EPA ENFORCEMENT THREATENED BY LIBRARY CLOSURES — Prosecutions at Risk

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http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=735

 

For Immediate Release: August 28, 2006

Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337

 

EPA ENFORCEMENT THREATENED BY LIBRARY CLOSURES — Prosecutions at Risk

from Loss of Timely Access to Key Documents

 

 

Washington, DC — Prosecution of polluters by the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency " will be compromised " due to the loss of " timely,

correct and accessible " information from the agency's closure of its

network of technical libraries, according to an internal memo released

today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). EPA

enforcement staff currently rely upon the libraries to obtain

technical information to support pollution prosecutions and to track

the business histories of regulated industries.

 

In a memo prepared last week by the enforcement arm of EPA, called the

Office of Enforcement and Compliance (OECA), agency staff detailed

concerns about the effects of EPA's plans to close many of its

libraries, box up the collections and eliminate or sharply reduce

library services. Each year, EPA's libraries handle more than 134,000

research requests from its own scientific and enforcement staff. The

memo states:

 

" If OECA is involved in a civil or criminal litigation and the judge

asks for documentation, we can currently rely upon a library to locate

the information and have it produced to a court house in a timely

manner. Under the cuts called for in the plan, timeliness for such

services is not addressed. "

 

In addition, the memo raises negative side effects relating to –

 

Forensics. " The NEIC (National Enforcement Investigations Center)

Library is the only specialized environmental forensic library in the

Agency. The NEIC library supports enforcement in the regions when

there is a need for NEIC's expertise or unique materials…Loss of

support for enforcement within the regions may cause an overwhelming

demand on the small NEIC library by requiring the NEIC library to

provide not only unique materials, but also items that the regional

libraries currently provide. There is no budget available to expand

NEIC's library capacity should this increased demand for NEIC library

services occur. "

Lost Collections. " OECA is seriously concerned that these documents

may be distributed without adequate documentation and cataloging and

may become virtually lost within the system. "

Institutional Memory. " OECA is concerned that the loss of

institutional memory as well as the loss of expertise from

professional librarians in the regions will hamper OECA's enforcement

program. "

" Cutting $2 million in library services in an EPA budget totaling

nearly $8 billion is the epitome of a penny wise-pound foolish

economy, " stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. " From research to

regulation to enforcement, EPA is an information-dependent operation

which needs libraries and librarians to function properly. "

 

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Read the EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance " Position

Paper on the 2007 EPA Library Plan "

 

Look at the Bush administration plan to close EPA's technical research

libraries