Cheney again refuses to give energy policy details
Date: 25-Jan-02
Country: USA
Author: Randall Mikkelsen
The investigative arm of Congress has been seeking more information about contacts between industry and the administration's energy task force, headed by Cheney.
"Our statement of Aug. 2 (rejecting the request) stands," senior Cheney aide Mary Matalin told Reuters.
The agency, the General Accounting Office, is contemplating going to court to force the White House to provide information. Environmentalists say they were largely shut out of the policy-making process.
Four Democratic senators involved in probes of Enron sent a letter to the GAO this week supporting its efforts to pressure Cheney for further details.
The energy plan announced in May called for more oil and gas drilling and a revived nuclear power program. It contained many provisions sought by Enron.
Cheney was likely to face questions on the issue when he appears on television talk shows on Sunday to discuss Bush's pending State of the Union address but will not release the information, Matalin said.
"He (Cheney) is happy to answer questions regarding the principle, how important it is for the country that the executive branch, just like the executive branch, be able to get candid information, candid opinions" for formulating policy, she said.
Matalin also said the GAO has no constitutional authority to investigate the issue.
The White House has already revealed that Cheney or the energy task force staff met six times last year with Enron representatives but has refused to provide other details on how the administration's policy was crafted.
"I think all this information will come out in the very near future," said Sen. Don Nickles, an Oklahoma Republican and the assistant Senate Republican leader.
The four Democratic senators who sent a letter to Comptroller General David Walker, head of the GAO, backed his efforts to get information about the makeup and deliberations of the Bush administration's energy task force.
"Who helped shape the administration's energy policy?" they asked in the letter. "What did they recommend? ... The American public deserves answers to these questions."
The letter was signed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, whose Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing yesterday into Enron's collapse. It was also signed by Carl Levin of Michigan, who chairs the Governmental Affairs subcommittee that has issued 51 subpoenas in its Enron probe.
The other two signatories were Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who last month chaired a hearing that heard from Enron workers who lost their savings when the company's stock collapsed.
"The four senators said they feel the Senate deserves the information prior to its consideration of the energy bill," said a statement from Dorgan's office. It noted that Sen. Fred Thompson, a Tennessee Republican, had publicly said that the administration should release the information.
Enron went in a few weeks from Wall Street titan to filing the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history on Dec. 2.
Its downfall refocused congressional attention on the administration's refusal to give details of how it formulated its energy policy. Walker began his pursuit of the energy task force last spring at the request of Rep. Henry Waxman of California and Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, both Democrats. (Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell).
