"Well, at least you know what time it is! What do you mean, waking me from a sound sleep to tell me it's morning?"

"You don't understand, Commissioner," said the shaky voice on the phone. "Morning has broken. Morning really has broken. Look out the window."

The Commissioner pulled back the window blind. Sure enough, there were great, jagged tears in the morning. "Hmm. So it has," he said. "Is that you, Piffle?"

"Yes, sir," said Piffle. "What are we going to do? We're supposed to be the environmental agency. People are going to expect us to fix this. Wait! Maybe no one will notice! What do you think of that?"

"Not notice the dawn oozing through that gaping hole next to the sun? Now, calm down, Piffle." The Commissioner was awake now, and his faculties were returning. "Does anyone know what the cause of this is yet? Let's start with that."

"I'm not sure. You don't suppose it has anything to do with the emissions from Royal Air Pollution Enterprises, do you? They haven't been in compliance for, uh ... Well, they've never been in compliance."

"Haven't we taken enforcement action against them?"

"Uh, sort of. We've followed the agency's enforcement policy: we politely requested compliance three times and then referred the matter to dispute resolution."

"And what happened?" asked the Commissioner.

"It was a very fruitful encounter," Piffle replied. "We got a lot of feelings out in the open and finished off with a group hug."

"And the toxic emissions?"

"No change there."

"Ok," continued the Commissioner. "But do we know this is a result of the RAPE emissions?"

"No. There are lots of people in violation. It could be any of them, or all of them together."

"You're not following me, Piffle." Really! You had to spell everything out! "Could anyone actually prove that any of our customers are at fault?"

"I suppose not. Oh, I see!" said Piffle, catching on. "But don't you think the public will want us to, uh, correct this situation?"

"Oh, probably," scoffed the Commissioner. "But does anything really need fixing? Here's what we do. We do a risk analysis. That should take at least a year. The results will be inconclusive. By then, almost everyone will have lost interest. The rest will be thoroughly confused. See? No reason to panic and wake your boss up at this ungodly hour!"

"Gosh, you're smart," said Piffle, sucking up in an attempt at damage control. "I guess that's why you're the Commissioner. But do you think this is, well, right? Don't we have some sort of obligation?"

"Of course we do," said the Commissioner patiently. "We have an obligation to our customers. God gave us the resources of this earth to use. Our customers are the leaders of industry, the people who know how to use those resources best. You see, they're carrying out the will of God. By supporting them, we also carry out the will of God."

"Oh," said Piffle, relieved. "I'm glad they know the will of God. Wouldn't He be mad if they didn't?"