The Energy Task Force. This is something that
I have been wondering
about for two years now. Sometime around April
2001 Vice President Dick
Cheney met with the top executives from the top
energy firms in the
world to draft plans for the nation's energy
policy. Naturally one
would expect the office of the executive to meet
with business leaders
to discuss their markets and possible reforms-mostly
in a lobbying
capacity-but this was different. Dick Cheney,
instead of inviting a
diverse group with multiple opinions on the various
issues that
surround our nation's energy policies, brought
together only those
which profit from its over-consumption.
Of the attendees the most notable name is that
of Kenneth Lay, the
former CEO and Chairman of the now infamous Enron.
In the 2000 election
cycle Lay donated some $350,550 to Republicans
while Enron itself was a
little more even with their donations.
Enron sent $615,676 to
Republicans (more than half of which went to
the presidential campaign)
and $543,000 to Democrats (it must be noted that
none of the money
donated to the Democrats funds went to the presidential
election).
Other Enron executives and their employees contributed
another $1.5
million to the 2000 elections, the vast majority
of which went to
Republicans. The combination of the three
made Enron and its
associates the largest financial contributors
to any election cycle in
history. Right after Enron collapsed Bush and
Cheney were both
desperately trying to distance themselves from
Kenneth Lay (Kenny-Boy
as Bush likes to call him) and insisted that
any contact between them
and Lay were brief and unimportant. Just
a couple of months ago a
videotape surfaced with both G. H. W. Bush and
G. W. Bush praising Lay
for his great friendship and impeccable business
skills. Bush and
Cheney lied and no one seems to care. If
Clinton or Gore had done
something similar we would not have heard the
end of it.
You might be wondering where I am going with this
(hopefully you are
not that dense). Well, many people-most people-feel
that Big Oil bought
the White House for the sole purpose of making
it easier to rake in
oodles of cash off of oil and other energy resources.
The Government
Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm
of congress, fearing
that some wrongdoing occurred sued the White
House, specifically
Cheney, to obtain the records of the Energy Task
Force meetings. When
the GAO did this (the GAO did not start the investigation
until after
the Senate went into a Democratic majority in
spring 2001) Cheney, out
of fear of a possible prison term, claimed Executive
Privilege in the
matter. He insisted that the Office of the Vice
President would be
compromised if whenever a Vice President "consulted"
with someone said
consultation could not be guaranteed to remain
confidential. Thus,
hampering the Vice President's ability to obtain
unbiased, objective
information.
The precedent that forms the basis of this lawsuit
lies in the Clinton
Cock Hunt of the 1990's. The Republicans, using
almost every means
possible, sued the White House a few dozen times
for many frivolous
documents pertaining to everything from 20 year
old land deals to
travel records to the journals of White House
interns. To them the
ability for the PRESIDENT (not the ultimately,
up until now, useless
Vice President) to conduct meetings and expect
a certain level of
privacy and confidentiality did not matter. If
Republicans were going
to find out if Clinton had ever done anything
wrong they needed to have
the ability to read every document ever filed
in the White House. The
Federal Court that heard the case between Clinton
and the GAO (and
others like Judicial Watch) ruled that Executive
Privilege only applied
to matters of national security and that the
rest fell under the
Freedom of Information act.
Flash forward to just last year, the GAO, out
of fear that the Vice
President and possibly the President of the United
States have abused
their positions of power. Start seeking to clarify
any
misunderstandings and launched an investigation
into whether the Bush
administration gave the leaders of the wealthiest
corporations in the
world, specifically oil and energy conglomerates,
the ability to self
regulate. The possibility existed that the Bush
Administration had done
so without the consent of congress and at the
same time thwarted the
investigative and regulatory arms of the Executive
Branch; the FBI, SEC
and EPA, etc? from doing their jobs. Corporations
like Enron started
manipulating the power market in the West in
such a way as to
under-produce electric power in a recently deregulated
California by
some 15 Gigawatts of capacity forcing them to
seek alternatives in
out-of-state producers. Enron then raised power
rates by over 1000% to
boost their profits by billions (the $7 billion
California power market
became a $70 billion market in less than a year).
There was even fear
that some of the Task Force talks centered around
the "Pipeline of
Peace" that will ultimately link oil and natural
gas rich Turkmenistan
with the ports of Pakistan through a pre 9/11
Afghanistan. While other
talks may have had to with plans surrounding
the smuggling of black
market oil out of Iraq and into the hands of
companies like Shell and
Unocal for refining. Black market exports from
Iraq miraculously jumped
by some 400% in just a few months after the April
Task Force meetings
and up until last August (pre saber rattling)
represented 12% of all US
oil imports.
Naturally the Senate was alarmed at the possibilities
and, as I said,
sued for the release of the documents that related
with the Energy Task
Force meetings. The case, like Clinton's,
went to Federal Court but
this time the court ruled for the White House.
What was that? I thought
that the precedent was that of "cases of national
security only?" Well,
not any more. Apparently the court believes that
the Office of the Vice
President is so much more sacred than that of
the President.
The GAO was set to appeal the case to a Federal
Circuit Court but then
two things happened: the Senate reverted back
to the Republicans and
the GAO had its budget slashed by almost half.
So, on February 6th the
GAO announced that it would not follow through
on its appeal to obtain
some of the most important White House documents
since Iran/Contra or
even Watergate.
Let me put this in perspective for you.
Now that the congress is
solidly Republican they see no problem with the
Executive Branch
getting away with what could be one of the most
heinous and brazen
crimes in history. Crimes that may have already
led us to one war in
Afghanistan and is setting our footing for a
second in Iraq; all of
this in less than two years. To top this off,
the most important aspect
of congress, its ability to check the Office
of the President, has been
severely impaired to make way for the cost of
the coming war and tax
cuts for the rich (or just to possibly thwart
its ability to investigate).
The GAO, which until recently, had only been
a tool of the right to
find any incriminating evidence on the most investigated
man in history
(Clinton) was finally doing its job and investigating
possible crimes that
affect our national interests and security can
no longer fulfill its duty.
This is sick.