This is another aspect of the Bush Administration's plan to eliminate all government services that are not police or military activities. As has been reported elsewhere, there has been a systematic effort from January 20, 2001 to fire the professionals in the State Department, EPA, FEMA, CIA, the anti-trust and civil rights divisions of the Justice Department, et al. and, where possible, eliminate whole programs, undermine enforcement efforts, outsource or hire unskilled true believers to devastate from within the entire structure of government as a public institution. Grover Norquist's master plan will ultimately turn this nation into a third world client state run directly by transnational corporations with no interest in the nation's benefit. Every expert I have read over the past six years has been trying to get this to our attention. Many books and articles have been written outlining the impending disaster we have been careening towards. And reality keeps butting in to warn us (how much extreme weather does it take?) even when the media tries to shut it out. This is not some unconnected series of coincidences but a determined plan that has been apparent for many years. But where is the outrage? How bad do things have to get before we as a people wake up and do something?

If you want to learn more about the EPA library closure plan, listen to the archive at NPR's Science Friday (Talk of the Nation) program.

http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2006/Sep/hour2_092906.html

They are doing away with any pretense that environmental laws are in any way in alignment with the administations policies. Of course on a local level it's entirely normal to see housing developments spring up atop landfills, questionable former toxic waste sites and decommissioned army firing and bomb ranges. So it's not as if anyone at the local level is looking too hard at the problem either.

"They don't gotta burn tha books, they just remove 'em." -- Rage Against the Machine, "Bulls on Parade". How prescient.

The right wing plan is to destroy the government from within. What's sad is that people don't see that interested, look at the response to this article, there are only 4 letters.

Let's hope the democrats win back the Senate, the house or both and hope that some damage control can begin. I can't say I'm overly confident though.

Isn't converting microfiche and paper reports to digital form and saving money all good?

It wasn't clear from the article why the EPA moves would not make the data _more_ accessable instead of less.

Jason

There are significant costs involved in digitizing information, both $$ and time. There is no actual plan for doing this; indeed, it would be more efficient to do this through a network of EPA libraries, sharing the burden. This is a thinly-veiled attempt to eliminate the EPA altogether; without adequate information, EPA staffers can not protect citizens from environmental hazards. More to the point, this makes it difficult if not impossible to bring cases against the polluters who are friends of Bush and his cronies.

I don't see how it's possible that this is anything other than a case of restricting the public's access to information through dissembling and deception.

Sure - digitise the information, but you have to do it in a planned fashion and preserve the public's access to it in the meantime.

In some ways I don't mind that this administration wants to contest environmental claims and to fight for what it "believes in", but they should at least have the decency to fight fair. But no - not content with fabricating information that supports their position, they remove information that opposes it.

"Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Knowledge is power and Americans have that much less power in the aftermath of the library closings. On what basis, other than information and message control, can this be justified? Anyone on the right care to respond, or are you still busy bashing Michael J. Fox? Does the average american give a shit, or are they still enthralled by Peyton Manning?

I am reminded of the question posed during Reagan's time: How much power does it take to destroy the environment? Answer: One Watt. That being James Watt, whom Reagan had appointed Secretary of the Interior (later forced to resign under pressure). Then there was Anne Gorsichs Burford, or some such name, who ran the EPA (into the ground). She too went out in disgrace. Putting the fox in the chicken pen has been the Republican strategy for a quarter-century, only this bunch of thugs has elevated the innoculation of destruction-from- within to a scripted process. Undermining faith in the ability of government to do anything well is also their agenda, and the two strategies together form a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop.

Information is always power, and our oil-soaked gang of bandits has closed the doors, shut off the lights, pulled down the shades, and classified everything in sight to make sure the public never knows what they're up to. In this case they're just going to hide it away until it's forgotten, or accidentally destroyed.

When will we wake up? When it's too late. Remember the Brits didn't realize their empire was crumbling under their feet until they tripped over the debris.

How much more are we willing to take? It's time to alert the nation 24 hours a day about the privileges that are blatently taken away from us. Next on the list: Burning books? Compulsory attendance to Church? No green socks on Friday?

If the ballot box doesn't send a message to this Administration then America is in a coma.No fighting back while we are comatose, too late!

Digitization would make the material more accessible, but it's pretty clear this is not about doing a digitization program. Re-read this quote:

"They're not doing this with any kind of foresight and planning. They don't have any money for digitizing, and even if they did have the money they don't have the staff to catalog these materials. Literally hundreds of thousands of things are being boxed up without being cataloged. There's no deadline, no budget and no staff."

No librarian in his or her right mind would go about a digitization program this way. Since this isn't about digital access, and isn't about saving money, it's pretty hard to avoid the conclusion that it's about burying potentially inconvenient information.