Environmental Engineering Reference
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was already mirrored on other - privately run - Web sites. Others
argued that the truly relevant information, for both concerned citizens
and terrorists, is the very detailed information about local facilities.
So, although the availability of general information, such as aggregate
chemical usage, is not at risk, one could - according to some - consider
limiting the availability of detailed information to, for example, local
community leaders or carefully screened individuals (see Cohen, 2002 ).
The direct consequences of 9/11 for environmental disclosure
schemes, such as the TRI, appear to have been limited. After a brief
period of heated debate not much has changed. In July 2005, updated
information about the Risk Management Plan was suddenly released
again, after OMB Watch filed a complaint in court. 26 Strangely enough,
almost at the same time the national government of the Netherlands
decided to limit information on their Web-based industrial risk infor-
mation system exactly because of terrorism and homeland security. 27
The long-term consequences are uncertain, however. Although the
threat of terrorism may have had limited direct effects on information
disclosure until now, it is used strategically as an argument for oppo-
nents of disclosure and debates have restarted on the costs and benefits
of environmental disclosures (cf. Beierle, 2004 ). We also witness that
the 'war on terrorism' revitalises the role of the national government
in a wide range of policy fields, vis- a-vis nonstate actors. Concerning
disclosure, we are likely to experience the (re-)involvement of national
governments in balancing the need for information with the threat of
terrorism. At the same time, and in contrast, we see that by the year
2005 in the United States, the media seem to have regained some of
their critical stance against governmental information systems and do
no longer easily accept information closures. The hurricane Katrina
(2005) - and the strongly criticised governmental misinformation
and lack of information - was instrumental in reactivating calls for
information disclosure. Again, this illustrates the importance of the
environment in debates on information (dis)closure. In moving from
26
See http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/2915/1/97?TopicID
=
1.
27
The Ministry of Internal Affairs had a major conflict on this with the twelve
provinces, as the latter refused to limit information disclosure on industrial and
environmental risks and dangers to citizens. Finally, it was decided by the
government on 9 September 2005 to withhold information from 1 January
2006 onwards on the environmental risks of facilities, but not on the facilities
themselves, arguing the threats of terrorist attacks in the Netherlands make it
that “safety is now more important than unconditional access to public
information.”
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