According to the New York Times:

The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency's conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week. - The New York Times

Come again? I don't like what you have told me you are going to say in your e-mail so I'm not opening it? Isn't that what contentious ex-spouses do, not a government responsible for the well-being of its people?

The document in this e-mail that made it too scary to open was in response to the Supreme Court's ruling ordering the EPA to determine whether greenhouse gases needed to be regulated as dangerous to public health and the environment. Apparently, the answer was yes, they do need to be regulated. Not the answer the administration or their corporate funders wanted.

And just like training a nasty ex by hitting the delete button, the refusal to open the e-mail worked, because now the EPA is issuing a "watered-down" version of their original findings which makes no determination but does examine "the legal and economic issues presented by declaring greenhouse gases a pollutant." Could it be that the U.S. agency responsible for protecting the environment is now putting economics above public health?

The EPA redacting findings in response to pressure from the administration, and EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson signing off on these ‘reworked' (or worked over) findings, is nothing new. The latest version of the document is missing the original's finding that The Clean Air Act can be used to regulate some greenhouse gas emissions. Using the Clean Air Act to regulate emissions would take away the power of corporate lobbyists to "negotiate" the solutions to climate change to their benefit. It would make emissions a regualtory issue, not a political or economic one. Not everyone is keeping quiet about this latest indignity to the integrity of the EPA, though:

Over the past five days, the officials said, the White House successfully put pressure on the E.P.A. to eliminate large sections of the original analysis that supported regulation, including a finding that tough regulation of motor vehicle emissions could produce $500 billion to $2 trillion in economic benefits over the next 32 years. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.  - New York Times

Among the removed sections was a conclusion that the nation's motor vehicle fleet should be regulated to average 37.7 mpg by 2018. This is scary stuff!

Scarier to the administration should be that they can't get away from all this climate change talk. According to NPR, the National Intelligence Council, representing 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, testified before Congress about climate change and national security yesterday. Among the threats; crop failure, rising sea levels, water shortages, population shifts, natural disasters and humanitarian crises are all likely to cause political instability around the globe. Linking climate change and security is not new, the EU issued a report in March of this year on the topic.

So the Bush administration can stick its head in the sand, but like the rest of us, they can't really hide. The consequences of continuing on the path of extreme climate change that we are currently on will have dire and costly repercussions. It's time to face it head on.

Further Reading:

• Investigating Interference at the EPA
• States Ask Supreme Court to Weigh in on EPA and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Again
• Supreme Court Rules EPA Should Regulate Emissions
• Dark Days at the Environmental Protection Agency
• Climate Change and International Security
• The High Cost of Doing Nothing on Climate Change