Bush Hides Documents About Environmental Policy

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Wed, 23 Jun 2004 16:21:38 -0400 (EDT)

The Daily Mislead

 

Bush Hides Documents About Environmental Policy

 

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THE DAILY MIS-LEAD

< http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2973095 & l=41868 >

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BUSH HIDES DOCUMENTS ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

 

President Bush regularly talks about the need for other countries to display

" transparency " [1] and create an open system that allows citizens to see what

their government is doing. But, according to a new report, the Bush

administration is hiding thousands of previously public documents to

" undercut the public's right to know about contamination of the environment,

transport of hazardous materials, pipeline routes, and more. "

 

The Working Group on Community Right-to-Know this week reports that, under

the guise of " national security, " more than " six thousand public documents

have been removed from the web sites of over a dozen government

agencies. " [2] The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, has

removed from its website parts of once-public Risk Management Plans --

documents that helped communities identify nearby chemical hazards. The

Department of Energy has taken down environmental impact statements related

to nuclear power plants and hazardous materials transport information. The

Department of Transportation removed from its web site much of the national

pipeline mapping data that allowed communities to find hazardous pipeline

routes.[3]

 

According to the report, President Bush has also issued executive orders

that broaden the authority of agencies to withhold information from the

public. May 2002's Executive Order 12958 gave the EPA Administrator

authority to designate documents " Secret " or " Confidential, " two of the

three highest possible security classifications. The White House has even

reduced the public's access to unclassified information, passing bills

allowing agencies to withhold " sensitive but unclassified " information from

the public.

 

For more, see the report at www.Bushgreenwatch.org.

 

Sources:

 

1. Presidental Remarks , WhiteHouse.gov, 6/22/2004,

http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2973095 & l=41869.

2. " Bush Administration Secrecy Imperils Environment and Public Health " ,

Bushgreenwatch.org, 6/23/2004,

http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2973095 & l=41870.

3. " Secrecy in the Bush Administration Obstructs Communities'

Right-to-Know " , Working Group on Community Right to Know (crtk.org),

6/23/2004,

http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2973095 & l=41871.

 

Visit www.misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion. »

 

 

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