UPDATE - Bush threatened with court fight on energy report
Date: 28-Mar-02
Country: USA
Author: Chris Baltimore
Judicial Watch received 11,000 documents, including many blanked out pages, from the Department of Energy late on Monday that showed Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force met last year with industry but not with any environmentalists.
"These documents will ultimately have to be produced," Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman told a news conference. "Judicial Watch will not rest until all of the documents and all of the information is available to the American people."
Arguing that confidentiality is needed if it is to continue receiving candid advice from outsiders, the administration refused to disclose who it had met with from energy firms like now-bankrupt Enron Corp., once U.S. President George W. Bush's biggest campaign donor.
Judicial Watch filed its suit to gain access to the documents alongside a similar suit from the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, after the task force produced a report recommending more oil and gas drilling and greater emphasis on coal-fired power plants.
"It would appear that consultation was skewed in favor of energy companies," said Klayman, whose group frequently filed suit against the policies of the Clinton administration.
The documents that were made public showed Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham met dozens of energy industry executives and lobbying groups in the months leading up to the energy policy release in May 2001.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said "the approach that the government took was in accordance with the law" and tried to downplay the energy industry's influence on the report: "News flash: it is no surprise to anybody that the secretary of energy meets with energy-related groups."
STALLING TACTICS ALLEGED
Judicial Watch said it was equally troubling to hear the administration's claim that many more potentially inflammatory documents are exempt from the judge's request because of federal laws.
Klayman accused the administration of stalling tactics, and said it may ask the court to proceed with criminal proceedings to determine whether the administration had obstructed justice in withholding documents.
"This is a full-court obstruction on the part of the administration, an absolute stone wall," added Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch's president.
The Energy Department cooperated with the Department of Justice to determine which documents were not suitable for release. Many of the omitted documents contained draft versions of the energy plan, which the department said were exempt under three provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.
Ironically, that act is a primary tool used by Judicial Watch and other interest groups and media outlets to compel the government to release documents.
Judicial Watch attacked the practice as improper. "The DOJ is not supposed to be running the show this way," Fitton said.
The Energy Department excised some 15,000 of 26,000 Energy Department documents from Monday's document delivery, and heavily vetted many others.
Klayman predicted that appeals pressed by the administration will likely reach the Supreme Court, and "the reason for that is simply delay."
Klayman linked the administration's heavy redactions to an earlier directive from Attorney General John Ashcroft to "air on the side of withholding documents if any reason can be conjured up."