Okay, it's one thing if you or I don't open e-mails we don't want to read. That behavior usually involve e-mails about bad interpersonal relationships, not critically important national policy. That's what the Bush administration did. The brain trust at the White House just wouldn't open an e-mail from the E.P.A.:
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.How's that for leadership, huh? You can imagine the meeting to figure out what to do. Bush, Cheney, Josh Bolten, Dana Perino -- they probably had to call Karl Rove in, too -- all sitting around discussing whether or not to read the e-mail. They came up with a very eighth grade solution.
The document, which ended up in e-mail limbo, without official status, was the E.P.A.’s answer to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that required it to determine whether greenhouse gases represent a danger to health or the environment, the officials said.
This week, more than six months later, the E.P.A. is set to respond to that order by releasing a watered-down version of the original proposal that offers no conclusion. Instead, the document reviews the legal and economic issues presented by declaring greenhouse gases a pollutant.
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