The Bush Administration's newest tactic for policymaking is to ignore emails.

The New York Times reports today that White House officials simply refused to open an email from the EPA last year because they knew it contained a policy recommendation they didn't like -- part of the Administration's on-going battle with scientists at the EPA over global warming issues.

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.

Instead of officially acknowledging the email and responding to it in a normal bureaucratic manner, the White House instead launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to pressure the EPA to drop the recommendation's essential conclusions.

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."

The White House lost its battle in the Supreme Court. It's stonewalling efforts by lawmakers on Capitol Hill to investigate the policy-making process. And now there's evidence that it is not only rejecting but even ignoring efforts by the EPA to adhere to a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

At least one EPA official quit over the email incident.

White House pressure to ignore or edit the E.P.A.'s climate-change findings led to the resignation of one agency official earlier this month: Jason Burnett, the associate deputy administrator. Mr. Burnett, a political appointee with broad authority over climate-change regulations, said in an interview that he had resigned because "no more constructive work could be done" on the agency's response to the Supreme Court.

He added, "The next administration will have to face what this one did not."

Before he left for Washington for the first time, former President Harry Truman got a piece of memorable advice: "Work hard, keep your mouth shut, and answer your mail."

Maybe President Bush never got that same advice.

The Bush Administration has had since March 12 to respond to the subpoenas from the House oversight committee requesting documents pertaining to the EPA decisions on greenhouse gas and ozone regulations. Yet it waited until this morning -- the day the Committee was scheduled to vote on their contempt for their failure to respond -- to assert executive privilege.

Time and again, that inveterate stonewaller, EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, has gone up against committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and bobbed and weaved through his testimony, never quite answering questions but never quite invoking executive privilege either.

During a May 20, 2008, appearance before the committee, Johnson was specifically asked by Waxman whether he was invoking executive privilege. "Not at this time," Johnson replied.

Well that time must have passed.

More on "Stonewall" Johnson's evasive maneuvers after the jump.

Read more »

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has had enough of the great stonewaller himself, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.

In a letter today to Johnson, Waxman threatens to hold Johnson in contempt for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas requesting information on two recent controversial decisions by Johnson that overruled EPA's professional staff: his refusal to grant California a waiver to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and his refusal to fully raise ozone standards.

Waxman, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a similar letter threatening contempt to White House official Susan Dudley, in the Office of Management and Budget, for the White House's refusal to comply with a related subpoena.

You have neither complied with these subpoenas by their returnable date nor asserted any privilege to justify withholding documents from the Committee. In light of your actions, I am writing to inform you that the Committee will meet on June 20 to consider a resolution citing you for contempt of Congress. I strongly urge you to comply with the duly issued subpoenas.

The full text of the letters are here (pdf) and here (pdf).