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CounterPunch
February
8, 2003
GAO (and Dems) Surrender to
Cheney
Oil Baron List
Will Remain Secret
By JASON LEOPOLD
The identities of the people who advised Vice
President Dick Cheney on the National Energy Policy--particularly
those who work in the energy industry--will remain secret.
On Friday, General Accounting Office
Comptroller David Walker said he would not appeal a U.S. District
Court decision, handed down in December, that rejected the GAO's
lawsuit it filed against Cheney two years ago to force the Vice
President to disclose the names of the people who helped draft
President Bush's National Energy Policy.
When U.S. District Court Judge John Bates
tossed out the lawsuit in December, his ruling was clearly mired
in politics. This is the same man who worked for Independent
Counsel Kenneth Starr during the investigation into Whitewater
and supervised the investigation into Whitewater figure Vince
Foster's death and the billing records into Hillary Clinton's
law firm.
Walker said Friday his decision not to
appeal U.S. District Court John Bates' ruling was based on the
amount of time his office would have to invest to continue to
pursue the case. The GAO's decision is a major blow to Congressional
oversight powers and will likely allow future presidential administrations
to withhold other types of information from the public and from
lawmakers.
"Despite GAO's conviction that the
district court's decision was incorrect, further pursuit of the
(National Energy Policy Development Group) information would
require investment of significant time and resources over several
years," Walker said. "In the final analysis, transparency
and accountability in government are essential elements for a
healthy democracy. Based on my extensive congressional outreach
efforts, there is a broad-based and bi-partisan consensus that
GAO should have received the limited and non-deliberative NEPDG-related
information that we were seeking without having to resort to
litigation."
Walker said in December that Bates' decision,
should it stand, "would permanently "shackle Congress's
[investigative] power in a [remarkable] and unprecedented manner."
The GAO's unprecedented lawsuit against
Cheney was prompted when the Vice President rebuffed Congressman
Henry Waxman, D-California, and the ranking member on the Committee
on Government Reform, and John Dingell, D-Michigan, who asked
Cheney for the same information in May 2001. Cheney refused to
disclose the names of the people he met with voluntarily saying
he wants to "protect the ability of the president and the
vice president to get unvarnished advice from any source we want."
Waxman, nor other leading Democratic officials would comment
on the GAO's decision.
At the time the energy policy was drafted,
the California energy crisis was at its peak and many of the
policies contained in the report seemed to benefit energy companies
such as Enron (which had not yet imploded in a wave of accounting
scandals) that contributed heavily to President Bush's campaign.
However, the policy made only scant references to California's
energy crisis, which Enron was accused of igniting, and did not
indicate what should be done to provide the state some relief.
Cheney said the policy focused on long-term
solutions to the country's energy needs, such as opening up drilling
in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and freeing up transmission
lines. That's why California was ignored in the report, Cheney
said.
But then news reports surfaced that former
Enron Chief Executive Ken Lay met with Cheney several times between
January and April 2001, just days before the policy was unveiled.
What's more, in January, the San Francisco Chronicle reported
that Lay gave Cheney a memo outlining eight policy recommendations
that would clearly benefit Enron. Of the eight, seven were included
in the policy.
John Dean, who was former President Richard
Nixon's White House counsel, said in a column when Bates tossed
out the GAO's lawsuit that if Cheney can withhold the information,
"the consequences will be grave."
"Not since Richard Nixon stiffed
the Congress during Watergate has a White House so openly, and
arrogantly, defied Congress's investigative authority. Nor has
any activity by the Bush Administration more strongly suggested
they are hiding the incriminating information about their relationship
with the now-moribund Enron, or other heavy-hitting campaign
contributors from the energy business. Cheney says he is refusing
to provide information to the Congress as a matter of principal,"
Dean added.
"The Bush-Cheney Administration
will have insulated the activities of the Vice President from
scrutiny, violated the principles of transparency and accountability
essential to a democracy, and decimated the oversight and investigative
powers of Congress," Dean said.
On its face, what the GAO requested from
Cheney in its lawsuit filed in January is limited information
about the energy task force, specifically, what process was used
in developing the National Energy Policy, where did the task
force get the information and from whom. That's it. Contrary
to what has been reported in the media last year, the GAO was
not interested in gaining access to the task force's minutes
or notes.
This is just another example of how the
dead-in-the-water Democratic arm of Congress is allowing the
Bush Administration to undermine the public. The party is showing
how weak it truly is. The only recourse left for the Democrats
is to reject Bush's National Energy Policy when it comes up for
a vote later this year.
Jason Leopold
can be reached at: jasonleopold@hotmail.com
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Robert Jensen
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Dissecting Powell's Speech:
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Powell vs. Blix
The Case for War Remains Unmade
Rahul Mahajan
Responding
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Is This All You've Got?
Paul de Rooij
Where Are the Incubators, Gen. Powell?
Website of the Day
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