Papers Detail Industry's Role in Cheney's Energy Report / WaPo

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071701987.html?referrer=email




Papers Detail Industry's Role in Cheney's Energy Report

By Michael Abramowitz and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 18, 2007; A01



A confidential list prepared by the Bush administration shows that Cheney and his aides had already held at least 40 meetings with interest groups, most of them from energy-producing industries. By the time of the meeting with environmental groups, according to a former White House official who provided the list to The Washington Post, the initial draft of the task force was substantially complete and President Bush had been briefed on its progress.

In all, about 300 groups and individuals met with staff members of the energy task force, including a handful who saw Cheney himself, according to the list, which was compiled in the summer of 2001. For six years, those names have been a closely guarded secret, thanks to a fierce legal battle waged by the White House. Some names have leaked out over the years, but most have remained hidden because of a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that agreed that the administration's internal deliberations ought to be shielded from outside scrutiny.

One of the first visitors, on Feb. 14, was James J. Rouse, then vice president of Exxon Mobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration; a week later, longtime Bush supporter Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron Corp., came by for the first of two meetings. On March 5, some of the country's biggest electric utilities, including Duke Energy and Constellation Energy Group, had an audience with the task force staff.

British Petroleum representatives dropped by on March 22, one of about 20 oil and drilling companies to get meetings. The National Mining Association, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and the American Petroleum Institute were among three dozen trade associations that met with Cheney's staff, the document shows.

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Mindful of the disastrous fate that befell Hillary Rodham Clinton's unwieldy health-care task force, which included about 500 staff members and 34 working groups, Cheney kept his energy task force small and lean. Instead of a 1,300-page report, he aimed for something much shorter: The final product was 170 pages.

From the beginning, it was clear that Cheney was running the show, chairing meetings of the task force -- made up of about a dozen Cabinet officers and senior officials -- in his ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Much of the task force's work was done by a six-person staff, led by its executive director, Andrew D. Lundquist, a former aide to Republican Sens. Ted Stevens and Frank Murkowski of Alaska. In 2000, Lundquist was the Bush campaign's energy expert; Bush nicknamed him "Light Bulb."

Today, Lundquist is a lobbyist, and he has represented some of the companies who appeared before the task force, such as BP, Duke Energy and the American Petroleum Institute. He did not return phone calls for this article.

Back in 2001, Lundquist was the person to see, and the document suggests that he and his colleagues consulted widely with energy company executives and their lobbyists. That was especially true in the early stages of the project, which focused heavily on how to stimulate domestic oil drilling, promote nuclear power and coal, and respond to the Western electricity crisis, which had caused soaring rates and blackouts in California.

One advocacy group that visited was the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, founded in 1998 by Grover Norquist and Gale A. Norton, who became Bush's first interior secretary. Later, the group was run by Italia Federici, who was involved socially with Steven Griles. Griles, then Norton's deputy at Interior, was recently sentenced to prison for obstructing a Senate investigation of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Divided into eight chapters, the report correctly forecast higher energy prices, stressed energy efficiency and conservation, and pushed for boosting domestic conventional energy supplies and increasing use of renewable energy. Although it advocated wider drilling and omitted climate-change measures, it also said that "using energy more wisely" was the nation's "first challenge."


Staff writer Rachel Dry contributed to this report.


KEEP DIGGING, FOLKS--THERE'S MORE TO THIS THAN UNCOVERED IN THIS REPORT!

That as Mr. Cheney is no longer a part of the Executive Branch... That Executive Privilege would not extend to his office and therefore he could be investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee (or any Committee of the House or Senate) and compelled to turn over documents and testify (he is by his own definition) a member of Congress.

The article says: "For six years, those names have been a closely guarded secret, thanks to a fierce legal battle waged by the White House. Some names have leaked out over the years, but most have remained hidden because of a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that agreed that the administration's internal deliberations ought to be shielded from outside scrutiny."

So how did they get the names now? I have a hard time believing Dick let the names out voluntarily.

so I can't tell you. But I will keep an eye out for it, if you will, too!

as much for a gallon of gas 6 years later.

Everyone involved is a crook, and should be put in jail, and the oil companies should be forced to refund everyone who has been gouged by these high prices.

when you realize Bush and Cheney are taking of their cronies not us.

http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/03/bbcs-greg-palast-iraq-war-to-cap-oil.html