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Monday, December 4, 2006

Democrats to EPA: Stop Closing Libraries

By Rebecca Carr | Monday, December 4, 2006, 03:57 PM

Look for a grilling of the EPA come January.

A group of senior Democratic lawmakers has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop closing its public libraries and discarding collection materials until it has permission from Congress.

“We request that you maintain the status quo of the libraries and their materials while this issue is under investigation and review by Congress,” Reps. John Dingell, the ranking member of the Energy Committee; Bart Gordon, ranking member of the Science Committee; James Oberstar, the ranking member of the Transportation Committee and Henry Waxman, the ranking member of the Government Reform Committee, wrote in a Nov. 30th letter to Stephen Johnson, the administrator of the EPA.

The EPA has defended its decision to close libraries, saying it will save the agency money. It has promised to digitize its collection, but has not released a plan as to how it would do that or how it would pay for that costly service. See Cox story: click here.

Linda Travers, acting assistant administrator of the EPA’s office of Environmental Information, said the agency would respond to the lawmakers in a “timely manner.”

“EPA is committed to being good stewards of our nation’s enviornment and good stewards of our nation’s tax dollars,” Travers said in an e-mail message. Staff walk-ins have dramatically declined. The advent of electronic commnications has made it easier and quicker to obtain information on-line, she said.

To date, Travers said, more than 20,000 documents are already available on-line through the agency’s public Web site. Documents from shuttered libraries will be available on line by January 2007, she said. Materials will also be available from repositories, she said.

The lawmakers expressed frustration with the agency for dismantling the collection without approval from Congress. That might not have meant something before the mid-term election, but it means a lot now coming from the chairmen of the committees with oversight over the agency.

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Declassification Board Wants To Change Charter

By Rebecca Carr | Monday, December 4, 2006, 02:59 PM

The Public Interest Declassification Board is a little known advisory panel because it has yet to recommend disclosing a single top secret document—let alone a controversial one like an intelligence report on Iraq.

But in trying to evaluate whether two intelligence reports on Iraq should be declassified, the bipartisan panel found itself in a pickle: in order to review the reports for declassification, the board needed permission from the White House, which has strongly resisted making them public.

L. Britt Snider, chairman of the panel, sent a letter to the House and Senate Intelligence committees, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and the House Government Reform Committee on Monday asking the committees to allow it to change its charter so that it no longer has to get permission from the White House to review whether a document should be classified.

Seeking the president’s permission before a review is conducted is “unnecessary,” Snider wrote. Unnecessary, because the president retains control over what is ultimately released to the public. The board merely advises him.

“The board believes that its standing as an independent, non-partisan advocate of the public interest in declassification matters is compromised by a requirement that the president has to authorize it to undertake a classification review requested by a congressional committee,” Snider wrote. “If a president chose to ignore or disapprove such a request for whatever reason, the board could be perceived as subordinate to an executive branch political decision, rather than as an independent advocate of the public interest.”

The White House has not immediately responded to a request for an interview about the board.

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