White House Refused To Open Unwelcome EPA E-Mail

epfreed writes "The White House lost a case in the Supreme Court about the need for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. So the EPA made new rule. And now the NYTimes reports that the White House did not want to get these new rules from the EPA about greenhouse gases. So they did not open the email."

Comments

The WH's boss is still we the people you know

[Gat0r30y]

Frankly I'm pretty sure my boss would give me the sack for that sort of BS.

Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know

[Inglix the Mad]

And legally, wouldn't fall under something similar to "willful blindness"?

i.e. deliberate failure to make a reasonable inquiry of wrongdoing (as drug dealing in one's house) despite suspicion or an awareness of the high probability of its existence Willful blindness involves conscious avoidance of the truth and gives rise to an inference of knowledge of the crime in question.

/not sure

Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know

[cavis]

I think it is like an ostrich with his head in the sand. Except the ostrich is "Dubya", and the sand that he has his head in is really his ass. Judging by these and other events, he likes the view in there.

Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know

[Paranatural]

It's like a never-ending spiral downward to see how absolutely slimy these people can be without actually getting forcibly ejected from the WH. Seriously, how badly do these bastards have to behave before they can be impeached? Bill got a hummer and has impeachment hearings brought against him, the Bush admins just flat out break law after law and absolutely nothing happens. What the hell?

Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know

[srealm]

OK ... to further that then.

Where is the impeachment for LYING ABOUT WHY THE COUNTRY WAS DRAGGED INTO A PROTRACTED WAR! ... not for the war itself.

Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know

[cez]

He's not the only one with their head in their ass, errr...sand:

The Transportation Department made its own fuel-economy proposals public almost two months ago; they were based on the assumption that gasoline would range from $2.26 per gallon in 2016 to $2.51 per gallon in 2030, and set a maximum average standard of 35 miles per gallon in 2020.

...did someone misplace a decimal?

Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Personally, I think Congress should vote directly on such a massive regulation that could impact hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars of economic development.

That's far, far too much power to be wielded by officials not directly elected by the people. And, worse, have their non-election touted as a benefit by supporters...of the regulations. They don't have to "worry about politics."

Not a very Founding Fathers-ish attitude. Break part of the separation and limitations of powers simply because, you know, you can get your laws, i.e. regulations, jammed down the throats of people that way.

There was a reason Congress was expressly forbidden from delegating its lawmaking authority. This was so it couldn't avoid passing laws the people might not want, and would cause them to lose the next election. Shielded by this layer, with unpopular regulations they could just throw up their hands and lie, "Gee, I wouldn't have voted for that!" Uhh, you can vote to reverse it, though. "Yeah, we'll get around to that as soon as possible."

It isn't an issue of the value of the regulation, i.e. law. It's an issue of Constitutional propriety. If a law is so necessary, it should be passed by vote with little or no problem.

Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know

[Kenrod]

Are you suggesting the govt would voluntarily hold themselves to the same legal standards as the rest of us?

Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know

[DrEldarion]

Some things need to be out of the hands of the people because, quite honestly, the people are dumb and shortsighted.

They're fine with denying people rights because of race/gender/sexual preference.
They're fine with their own rights being stripped away because of some vague promise that it'll help fight "terrism".
They're fine with destroying the earth as long as they can save $0.20 a gallon on gas for the next year.

There are certain things that should not be up for vote by the people, and the environment is probably at the top of that list.

Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know

[darkmeridian]

Americans now know how it's like to be ruled by a ten-year old. "Nuh uh, I'm not going to open the e-mail." "Sir? Mr. President, that's the EPA's conclusions. It's important." "I disagree." "Respectfully, Mr. President, you should read it first." "Not gonna do it."

time paradox

[QuantumHobbit]

How did they know about the rules if they never opened the e-mail?

Also after 7 years, is anyone surprised?

works for /.

[notgm]

i didn't want to rtfa. so i didn't click on the link.

Well, if it works for the Whitehouse...

[seanonymous]

Looks like I won't be opening many work emails from now on. Those emails from my bank might go unread, too. It's about time they showed some leadership!

Would you expect any less

[elrous0]

The only thing sadder and more despicable at this point than the Bush administration are the Democrats in Congress who have been on their knees for the last two years after promising to hold this imperial administration accountable.

Comments from the Bush Administration

[morgan_greywolf]

A Bush official, with fingers in his ears, was quoted as saying: "Nyah! Nyah! Nyah! Nyah! I can't hear you! Nyah! Nyah! Nyah! ...."

LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU

[spazdor]

Awesome! So it's cool if I just leave all that important-looking IRS mail in an unopened pile by the door, right?

