RE: Question for Sept 19: What about EPA's info?

[Nina Powers <npowers@Home.com>]

The EPA has alot of information on its web site, but the
retrival of what one is searching for is not easy. Since
there are so many offices and programs, perhaps a data
base that was searchable by topic would help the average
citizen not used to search engines.Someone else suggested 
searching based on a question.There is a web page for the
Office of Environmental Information. I haven't used them,
but a goal is to expand Americans Right To Know about their
environment by providing access to information.-

    http://www.epa.gov/oei/goals.htm

I am on the EPA's Press Release list server, and often links
provided that relate to the message can't be opened. You
receive a message that the page can't be found on EPA's
server. I haven't had that happen with the Office of Pesticide
Program's ( OPP )list server I subscribe to.

 I find searching the Federal Register to be enormously
cumbersome. Help!

 I would like to access information from OPP's Health Effects
Division, such as internal memos on pesticides. It should be 
a matter of public record and accessible. Someone else had
suggested that any EPA document that is available through the
Freedom of Information Act( FOIA )should be online. I agree.

 There is a new EPA FOIA web page,that contains information
for people new to FOIA requests, which is helpful. There is
also a searchable index of cleared science reviews in alphabetical
order by chemical name. This is just a list of the documents, it
would be better to have the entire document available online.

    http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/foia/

 I have conducted searches on the EPA web site that tell me there 
were 120 matches, yet I am only given 40 to look through.Many of
those matches are duplicate documents as well.

 But I still turn to the EPA for information online.