Court Demands Cheney Release Energy Task Force Records

(ENS) WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has been ordered by a federal judge to open its files and release records of Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from Judicial Watch and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

The task force met for several months before President George W. Bush unveiled his National Energy Policy in May 2001. The policy is criticized by environmental organizations because of its reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear power instead of renewables, efficiency and conservation.

The two plaintiff groups have been trying since April 2001 to obtain these records, which they believe will show the extent to which the task force staff met secretly with industry executives to develop energy policy recommendations -- such as oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and weakening power plant pollution regulations.

The Department of Energy had refused to hand over the records, arguing that federal agency employees were assigned to the Office of the Vice President, and therefore their records could be kept secret.

U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman ruled that "citizens' right to know what their government is up to ... cannot be defeated by detailing an agency employee to a task force operating out of the White House or some other non-agency."

There are only nine narrowly defined reasons why government documents might not be released to the public, the judge ruled, and assignment to the vice president's office is not one of them.

The Freedom of Information Act "strongly favors openness," Judge Friedman wrote, "since Congress recognized in enacting it that an informed citizenry is 'vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed.'"

In its request for the documents -- calendars, notes, minutes of meetings, correspondence -- Judicial Watch wrote, "The American people should be made aware of the deliberations that constitute national energy policy proposals -- especially in light of the power crisis in California and other parts of the nation."

"The secretive nature of the meetings thus far surely raises questions that we seek to answer," Judicial Watch said.

In addition, the plaintiff groups had requested waivers of the fees the agencies would ordinarily charge for duplicating the documents, a request Judge Friedman granted.

"The court's ruling is a wake-up call to the Bush administration -- it's time to come clean about how it is doing the public's business," said NRDC Senior Attorney Sharon Buccino. "Once Congress and the American people finally get the details about what happened at the task force's closed door meetings, the administration's energy plan will be revealed for what it is -- a payback to corporate polluters."

While previous court orders forced the administration to release records of the federal agencies that had participated in the task force's work, the administration has refused to release the records of the task force's executive director, Andrew Lundquist, and other federal agency employees who worked under him.

Besides revealing who shaped the administration's energy plan, these records Buccino expects the documents to shed further light on whether the task force violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act. That case is currently pending before the Supreme Court and scheduled for oral argument later this month.