Re:LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU

[Anonymous Coward]

You idiot that's you refund check!

Why use email?

[adrianbaugh]

This is a nuts use of email. For something this important you'd expect the documents to be sent by courier or registered post, signature on delivery etc. That way, you can prove they've received it and if they've chosen not to read it it's their bad. Anyway, why should the White House need to see this? The court has decided the EPA has the authority to introduce the rule and it's then up to the judiciary to enforce it. The legislature is surely out of the loop by this point.

Subject line?

[cavis]

I bet George would have opened it if the subject line said "Exxon reports $14B loss in first quarter"

Other possible subject lines: "Get Viagra / Cialis without a prescription"
"VP Cheney shot another friend in the face"
"Bum Fights Vol 3 now available on DVD"
"American Idol canceled"
"Mobilize the Navy! North Dakota invades South Dakota"
"Senator Byrd called you a pussy!"

Carbon Dioxide

[Thelasko]

From TFA

The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agencyâ(TM)s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled... That doesn't sound controversial at all. That's because it's a piss poor summary. The greenhouse gass in question is Carbon Dioxide. Which is far more controversial, considering it is emitted by everything in the animal kingdom, aside from those living near thermal vents. The term greenhouse gas also includes CFC's, but that's not the same, is it?

Checks and Balances?

[Illbay]

Thomas Jefferson said: "The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch." [Letter of TJ to Abigail Adams, 1804, commenting on Marbury v. Madison]

For the past sixty years or more, judicial despotism has increased until now, you have governors and legislators of states waiting to see what some court will rule on an issue before they can proceed. This is NOT what the Framers intended, and unless we get things back to the balance of powers between the branches of government things are going to become more despotic.

EPA's only authority comes from the President

[FredThompson]

The President is the Chief Executive Officer of the Executive Branch.
All power of the Executive Branch comes as proxy for the Chief Executive.
The Executive Branch does not have the authority to create obligations which the Chief Executive officer does not want.
The EPA is part of the Executive Branch.

The SCOTUS ruling endorsed the authority of the EPA to create such regulations, it did not empower the EPA to create them exclusive of the Executive Officer. The SCOTUS did not somehow turn the EPA into a fourth branch of the Federal Government.

There's no "there" there.

It really is that simple.

"It found nothing"? No, you just excerpted nothing

[ReedYoung]

Your selective excerpts, Mr. Hiatt, only support the weak, in fact trivial assertion, that some of the tales that George Walker Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Ari Fleischer and Richard B. Cheney told the U.S. voters about Iraq prior to invading it, destabilizing the region and harming already difficult relations with Iran, were true. For your claim to be true ("It found nothing"), the full text of the report must not contain a single instance of conclusions that were not "generally substantiated by intelligence information."

It's strange, making me suspicious of your thesis, that with all the hyperlinks in that Washington Post article, not one points to the full text of the report it discusses, nor even to complete paragraphs or even complete sentences that specify, for example, on [sic] nuclear or biological weapons, just which of the "president's statements 'were substantiated by intelligence information.'" And it's strange that, among so many excerpts, all the excerpts from that article are sentence fragments, necessitating the improper grammar repeated ad nauseam, "On [fallacy]?. The president's statements 'were substantiated [by ...].'" Did the complete report not begin those sentences with subjects that support the desired thesis? I wondered, so I checked, and in fact this is obvious within the first paragraph, you lazy, pathetic excuse for a "journalist":

The major key judgments in the NIE, particularly that Iraq "is reconstituting its nuclear program," "has chemical and biological weapons," was developing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) "probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents," and that "all key aspects - research & development (R&D), production, and weaponization - of Iraq's offensive biological weapons (BW) program are active and that most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War," either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting provided to the Committee. I can admire loyalty, even misplaced loyalty, up to a point. But willful ignorance of obvious facts is never admirable. If the subsequent excuses [Saddam was bad, he might have wanted to have nuclear yellow-cake from Nigeria despite never hearing of it, liberating the people of Iraq though we didn't do a thing about Darfur and now watch Zimbabwe like it's just a movie] offered by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and McCain had any validity, they should have been sufficient arguments in 2002/2003. Those were not valid arguments, and are still not now, as evidenced by our non-involvement in Zimbabwe and Darfur. They all lied. I'm not a lawyer, but I'd say it's obvious that in lying about matters of national security, with the result of initiating war despite lack of any clear and present danger in the world of fact, they all knowingly undermined the United States' ability to confront our real enemies, thus giving them comfort. Ergo, they all committed treason.

And, no, most of Congress did not know at that time anything but the cherry-picked version manufactured by Douglas Feith & co.