The Bush administration was dealt a series of blows last week in its attempt to withhold secret documents of Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force from public scrutiny.

The biggest setback was the news last Wednesday that U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler had ordered the Department of Energy (DOE) to surrender thousands of pages of documents related to its role on the now-infamous task force, which developed President Bush’s national energy policy last year.

Kessler instructed DOE to provide the “vast majority” of the sought-after information to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a national non-profit environmental group, starting March 25 through April 10. Any documents the DOE does not hand over must be identified on a list to be released to the public by April 25. The DOE said it intended to comply with the judge’s Feb. 21 order, which only became public last week.

Kessler was openly critical of the federal government’s slow response in the case, saying there was “no legal, or practical, justification for [the DOE] working at a glacial pace” to fulfill the NRDC’s request for the dates of task force meetings and topics discussed, as well as the names of individuals, companies and groups that DOE task force members met with when developing the energy policy.

NRDC senior attorney Sharon Buccino declared Kessler’s order a major victory. “After being shut out of the process for nearly a year, the public will finally get to see if the administration acted on behalf of the public interest in formulating its energy plan, or for the exclusive benefit of a few industry friends like Enron [Corp.] and other big energy companies.” The NRDC and other groups, as well as Capitol Hill lawmakers, believe the task force documents will show that Enron and other energy companies wielded significant influence over Cheney and his task force when crafting the Bush energy plan.

Given the rush of lawsuits, even prominent Republicans on Capitol Hill have called for the Bush White House to release the task force documents to the public. Failure by the president to do so, many believe, could be politically damaging to the Bush administration.

Last Thursday, Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers representing the Bush administration took another beating in federal court. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan upbraided the government’s attorneys for stalling in another lawsuit seeking the task force records, while U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman scorned the DOJ attorneys’ efforts to get a third lawsuit tossed out. Both lawsuits were brought by Judicial Watch, a public watchdog group based in Washington, DC.

Sullivan gave the federal government until this Friday (March 8) to make its case for why the federal agencies represented on the Cheney task force should not be ordered to surrender documents to Judicial Watch.

A spate of parties have filed lawsuits for task force documents, including the NRDC, the General Accounting Office (GAO), Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club.

The NRDC brought its lawsuit in December after the DOE failed to respond to the group’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request last April for basic information about the department’s role on the Cheney-chaired task force. The DOE was one of nine federal agencies that sat on the energy task force. In light of Judge Kessler’s recent order, the NRDC could receive the task force records before anyone else, giving the public its first glimpse of what actually went on behind the closed-door meetings. A spokesman said the group plans to release the records it obtains to the public.

The Judicial Watch lawsuits are much broader in scope than the NRDC action, calling for documents from each of the nine agencies that sat on the energy task force. The lawsuit before Judge Friedman was filed last July under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and it demands access to records of the departments of Treasury, Energy, Commerce, Transportation, Interior and Agriculture, as well as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Judicial Watch brought its second lawsuit under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires transparency in government. Judge Sullivan has scheduled a hearing for April 9, at which time the group said it expects him to rule on their request.

The government’s lawyers want to consolidate the Judicial Watch case with the lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club, but the environmental group is opposed to it. Sierra Club, which also is seeking access to the records under FACA, filed its lawsuit in a San Francisco federal court in January.

The most prominent lawsuit, which names Cheney as a defendant, was filed last month by the GAO in U.S. District Court in Washington. The unprecedented legal action is the result of a 10-month stand-off between the agency, which represents Congress, and the White House.

The Bush administration has refused to turn over records to the GAO on legal grounds, arguing that to do so would hamper its ability, as well as the ability of future presidents, to seek confidential advice when pursuing new policy. Cheney further has argued that the GAO’s authority, while it extends to federal agencies, does not reach into the Offices of the President and Vice President.

While the GAO lawsuit has captured the most media attention, it is only in the initial stages. It could very well be eclipsed by the NRDC and Judicial Watch lawsuits, which would render the GAO’s pursuit of the task force records virtually moot.

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