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The reactionary campaign against knowledge and information is reaching
frightening new heights.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered by the White House to
"shut down [its]
libraries, end public access to research materials and box up unique collections
on the assumption that Congress will not reverse President Bush’s proposed
budget reductions." Fifteen states will lose library service immediately,
the rest will follow, and the public is to be turned away as soon as possible.
Unsurprisingly, EPA scientists are protesting, saying that the lack
of access to data will impair their research and scientific capabilities. The
Administration says its plan is to "centralize" control of all data;
EPA scientists say the real goal is to "suppress information on environmental
and public health-related topics." The Administration is not yet burning
books, but they are getting very close.
They're not much fonder of telling the truth -- the whole truth -- over at
the Defense Department. The Department has refused to complete congressionally
ordered studies of the potential security threat to radar systems from wind
turbines. Until it finishes that study, Defense is blocking all new wind turbines
that might help reduce our dependence on what the President calls our "addiction"
to oil and natural gas "often from insecure places."
The Sierra Club sued and demanded that Defense finish the study. (Of course,
if wind turbines actually were a threat to our air defense systems, you would
think that the Department of Defense would be rushing to prove it and make us
safer by dealing with the thousands that already exist.)
But Defense has refused to respond to the Club's motion. Now, Defense has informed
us that it will miss the 60-day deadline for that response and will need an
additional five weeks to answer the complaint. In other words, the Department
claims that it needs more than three months to tell a Court why it cannot finish
what was supposed to be a six-month study. This is giving stonewalling a whole
new meaning.
Nor will the Department of Defense tell us how many wind projects it has stopped,
even though it has issued "don't proceed" orders to each one, so the
information is obviously available. According to media reports, at least 15
wind farm proposals in the Midwest alone have already been shut down. The list
of stalled projects includes one outside of Bloomington, Illinois, that would
have been the nation's largest source of wind energy -- generating enough electricity
to power 120,000 homes in the Chicago area.
But scientists are good for one thing -- as scapegoats. Only a few weeks ago,
reactionary columnist Peggy Noonan was setting up the climate science community
to take
the fall for Bush Administration inaction on global warming. According to
Noonan, if only global warming scientists weren't such obvious liberal hacks,
the world would have acted in time. Scientists, Noonan said, are responsible,
"for refusing to be honest, for operating in cliques and holding to ideologies.
For failing to be trustworthy." She could not, however, cite a single example
of such behavior. Perhaps all her evidence had already all been hidden away
under lock and key in the EPA's "deaccessed" library system.
_________________________
Read from Looking Glass News
FDA
& CDC smear respected independent scientists and researchers
ACLU
Says Bush Is Restricting Science
U.S.
Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
The
Junk Science of George W. Bush
Bush
appointees censor scientists at government agencies
Researchers
say EPA skewed study to aid Bush
Global
Warming Debate Suppressed
The
Global Warming Denial Lobby
EPA
Goes Lead Wild
Commerce
Department tells National Weather Service media contacts must be pre-approved
Official
Played Down Emissions' Links to Global Warming
White
House Dilutes EPA Cancer Risk Rules
The
Staged Debate About Vitamin B and Other Minerals
More
Suppression of Marijuana Research
White
House Delays Release of Study Showing Toxic Rocket Fuel in Most Americans
Government
Says Aspartame Is Good For You
Go to Original Article >>>
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