The Bush administration is applying new levels of secrecy to public information, using the excuse of "national security risks" to undercut the public's right to know about contamination of the environment, transport of hazardous materials, pipeline routes, and more—putting public health at risk and chilling community activism.
"We've had national security exemptions for a long time under the Freedom of Information Act, and the ability to classify information if needed under other laws, and for good reason," Paul Orum, director of the non-partisan Working Group on Community Right-to-Know, tells BushGreenwatch. "Now, secrecy is creeping forward into other areas, and in subtle ways."
According to the Working Group, over six thousand public documents have been removed from the web sites of over a dozen government agencies since the fall of 2001.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, has removed parts of formerly-public Risk Management Plans from the web, 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. [1]
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. It also allows the Administrator to delegate classification authority to senior EPA officials. Once classified, a person can gain access to information only when an agency head or their designee reviews the request, the person signs a non-disclosure agreement, and the person can establish a "need-to-know" to the satisfaction of agency officials. [2]
The Bush administration has also reduced the public's access to unclassified information. 2002's Homeland Security Act allows agencies to withhold "sensitive but unclassified" information from the public. Information can be restricted with no review, even if public under other laws. [3]
"The Bush administration is hostile to the idea that citizens need to watchdog the government, " says Orum.
In Maryland, the Aberdeen Proving Ground Citizens Superfund Coalition took the Department of Defense (DOD) to court in 2003, to regain access to fully detailed maps of perchlorate-contaminated groundwater sites on and near the Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG). Perchlorate, a highly toxic ingredient of rocket fuel, has been used at APG for decades.
DOD removed details including streets, road names, and the extent and location of contamination, making the maps nearly useless to the community group, which has monitored environmental contamination and remediation at APG since 1991. "DOD's new secrecy at Aberdeen [coincided] with pressure on DOD to clean-up perchlorate contamination in the drinking water of some 20 million people nationwide," according to the Working Group. [4]
"Laws that specifically encourage citizen participation in environmental and public health planning are being undercut," says George Sorvalis, the Working Group's outreach coordinator. "The Bush administration's secrecy makes it much harder for citizens to engage. They don't have an effective seat at the table if they can't get this information."
The Bush Justice Department has encouraged federal agencies to block requests made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). [5] In one of the most prominent cases, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) had to sue to obtain documents related to Vice President Dick Cheney's 2001 energy task force, in which high-ranking administration officials met with representatives from utilities and the oil, gas, coal and nuclear power industries to formulate national energy policy. The Bush administration ultimately turned over about 13,500 pages--less than half of NRDC's FOIA request. [6]
"The new climate of secrecy is having a chilling effect as it trickles down to the state level," says the Working Group's Sorvalis. "Agencies are confused as to what environmental information they can make available to citizens, even with a Freedom of Information Act request."
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SOURCES:
[1] Working Group fact sheet, Jun. 2, 2004.
[2] "Secrecy at the EPA," OMB Watch, May 13, 2002.
[3] Working Group fact sheet, op cit.
[4] "Post 9-11 Secrecy Hits Home in Aberdeen, Maryland," Working Group.
[5] Working Group fact sheet, op cit.
[6] "How NRDC Brought the Records to Light," NRDC.
