MEMORANDUM

Subject: Importance of Public Availability of EPA Information Via Internet

From: Fred Hansen /s/, Deputy Administrator

To: Assistant Administrators, Regional Administrators

In recent meetings with external groups, members of the public and our own EPA staff, the Administrator and I have become increasingly aware of the importance of EPA information on the Internet to our customers. Over 3 million "hits" are made each month on EPA's public access server. With one simple address http://www.epa.gov, anyone on the World Wide Web can reach the EPA home page and browse or search through the thousands of files available.

We can continue this phenomenal outreach with our limited resources only by maintaining a unified approach to our Internet presence. Providing a central server cluster with one corporate address conserves resources and best serves our customers. While linking to other servers can be done, EPA corporate data must reside on our corporate server.

At the March 8 meeting of the Executive Steering Committee for Information Resources Management, I asked each Office to load its information directly on the EPA server. Information may be copied or mirrored to other sites, but it must also reside on our corporate public access server. If you are currently using another site, please take steps to make the information available from the EPA server as soon as possible. OARM's Internet team will help you with the technical options. See the attached information sheet for contacts and online resources.

The Agency has committed to, make information from all EPA programs available through the Internet and other electronic means that Americans and local organizations can access in their homes, schools and libraries. [Reinventing Environmental Regulation, #17] This goal cannot be achieved through the independent actions of individual programs.

On October 15th, the Agency will be making public a new EPA Home Page that will emphasize the needs of the general public. It is vital that you make every effort to ensure that the information we present about the Agency and our activities be current, accurate and appropriate. I am looking to Al Pesachowitz, Chief Information Officer, to provide leadership and coordination to this Agency priority.

Fred Hansen
Deputy Administrator

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cc: ESC for IRM
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