Cheney Stifled Energy Probe, GAO Investigators Say

[gobbler afflicted]

Mon Aug 25, 4:42 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters


By Peter Kaplan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional investigators said on Monday that Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) had stymied their investigation into his energy task force by refusing to turn over key documents.


The General Accounting Office (news - web sites), the investigative arm of Congress, said it was impossible to tell how much energy companies or industry groups may have influenced the task force' s 2001 report because the administration withheld important records.


" The extent to which submissions from any of these stakeholders were solicited, influenced policy deliberations or were incorporated into the final report is not something that we can determine based on the limited information at our disposal," the GAO said.


Administration officials did not account for much of the money spent on the task force and could not remember whether anyone took official notes during the 10 Cabinet-level meetings the group held in 2001, the investigators said.


The report came more than eight months after a federal judge rejected the GAO' s demand that the administration turn over task force records.


Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise advised critics toput the dispute behind them. " Now that the courts have dismissed the GAO lawsuit and GAO has issued its final report, we hope that everyone will focus as strongly as the administration has on meeting America' s energy needs," shesaid.


Instead, the GAO report provoked a new round of complaints from Democrats in Congress.


" This report is a sad chronicle of the efforts of the office of the vice president to hide its activities from the American people," said Michigan Rep. John Dingell (news, bio, voting record), the senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.


The task force issued a report to President Bush (news - web sites) in May, 2001. The administration announced an energy policy shortly afterward, calling for more oil and gas drilling and a revival of nuclear power. The policy bogged down in Congress.


Critics of the administration, including environmentalists and some Democrats in Congress, said they suspected the energy industry had undue influence on the task force.


White House officials argued that the GAO had overstepped its bounds and forcing them to turn over the records would hamper their ability to get " unvarnished" expert advice.


The GAO' s final report confirmed that administration officials met with a procession of lobbyists and executives from the energy industry, including coal, nuclear, natural gas and electricity companies. But it did not shed much new light on the task force' s deliberations, beyond information already shaken loose by private lawsuits against the administration.


Those suits forced the release of records from agencies such as the Energy Department, but not from the White House.


According to the GAO report, administration officials said no outside groups attended the 10 meetings in Cheney' s ceremonial office in the White House complex.


" However, no party provided us with any documentary evidence to support or negate this assertion," the GAO said. " Agency officials could not recollect whether official rosters or minutes were kept at the meetings."


Cheney' s office turned over 77 pages of documents relating to money spent on the task force, but all were either irrelevant or useless, the GAO said.

[strut]

Cheney Stifled Energy Probe,

Yeah Chenney is my kind of man. I would pick Chenney over Bush anyday.

Critics of the administration, including environmentalists and some Democrats in Congress, said they suspected the energy industry had undue influence on the task force.

Yeah, more undue influence from more liberals and environmentalist.

Its their fault we see the oil prices the way they are, not Bush or Chenney but the do-gooders. I don' t want to hear the evironmenalist wacko' s gripeing about high energy prices when they stop every move to build anything to produce more energy, including more wells, more refineries, new nuclear power plants. I want to thank them for these high prices.

[Dave590]

That is very old news with a different spin.

A company, ANY company, or series of companies, can not have frank and truthfull comments if everything they say is a matter of published public record.

This same holds true for any number of topics.

If you or I go into a meeting with the understanding that whatever we say will be kept in the room, we will, more than likely not sugar coat whatever we are trying to say. However, if what we say will likely be broadcast throughout the world, chances are we will not be fully forthcoming in our responses.

This is not a conspiracy from the highest levels, this is simply the way grown men talk without fear of repercussions. Every business and government has had high level talks since the conception of time without the worry of what they say being placed before the public.

You are attempting to make a scandal where there is none, There is simply no way for a group of folks to sit down and seriously talk about an issue when their every utterence is subject to mis-enterpretation by the media. It ain' t gonna happen...Thats why they call them " PRIVATE" meetings.

[James B]

I don,t know anything about these reports or if or why any info was withheld. However I am sure that Big oil is asserting pressure anywhere and any time they can. They want to keep stealing front end loader buckets of money from the working folks and they give not a damn weather it hurts this country or its people. Can you say greedy hogs?

[gobbler afflicted]

If you are not upset about this, then you has no legit basis to ridicule the Clinton Admin. Remember the Honesty flag you kept waving? It goes both ways. Some are being hypocrites.....Not mentioning any names.

[James B]

I read it through several times. I fail to see anything dishonest about the report. It looks as though someone is cinvinced that someone is hiding something. In the case of clinton however there were plenty of things proven beyond any doubt that he misbehaved and lied to congress. Maybe something will come of this, as yet I don,t see it.

[summit daWg]

I' m not sure, but I do believe that our right to keep and bear arms Came from our forefathers distrust for government and thier authority,so what has changed
since then?

[gobbler afflicted]

Strut, you blame the liberals for the fuel prices???? Now thats really funny. During Clinton riegn, we didnt drill any wildlife refuge in Alaska, yet the fuel prices didnt do what they are doing now. Bush has been in office for 2 1/2 years, with a republican congress I might add, and three times the fuel prices here have jumped to $2 a gallon. Heck that not even for the techron stuff, we are talking the cheapest gas.

We shouldnt expect anything differant though, we have a big oil slave in the oval office right now.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted by Admins]

[Dave590]

Gobbler, Either you totally " missed" the point I was trying to convey because you have some pre-concieved notion that some " wrong" was done, or I did not do a good job trying to express my point...I suspect it was the former rather than the latter.

I also probably should have called them " confidential" meetings rather than " secret" meetings though.

How would ANY administration be able to try and construct an energy policy without inviting the folks who " provide" said energy.

Thats would be like trying to figure out how much it would cost to build a house without first contacting the lumber companies to find out availability and cost of lumber, nails, windows and bricks.

Every administration contacts the folks in the " know" prior to setting policy. From water and corn to yes...oil.

This is merely yet another attempt to creat a crisis/scandal where there is none.

The argument is pitifully weak, but like most of the ramblings of the left, If you make an allegation long enough, it becomes a " fact" in the feeble minds of the sheep.