if we close our eyes and put our hands over our ears and hum a chipper tune, the bad news will go away

As QT would say, we may be governed someday by grownups again.

WHITE HOUSE REFUSED TO READ E-MAIL WITH EPA'S GREENHOUSE GAS CONCLUSIONS: The New York Times reports today that in December, the White House "refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 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." The document thus sat unreleased for six months. In the past five days, "the White House successfully put pressure on the EPA to eliminate large sections of the original analysis that supported regulation," resulting in "a watered-down version of the original proposal that offers no conclusion" that will be released this week. The original EPA analysis "showed that the Clean Air Act can work for certain sectors of the economy, to reduce greenhouse gases." But according to a senior EPA official, "that's not what the administration wants to show. They want to show that the Clean Air Act can't work." The document is part of the EPA's effort to comply with a 2007 Supreme Court ruling requiring it to "determine whether greenhouse gases represent a danger to health or the environment."