According to the New York Times the White House has come up with a novel way of avoiding potentially tricky environment reports: not opening its mail.

The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s 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, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.

The Times goes on to say that the documents resulted from a Supreme Court decision that the EPA had to decide if greenhouse gases were a danger to health or the environment. After being confined to “e-mail limbo” a watered-down report with no conclusion will come out this week, it says.