Bush Refuses to Open EPA Email

I don't think its a secret by now that the Bush administration is fairly abusive to the Environmental Protection Agency.

I have blogged in the past about how Bush has personally intervened in EPA science-based rule changes on behalf of his political contributors (read HERE). I have also addressed the political pressure EPA scientists complain they are under and how it affects their research (read HERE). Finally, I have discussed Bush's EPA Secretary and the Congressional confrontation he received over his corrupt political deals (read HERE). But none of that compares to the recent behavior of the Bush administration in dealing with the EPA.

In April of 2007, the Supreme Court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to initiate a study into whether carbon dioxide gas emissions endanger public health and welfare, after the agency refused acknowledge for years that such emissions might contribute to global warming.

After the Supreme Court ruling the EPA dragged its feet on the study for a year. As a result, in April of 2008, eighteen states, two cities and eleven environmental organizations sued the EPA in the Supreme Court to enforce the Court's 2007 ruling and encourage the EPA to begin the carbon dioxide study (read about the suit HERE). In response to the lawsuit, the EPA finally began the study. Apparently it has finished its work and sent the White House the results of the study. The only problem is, the White House won't open the email message.

After years of avoidance, the EPA has finally completed a global warming study ordered by the Supreme Court and enforced by an eighteen-state-initiated lawsuit and upon sending the results of the study to the White House the President refuses to open their email.

A New York Times article documenting this bizarre situation says, "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." In addition the article states that, "Both documents, as prepared by the E.P.A., 'showed that the Clean Air Act can work for certain sectors of the economy, to reduce greenhouse gases," one of the senior E.P.A. officials said. 'That's not what the administration wants to show. They want to show that the Clean Air Act can't work.'"

This new chapter in the EPA fiasco has led to the resignation of a political appointee at the agency. Jason Burnett, the associate deputy administrator, resigned saying that no more constructive work was possible with this administration on the Supreme Court's global warming order.

If you want to read the New York Times' article, click HERE.