How to inspect/access config values specified in config/email.php?

Thanks for your responses.

$email_config = $this->config->load('email', true, true);

In this case, $email_config would be a boolean TRUE if a config file was found and loaded and FALSE if no email config was found/loaded.

PHP Code:

$this->config->load('email', true, true);
$email_vars = $this->config->item('email');
echo $email_vars['protocol']; 


This does work, although it is a bit verbose just to get a config value.