EPA Library Closure Protested by 10,000 Staffers

Some 10,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists, engineers, and other technical specialists have asked Congress to stop the Bush administration's 80 percent budget cut that would close the agency's network of technical research libraries. The signatories, who represent more than half of the agency's total workforce, sent a letter, released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), saying the cuts would put thousands of scientific studies out of reach and hinder emergency preparedness, anti-pollution enforcement, and long-term research. For example, the letter said that about 50,000 original research documents would become completely unavailable because there is no budget to digitize them. Also, the staffers said that there are no plans to maintain interlibrary loan of documents. "Eliminating library access is an absolutely awful way to run an agency devoted to public and environmental health," PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch said. PEER also observed that EPA internal studies estimate that library access actually saves staff time valued at three times the $2.5 million agency library budget.