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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Americans Is Too Dumb to Understand Enviromint

On Jan. 10, overcome by optimism and naiveté, Reg•Watch declared that Americans may get answers about who was responsible for EPA's decision to deny California's efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. Reg•Watch has now been properly grounded, as EPA has refused to turn over any pertinent information, citing a host of bogus excuses.

A statement by EPA's general counsel instructing agency staff to turn over all communications related to the decision engendered the false optimism. Instead, EPA will provide little to the public, for fear of violating "Executive Branch confidentiality" or creating a "chilling effect" among agency staff if their opinions "were to be disclosed in a broad setting."

(Apparently, the only chilling effect EPA is interested in creating is the one that may occur if greenhouse gases wind up causing a disruption in the Gulf Stream and turn the northeast into an arctic mess.)

But that's nothing compared to EPA's most ridiculous excuse for not fully turning over information: "Further disclosure could result in needless public confusion about the Administrator's decision that EPA will be denying California's request."

This excuse isn't surprising from an administration that has consistently adopted a Bush-and-Cheney-know-best attitude to government decision making — but that doesn't make it any less insulting.