part2_2

Government Web Sites

National environmental government agencies may concentrate on individual countries, but may also cover other countries within their region or those with whom they have long-standing relationships. Natural ResourcesResearch Information Pages include links to government agencies by country [http://www4.ncsu.edu/~leung/agency.html]. The site also offers an extensive list of links to databases and literature (guides and catalogs, online documents, bibliographies, scientific journals, newsletters, libraries, publishers/bookstores), as well as conferences and meetings (including mailing lists).

To find an official government server within a particular nation is not very difficult. Many nations have established Web sites to serve as locators for individual governmental departments and agencies, sometimes referred to as a Government Information Locator Service (GILS). For example, the U.S. has GPO Access — Government Information Locator Service [http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/gils/index.html], an excellent starting point for finding government Web sites and documents on specific topics related to environmental issues. Other GPO Access sub-sites useful for identifying these resources include Multi-Database Search [http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/multidb.html] and the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications [http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/cgp/index.html].

GovSearch [http://www.nwbuildnet.com/nwbn/govbot.html] offers an easy-to-use guide to search engines specifically designed for government agencies, departments, and resources. For a list of federal government offices concerned with the environment and energy, take a look at The Blue Pages — Environment and Energy [http://www.usbluepages.gov/view_listings.cfm].

Identifying official servers to search for environmental agency Web pages across country lines has proved more difficult, particularly since Governments on the WWW [http://www.gksoft.com/govt/en/] has not updated since 2000. Remarkably, many of the links are still valid (or automatically redirect visitors to new sites). The site remains a convenient way of linking to official government Web sites when you need to cover several countries at once. The European Environmental Law Homepage [http://www.eel.nl] is an excellent link, not only to environmental laws for 23 countries, but also to official government servers and individual departments within these governments, including environmental agencies. A separate section includes eight separate links to environmental law resources for Central and Eastern Europe as a region.

To locate official U.S. state government servers in the United States, consult State and LocalGovernment on the Net [http://www.piperinfo.com/state/index.cfm]. Easily navigated, the site lists the date of the last update for each state clearly. The State Web Locator [http://www.infoctr.edu/swl/] is also easy to use, but the choice of agencies listed within some of the states is puzzling, given the absence of other, seemingly more critical departments.

The E.B. Williams Law Library at Georgetown University [http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/lr/lg/state.html] provides an Alabama-Wyoming (plus U.S. Territories) list of links to state government information and agency Web sites. The Links to State Government Sites Web site [http://www.enr.state.nc.us/files/usa.htm] could not be easier to use. Simply click on any state on the map to go to the state's official Web site. Of course, the quality varies from state to state, but most point directly to their state agency/agencies associated with the environment. The U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyState and Local Gateway:Environment/Energy [http://www.epa.gov/epapages/statelocal/] provides links to laws, regulations, reference materials, FAQs, funding, tools, and "best practices."

To access a directory containing links to state environmental and natural resource regulatory agencies, use Capitol Reports/Environmental News Link[http://www.caprep.com/stagency.htm].

If you feel lucky, try using the URL [http://www.dep.state.XX.us], where XX is the official two-letter postal code for the state in question. Some states, such as New York, dub their agencies Department of Environmental Conservation instead of the Department of Environmental Protection (e.g., Pennsylvania). Simply insert ".dec" in place of ".dep" in the URL and see what happens.