EPA Gone Feral: Destroying Our Future

This Bush treason will kill many more children than his little war has.

"In defiance of Congressional requests to immediately halt closures of library collections, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is purging records from its library websites, making them unavailable to both agency scientists and outside researchers, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, EPA is taking steps to prevent the re-opening of its shuttered libraries, including the hurried auctioning off of expensive bookcases, cabinets, microfiche readers and other equipment for less than a penny on the dollar."

This is self destruction of public property at its worst. While selling the furniture for pennies on the dollar to friends is just plain old theft, the destruction of years of research into toxic chemicals and pesticides is an outright assault on the lives and health of every American. This obvious attempt to help industry by knee-capping the regulatory agency that protects us from the chemicals is so cynical, so dangerous, and so homicidal that somebody from the Bush cabal had damn well better go to jail over this one. They'll put Nuns in jail for graffiti on Pentagon property, but they'll let this shit slide?

In a letter dated November 30, 2006, four incoming House Democratic committee chairs demanded that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson assure them “that the destruction or disposition of all library holdings immediately ceased upon the Agency's receipt of this letter and that all records of library holdings and dispersed materials are being maintained.” On the very next day, December 1st, EPA de-linked thousands of documents from the website for the Office of Prevention, Pollution and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) Library, in EPA’s Washington D.C. Headquarters.

Last month without notice to its scientists or the public, EPA abruptly closed the OPPTS Library, the agency’s only specialized research repository on health effects and properties of toxic chemicals and pesticides. The web purge follows reports that library staffers were ordered to destroy its holdings by throwing collections into recycling bins.

“EPA’s leadership appears to have gone feral, defying all appeals to reason or consultation,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that Congress has yet to review, let alone approve, the library closures. “The new Congress convening in January will finally have a chance to decide whether EPA will continue to pillage its library network.”

Un-fucking-believable. These people have no shame. Do their kids breath different air, drink different water, or eat different food from the rest of us. Or are they actually thinking, fuck the kids? Oh, right. Iraq. Deficit. Pollution. I see a trend. The GOP just doesn't give a shit about the future generations of Americans. I guess they're really betting the farm on the Rapture....