Imagine my surprise to receive, within the span of minutes, both the following news story in Energy &Environment Daily -- " EPA: Jackson summons top aides for budget pow-wow as GOP sharpens knife: In the face of drastic funding cuts and a hostile political environment, U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has told her top deputies to rank which of their programs they deem to be essential and which could fall on the budgetary chopping block" -- and the following invitation, just circulated around EPA headquarters.

Just keep this in mind when the results of this "pow-wow" -- ritual demagoguery and a lot of talk about children, seniors and the poor -- pop in the next few days.



Possibly EPA officials are worried that they might have to shelve golf clinics for the bureaucracy run wild.