RE: Question for 21 September: Can we trust the EPA?

[Tom.Hughes, Mass Environmental Library <Thomas.Hughes@state.ma.us>]

It isn't so much trust, or the lack of effort to get information out accurately and quickly.  It is the fact that EPA continues to get information out differently program by program and office by office.  Each program at EPA seems to fund at least one, but more likely several clearinghouses for information.  This has resulted in a fractured and ineffective infrastructure for making information available.

EPA needs to look at the extensive infrastructure that has been developed and funded by other federal, state, and local funds around libraries.  Public and Academic libraries were interconnected by computer long before there was an internet for the purpose of sharing information resources. They need to stop funding a scattered group of clearinghouses and start using funds to take the best clearinghouses and integrate them in to the extensive infrastructure that libraries are a part of.  A joint venture with the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) would be great.  In addition, I think the issue of trust would be diminished substantially if EPA was more active in making all peer reviewed environmental information and research available, even if they don't agree with it or didn't fund it. They should look at how the Public Health Libraries and Medline have been set up as a model for working with the infrastructure to make it even better.