BUSH HIDES DOCUMENTS ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
President Bush regularly talks about the need for other countries to
display "transparency"[1] and create an open system that allows citizens to
see what their government is doing. But, according to a new report, the
Bush administration is hiding thousands of previously public documents to
"undercut the public's right to know about contamination of the
environment, transport of hazardous materials, pipeline routes, and more."
The Working Group on Community Right-to-Know this week reports that, under
the guise of "national security," more than "six thousand public documents
have been removed from the web sites of over a dozen government
agencies."[2] The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, has
removed from its website parts of once-public Risk Management Plans --
documents that helped communities identify nearby chemical hazards. The
Department of Energy has taken down environmental impact statements related
to nuclear power plants and hazardous materials transport information. The
Department of Transportation removed from its web site much of the national
pipeline mapping data that allowed communities to find hazardous pipeline
routes.[3]
According to the report, President Bush has also issued executive orders
that broaden the authority of agencies to withhold information from the
public. May 2002's Executive Order 12958 gave the EPA Administrator
authority to designate documents "Secret" or "Confidential," two of the
three highest possible security classifications. The White House has even
reduced the public's access to unclassified information, passing bills
allowing agencies to withhold "sensitive but unclassified" information from
the public.
For more, see the report at www.Bushgreenwatch.org.
Sources:
1. Presidental Remarks , WhiteHouse.gov, 6/22/2004,
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2103488&l=41869.
2. "Bush Administration Secrecy Imperils Environment and Public Health",
Bushgreenwatch.org, 6/23/2004, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2103488
&l=41870.
3. "Secrecy in the Bush Administration Obstructs Communities'
Right-to-Know", Working Group on Community Right to Know (crtk.org),
6/23/2004, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2103488&l=41871.
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