Further down the e-mail trail...

Brad Plumer writes in The New Republic's Environment & Energy blog:

The EPA was responding to last year's ruling in Massachusetts vs. EPA, where the Supreme Court ordered the agency to figure out whether greenhouse gases represented a danger [to] health [or] the environment. EPA's staff not only said, "Umm... yes," to that one, but argued that the existing Clean Air Act could be used in certain sectors of the economy to regulate greenhouse gases...

The staffers also offered evidence that sharply curbing auto emissions could produce up to $2 trillion in benefits over the next 32 years...

Naturally, this didn't go down smoothly with White House officials, who just decided never to open the e-mail and instead pressured the agency to release a scrubbed version that doesn't actually conclude anything.

Nothing about the Clean Air Act.

Nothing about $2 trillion in benefits.

Basically, they gutted the EPA report, then refused to receive it. The thing about these Republicans that I find so offensive is that they don't care that we know. They ignore the court; overule the scientists; delay, deny and deceive - whatever it takes to serve their political interests, even to the extent of flagrant negligence and impeachable malfeasance.

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