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EPA E-Mail Concluded Global Warming Endangers Public Health, Senator Says

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· "In areas where heat waves already occur, they are expected to be more intense, more frequent, and longer lasting.

· "Wildfires and the wildfire season are already increasing and climate change is expected to continue to worsen the conditions that facilitate wildfires.

· "Where water resources are already scarce and over-allocated in the Western U.S., climate change is expected to put additional strain on these water management issues for municipal, agricultural, energy and industrial uses.

· "Climate change also introduces additional stress on ecosystems which are already affected by development, habitat fragmentation, and broken ecological dynamics.

· "In sum, the Administrator is proposing to find that elevated levels of [greenhouse gas] concentrations may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public welfare."

After reading that, Boxer said she will continue to press for a fuller public examination of the administration's climate policy.

"It is more than outrageous that documents that pertain to the health and safety and very lives of our citizens are being hidden from the American people," Boxer said in a statement yesterday. "I will continue the fight on their behalf to let the sunshine in."

EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said the Dec. 5 e-mail does not shed new light on the issue. "The document Senator Boxer is quoting is a pre-decisional draft document," Shradar wrote in an e-mail. "There is nothing new here."

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