Who set our energy policy?

[wring]

inMay, Bush announced his energy policy.

America in the year 2001 faces the most serious energy shortages since the oil embargoes of the 1970s," says the report of the** White House National Energy Policy Development Group, which worked for three months under Vice President Dick Cheney** to compile the 105 recommendations that comprise the administration’s proposed energy policy.

(bolding mine)

By June 18th, The General Accounting Offices requested information , The meetings were closed door, and Cheney has refused to identify who was at the meetings.
By June 26th, the White House claims to be cooperating while still denying to provide who was at the meetings or even when they occured, arguing that the GAO doesn’t have the right to request the information. Odd position to take, since according to the same article, the Republicans urged same sort of demand from the Clinton Admin. re the Health plan

This struggle between the White House and the GAO is reminiscent of the early days of the Clinton administration. Then, Republicans in Congress asked the GAO to investigate similar issues related to first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s efforts to draft a national health-care policy behind closed doors.

The Clinton administration also was reluctant to name names of those who had attended the meetings, though the White House eventually gave in and released the names to the public.

Now, politics being, indeed the strangest bedfellows, the Judicial Watch Group has joined in the fray, on the side of the GAO.

The whole energy debate itself is not my subject (so not my point here) However, even tho, I’m not a giant conspiacy ([sup]TM[/sup] ) theorist, it does seem to me that once again, the dogged refusal to turn over information makes a story a bigger one.

[Patty_O_Furniture]

So the GAO can’t get the information, but you think maybe we can?

And on your last point, I agree. Withholding even ho-hum information just intensifies our need to know.

[wring]

No, ** Attrayant**, I’m not suspecting that any of the TM’s would have access to the info. the GAO has upped the ante this is the final step they have to do before going to court to get the information.

[Mandelstam]

Here are some excerpts from links to tompaine.com, a reliable and usually interesting source of alternative news.

This is from an article written by the author of a book on California’s energy crisis:

“Not since the 1950s, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Republican legislators took unbecomingly large financial contributions from the appreciative petroleum and natural gas industries, has the fossil fuel industry been this cozy with an administration.”

Re Bush’s energy policy specifically:

“No campaign to encourage development of renewable energy resources, no push for permanent conservation policies, no consideration for realistic price caps for electric power generators, no apparent concern for the devastating impact of high energy costs to economically vulnerable citizens. Never mind that we have as much energy as we had last year, that even with population growth demand actually has leveled off – and that the immediate crisis is largely a manufactured one designed to maximize profits for new power generators.”

Source:
http://www.tompaine.com/history/2001/04/06/

Here is the leader from Public Citizen, a watchdog group on campaign contributions, etc.

“Nine power companies and a trade association that stand to gain the most from President Bush’s hands-off policy in California contributed more than $4 million to Republican candidates and party committees during the last election, and some of the company heads have close personal ties to Bush, according to a new Public Citizen report.”

Source:
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/02/20/index.html

This is from an article written by an environmentalist group:

"In sharp contrast to [our] common sense approach is the Bush administration’s controversial energy initiative. Among other things, it calls for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain to oil drilling and development, and for rolling back environmental safeguards to pave the way for more fossil fuel development. Already the plan has come under severe criticism for the irreparable harm it would cause pristine areas of the wildlife refuge. That criticism is entirely accurate. But there is another fundamental reason to reject the proposal: It is completely unresponsive to the problems it purports to address. It would make virtually no difference to America’s energy supply in the short- or long-term, it would have no impact on energy prices, and it would have no practical effect on America’s dependence on foreign sources of oil."

Source:
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/05/15/3.html

If you go to the TomPaine archive and type in “energy policy” you will find dozens of articles like this with links to various watchdog groups and think tanks on conservation, renewable energy etc.

[Sterra]

We can get the information.

[urban1]

I had ignored this thread until I read an article in the paper this morning. I didn’t realize the extent of the problem.

I don’t understand the stonewalling. If all of the participants in the energy policy decision represented a wide spectrum of industry and environmental concerns, what is the problem with revealing their names.

Of course, if only energy representatives were present (which seems likely considering the wording of the final policy), then, the administration, does indeed have something to hide.

It doesn’t make any sense to me that the GAO will, probably, have to go to court to extract information, which should be public anyway, from the Bush administration. And, of course, this will cost the taxpayers. I guess we get to pay for both the GAO lawyers and for the administration lawyers.

It’s time for a ‘public records law’ similar to those which exist in many states (Colorado, for instance). Meetings which decide public policy shouldn’t be allowed to be conducted behind closed doors.