A federal judge in Washington, DC Tuesday ordered seven federal agencies to turn over documents to Judicial Watch, a public watchdog group, related to their roles on Vice President Dick Cheney’s interagency task force that developed the national energy policy last year.

The seven-page order was the latest in a series of judicial blows to the Bush administration’s efforts to withhold the energy task force documents from public scrutiny. Agencies targeted in the order were the Office of Management and Budget, (OMB), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the departments of Energy, Agriculture, Transportation, Interior and Commerce. Washington, DC-based Judicial Watch is attempting to learn the extent to which energy executives, companies and groups influenced the task-force members when crafting President Bush’s energy policy.

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman ordered OMB and the departments of Interior and Agriculture to surrender “additional non-exempt records, and parts of records,” in response to Judicial Watch’s lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), as well as provide an index that identifies any documents that are withheld, by no later than March 25. The three agencies already have released some documents to Judicial Watch.

He further directed the Department of Energy (DOE) and the EPA to hand over packages of documents beginning March 25 through April 10, and issue an index identifying documents that are withheld by no later than April 25. The DOE has produced no records so far, while the EPA has turned over more than 800 pages of documents, but it has withheld nearly 20,000 pages of records.

The departments of Transportation and Commerce are required to provide Judicial Watch with a complete package of records by May 3, as well as a list of documents being withheld by May 15. Neither agency has turned over any documents yet.

Two other members of the Cheney task force — the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Department of Treasury — were not ordered to immediately deliver task-force records. But attorneys for both sides were ordered to establish a joint briefing schedule to address motions related to the two agencies’ decisions to stop processing Judicial Watch’s FOIA requests because of disputes over processing fees.

As part of the briefing schedule, Friedman also directed the parties to address the issue of the documents being withheld and the FOIA exemptions being invoked by the task-force agencies.

This latest order is significantly broader than the one issued by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler late last month, requiring only one agency — the DOE — to surrender an estimated 7,500 pages of documents to the Natural Resources Defense Council related to its role on the Cheney-chaired task force.

Friedman also dismissed the Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys’ request to dismiss the Judicial Watch lawsuit. The DOJ argued that Judicial Watch had filed its lawsuit prematurely, before the entire 20-day period for the agencies to respond to its FOIA request had been exhausted. Judicial Watch filed its lawsuit on May 9, 2001, seven days before the period expired on May 18.

Granting DOJ’s request “would be putting form over substance,” said Friedman. Judicial Watch “had not received any substantive response either by the time it filed its suit or by the time defendants say it should have filed suit, seven days later. Nearly ten months later, at least three agencies still have not responded [in any way] to plaintiff’s requests,” Friedman said.

Instead of dismissing the lawsuit, he directed Judicial Watch to file a “supplemental complaint” in order to “cure an asserted jurisdictional defect” in its lawsuit.

©Copyright 2002 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.