Performance Partnership Grants and Reform of the System

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

I want to restate what I was getting at when I mentioned using the Performance Partnership Grants (PPG) as a vehicle to reinvent the way we are making information available as effectively and widely as possible.  In today's summary, my point was mistaken to suggest individual grants to local libraries.

It is important to understand what the PPG grant is all about.  Prior to becoming the Director of the Massachusetts Environmental Library, I was the Regulation and Policy Coordinator for Waste Prevention at the Mass DEP.  We were working to bring about innovative changes in our regulations and our programs, and the old federal media based and fragmented funding was a major obstacle.  The PPG grant provides flexibility that allows states to innovate and re-invent environmental protection, combining all of EPA's annual funding programs into one.  If I missed or misrepresented something, please feel free to point it out.
 
EPA has the ability to guide state programs by developing policies and guidance documents that require certain program elements be included. Public Outreach and Involvement is part of the overall mix of funding.  EPA could develop a performance standard that includes state outreach through library systems.

One potential model that EPA might try to leverage with this existing and ongoing funding program would look something like this:

The Office of Environmental Information brings all EPA funded clearinghouses, libraries, etc. together by setting up cataloguing standards and internetworking.  They also work to set up a National Environmental Library System, working with the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and include public, private, academic and government libraries in the system.  They set up nodes on the network around each EPA office.  In each Region, the local Office of Environmental Information works with each state regulatory agency and library agency to ensure that all state regulatory agencies have an environmental library.  These state libraries would be encouraged to work closely with academic, public, and special libraries to make information available and to make the connection to the local level.  

The Office of Environmental Information would also set up Interstate Cooperatives equivalent to the ones that exist for air, waste, and water programs.

I am not suggesting that this would be the best system to go with, but I'm throwing it out there as an example of the kind of change I think is needed. The overall goal of a system such as this would be to take advantage of the existing infrastructure and design information gathering and dissemination programs to tap in to them.  Such a system could make much more than EPA's information available.  Active involvement in the PPG program would place the Office of Environmental Information in a better position to gain the cooperation of the overall EPA organization.

That is what I was getting at in my earlier statement.