UPDATE - Congress mulls taking White House to court
Date: 10-Sep-01
Country: USA
Author: Susan Cornwell
The General Accounting Office threatened to take the Bush administration to court after the White House refused to give details of how its energy task force crafted proposals that were announced in May after a series of closed-door meetings.
Critics, including Democratic congressmen, suspect industry influence on the Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney, who headed the energy task force, is a former executive with Hallibruton, an oil services firm.
Among other things, the accounting office wants the names of the industry executives the energy task force met while making the policy. But the White House, having handed over some documents to the GAO, this week said it would provide no more.
"We are finalizing discussions with key congressional leaders and are preparing for possible litigation," Comptroller General David Walker, head of the GAO, said in a statement.
"This is a very significant matter with significant potential implications for the GAO, Congress and the American people," he declared.
Under the law, the GAO may bring a civil action in a U.S. district court to require agencies - including the White House - to produce records, a GAO spokesman said.
But congressional sources could not remember a case when the GAO had done so.
They said that in the past the investigative office's requests for material had been met short of a courtroom battle - notably a decade ago, when the GAO obtained details of health care task force meetings from former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"STANDING ON PRINCIPLE"
The Bush White House said it was "standing on principle". Spokesman Ari Fleischer said the information sought by the GAO was not a matter of public purview.
"It is not a matter of public purview for each and every meeting, of each and every minute, of the president and the vice president each and every day to be reported publicly," he said.
The Bush energy policy developed by the task force called for stimulating production of coal, oil and nuclear power as well as conservation measures.
Two Democratic congressmen asked the GAO last spring to investigate the energy task force's proceedings, saying Congress and the public had a right under the law to know how the energy policy was developed.
Reps. John Dingell of Michigan and Henry Waxman of California questioned whether White House closed-door meetings with energy executives violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires public meetings when outside experts are involved in shaping government policy.
Cheney's office provided some information about the task force's finances, but spurned a Sept. 6 deadline for handing over more details, saying the GAO had no right to demand them.
The GAO statement said that the information it received from the White House "is clearly inadequate."
It also said several principles were at stake, "including the right of Congress to oversee the executive branch, and the need for transparency and accountability in connection with the development and execution of federal government policies."
