Ending nearly a year-long skirmish between the executive and legislative branches of government, a federal judge ruled last Monday Vice President Dick Cheney does not have to turn over information and records on meetings with energy executives and companies that aided a Cabinet-led task force in developing the Bush administration’s national energy policy.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed a lawsuit brought by the General Accounting Office (GAO) and Comptroller General David M. Walker earlier this year, challenging the decision of President Bush and Cheney to withhold the sought-after information on the grounds that it would encroach on the authority of the executive branch. The lawsuit marked the first time that the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, had brought legal action against the executive branch to compel production of information and records.

“Because the Comptroller General does not have the personal, concrete and particularized injury required under Article III [of the Constitution] standing doctrine, either himself or as the agent of Congress, his complaint must be dismissed,” said Bates in his 40-plus page ruling. Moreover, “this case, in which neither a House of Congress nor any congressional committee has issued a subpoena for the disputed information or authorized this suit, is not the setting for such unprecedented judicial action.”

The decision “may seem overly protective of the Vice President, and hence of the Executive Branch, at the expense of the statutory responsibilities of the Comptroller General and the constitutional obligations of Congress. But the point is not whether Executive Branch or the Comptroller General (an agent of Congress) is correct with respect to this particular dispute…Rather, the question is whether the Comptroller General can require the…courts to enter and resolve this inter-branch dispute in light of the weighty separation of powers considerations…Such an excursion by the judiciary would be unprecedented and would fly in the face of the restricted role of the federal courts under the Constitution.”

Bates’ decision was a coup for the White House, and came on top of another win the Bush administration scored earlier this month in its long-running legal dispute with Judicial Watch, a legal watchdog group, and the Sierra Club, an environmental group, over access to energy task force documents as well. On Dec. 6, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stayed indefinitely a federal court ruling that would have allowed the two groups to conduct discovery of Cheney and other top White House officials.

Undeterred, Judicial Watch and its co-plaintiff asked a federal judge in Washington last week for permission to continue with discovery of lower level federal government officials and energy company executives, such as Enron ex-Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay, who they claim actively participated in the task force proceedings. They argued the judge’s ruling in Cheney-GAO had no impact on their lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan did not signal when he would respond to the groups’ request.

The GAO’s Walker expressed disappointment with Bates’ ruling last week. “We are in the process of reviewing and analyzing the decision to fully understand the [basis] for it and its potential implications,” he said in a prepared statement. He said the GAO would make a decision on whether to appeal the court’s ruling after consulting with congressional leadership.

The GAO brought the lawsuit against the White House last February, after having had its requests for task force records and documents rebuffed several times by the Bush administration. White House officials argued the agency’s lawsuit would limit the president’s ability, as well as the ability of future presidents, to seek out information from private sources when developing new policies.

Cheney, who chaired the energy task force, insisted all along that GAO’s authority to seek documents extended only to other federal agencies, but did not apply to the Office of the President and Vice President.

The GAO undertook the pursuit of the energy task force records at the urging of Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Dingell (D-MI). The two lawmakers suspected that large Bush campaign contributors, such as former Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth Lay, had unduly influenced the drafting of the energy policy. The collapse and bankruptcy of the energy trader served to only heighten the interest of Capitol Hill in the role of energy companies in the task force’s proceedings.

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