EPA Libraies: An Update

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) effort to reorganize its library system was seriously flawed and mired in agency management and oversight problems, said a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.

GAO looked at how well the agency handled its library reorganization in the wake of a $2 million budget cut in 2006. The report, released March 13, documented numerous problems with the way EPA handled the closing of four libraries. For example, the agency failed to obtain appropriate input from staff or relevant experts to accommodate library users before closing facilities. Also, GAO said, EPA still lacks a strategy to ensure continuity of library services and does not know whether its actions have impaired access to environmental information.
Other shortcomings GAO found include:

EPA did not conduct a cost-benefit analysis for closing the libraries. The agency failed to track costs associated with closing the libraries and did not evaluate the cost of losing library services.
EPA did not conduct analyses mandated by the Office of Management and Budget. The agency failed to comply with federal law concerning the disposal of federal property. EPA did not implement an agency-wide communications strategy notifying stakeholders of the closures. GAO recommended-and EPA agreed-that EPA should continue its moratorium on further changes until it takes suggested corrective actions. Four closed libraries have not reopened.

"EPA should return to making decisions that are based upon reasonably obtainable economic and technical information," said Charles Orzehoskie of the American Federation of Government Employees Council of EPA, Local 238. "Initiating these changes now would improve EPA staff morale," said Orzehoskie in testimony before a House on Science and Technology subcommittee investigating the library closings.

The GAO report came in response to a request by Reps. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology, Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

To see more, go to: < http://www.afge.org/Index.cfm?Page=PressReleases&PressReleaseID=832 > or the GAO report at: < http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08304high.pdf >.