. Bush knows how to use science to set himself up for his years after his presidency.

Your future is not determined by your past

by litesong at 12:30 AM on 18 Mar 2008

The comments of Grist users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?