OMB Watch - Bush Budget Cuts Target EPA Libraries

OMB Watch - Bush Budget Cuts Target EPA Libraries

The president's budget proposal, which was released earlier this month, slashes the EPA Library Network's budget by a whopping 80 percent from 2006 funding levels, dropping the library budget from $2.5 million to $500,000. These funding cuts are part of a larger package of EPA budget cuts that would slash $300 million, or 5 percent, from the agency's 2006 funding levels.

EPA's Headquarter and Regional libraries handle more than 134,000 research requests from EPA scientific and enforcement staff each year, according to a report by an EPA Workgroup that analyzes how the agency might cope with the proposed library budget cuts. These services, according to the report, "are extremely important, perhaps essential, in helping EPA staff perform the Agency's mission."

According to EPA library staff, the cuts would eliminate the irreplaceable service of the Online Library System (OLS) electronic catalogue, which is operated out of EPA's headquarters library. The OLS serves as the EPA library network's card catalogue, without which EPA's libraries would not be able to locate any of their individual holdings. EPA staff and the public would thus be left without useful access to the agency's vast storehouse of information, as well as 50,000 documents not available anywhere else.