4um: CRS Views EPA Library Closures

Title: CRS Views EPA Library Closures
Source: Secrecy News
URL Source: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
Published: Jan 6, 2007
Author: Posted by Steven Aftergood
Post Date: 2007-01-06 12:16:54 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 54
Comments: 3

CRS Views EPA Library Closures

Last October the Environmental Protection Agency closed five of its libraries, including the headquarters library in Washington DC, and limited public access at four others.

EPA said the closures were part of an ongoing restructuring and that public demand for EPA records would be increasingly satisfied online. Public interest groups and librarians warned that valuable documentary resources were in danger of being lost or destroyed.

A report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service fleshes out some new details of the library closures and finds some cause for concern.

"EPA determined that the utility of some of its libraries had declined as the agency has made more information available through the Internet, and as heightened security at its facilities has led to fewer public visitors," CRS observed.

But "Which materials will be retained, dispersed, or discarded, and the amount of time and funding needed to complete this [restructuring] process, are uncertain."

See "Restructuring EPA's Libraries: Background and Issues for Congress," updated January 3, 2007.

"....What Nixon did next, and what stunned a lot of folks, was to set up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and we began to pass massive environmental laws. And for what real purpose? All of them have had one effect collectively, whether at the Federal, state or local level. The one thing they all do is that they effect the transfer of private property out of the hands of private individuals and place that property into the hands of government. Now what is that all about?

Well, when we ran out of gold and, in order to keep the foreign interests from cashing in their bonds and notes and imploding and destroying the US economy, we had to show them that the resources of the US adequately collateralized their debt. In order for it to be properly collateralized, we had to show them that US citizens and US interests would not be developing, drilling and mining those resources. The effect of this was to disenfranchise American citizens of access to their resources for the purpose of making their resources available to the international financial interests that hold the debt of the US. Indeed, at the present time, about 40% of all our debt is held by and owed to foreign interests........"

Executive Order 12803 For purposes of this order: (a) “Privatization” means the disposition or transfer ... of an infrastructure asset, as determined by the head of the executive ... http://www.the powerhour.com/news2/executive_order12803.htm -

Privatizing National Parks During his election campaign, George W. Bush pledged to eliminate the $4.9 ... The Bush administration's privatization plan for the National Park Service ... http://www.mapcruzin.com/ne ws/park052103a.htm -

Faith-based watch One of the first orders of business for George W. Bush in January 2001 was to ... that Bush political appointees are taking our national parks in a new, ... http://www.mediatran sparency.org/issue.php?issueID=3 -

The Truth Will Set You Free: America's new FAST Track to fascism...The toll road privatization advocates argue that profit generates the motive ... and his cabal (all disgusting "Republicans" in the pocket of George W. Bush ... http://wakeupfromyourslumber.b logspot.com/ 2006/03/americas-new-fast-track-to- fascism.html -

#2. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt, Uncle Bill, Red Jones, *Resource Warfare* (#1) (Edited)

Most interesting. I remember when Clinton signed away some of Utah's state owned land; but most Americans were unaware. It included land rich in copper and other important minerals, which increased the value of the copper held by the Lippo group.

He also made China the sole maker of smart bombs. (I used to try to warn the freepers, but they could care less, they insisted this was all free market).

One example of CFIUS falling short is with Magnequench International Incorporated. In 1995, Chinese corporations bought GM's Magnequench, a supplier of rare earth metals used in the guidance systems of smart-bombs. For over twelve years, the company has been moved piecemeal to mainland China, leaving the U.S. with no domestic supplier of neodymium, a critical component of rare-earth magnets. CFIUS approved this transfer. The problem takes a unique twist, as Nathan Tabor of The Conservative Voice outlines, "China [has] become the dominant supplier of rare-earth elements, also called lanthanides (`lan-tha-nides). But in the U.S., owners of the Mountain Pass mine in California, one of the finest rare-earth deposits in the world, have been spending millions of dollars over many years to resolve an environmental complaint that processing the element threatens the habitat of the desert tortoise."