Supreme Court to Hear Cheney
Energy Task Force Case
Mon Dec 15,10:37 AM ET
story.news.yahoo.com
By Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday
it would hear Vice President Dick Cheney
case for keeping his energy task force papers
secret.
The high court said Cheney's Justice
Department lawyers could
present detailed arguments on why he should
not have to comply with a judge's order to
hand over details of White House contacts
with the energy industry.
Two groups, the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, sued in 2001 to
find out the names and positions of members
of the energy task force headed by the vice
president that year.
They allege that as Cheney drafted energy policy, he consulted industry
executives such as Enron Corp.'s Ken Lay, making them effective
members of his energy task force while leaving environmentalists out in
the cold.
Cheney was chief executive of energy and construction company
Halliburton Co . from 1995 to 2000. His 2001 energy task force produced
a policy paper calling for more oil and gas drilling and a revived nuclear
power program.
Cheney has acknowledged meeting Lay, but his lawyers say the energy
task force was comprised of government officials, not corporate
chieftains.
Over a year ago, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the
White House to either produce documents about the energy task force
or provide a detailed list of the documents it was withholding, and why.
But the Bush administration resisted and appealed the order, even
though the case was not completed. The White House said it was
immune from having to produce the information on constitutional
grounds.
By accepting the case, the Supreme Court agreed to review the decision
of the U.S. Court of Appeals, which earlier this year refused to step in,
saying Cheney did not have legal standing to refuse the judge's order.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case in the spring next
year, with a decision due by the end of June.
The Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency (news -
web sites) and other agencies have turned over thousands of pages of
documents in the case, but none have come from the White House.
Justice Department lawyers representing Cheney argued that judicial
power cannot extend to ordering the vice president to disclose details
about the way the president gets advice -- in this case, advice on energy
policy.
In papers recently filed with the Supreme Court, Judicial Watch
countered that Cheney's claims to immunity were laughable after a 1997
Supreme Court decision that discovery could proceed against
then-President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) in a case brought by
sexual-harassment accuser Paula Jones.
The Sierra Club accused the Bush administration of trying to stall
release of the information beyond the 2004 presidential election. |
