The following elaborates on the EPA closures mentioned in the Dec. 11th blog post.

A cost-cutting move by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to shut down its national network of scientific libraries, possibly destroying thousands of pages of agency documents in the process, has raised the hackles of four key Democrats elected to the 110th Congress. Representatives Bart Gordon (D-Tennessee), John Dingell (D-Michigan), Henry Waxman (D-California), and James Oberstar (D-Minnesota) fired off a firmly-worded letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson urging him to halt the library closures. “It is imperative that the valuable government information maintained by the EPA’s libraries be preserved,” wrote the Congressmen.

The same group successfully lobbied for a Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation into the matter in September and wants Johnson to delay the closures until the GAO issues its full report. The library closures, expected to save the EPA $2 million annually, were included in the agency’s 2007 budget proposal, which was never officially approved by Congress.

Millions for defense, but not one cent for the preservation of EPA documents!

This post first appeared on AHA Today.