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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (51748)	9/8/2001 10:43:52 AM
From: Fred Levine	Respond to of 70976

From the NY Times: This, and the refusal of the Justice Dept., to follow up on MS, leads me to believe that W is the best president that business can buy. September 8, 2001 Federal Agency Likely to Sue White House By JOSEPH KAHN ASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — Calling the administration's refusal to turn over documents "frustrating and extremely difficult to understand," Comptroller General David M. Walker said today that it was likely he would need to sue the White House to force disclosure of information about President Bush's energy strategy. Mr. Walker, who heads the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said he would make a final decision on whether to take legal action against the Bush administration this month. The accounting office has never before sued another government department for failing to cooperate with an inquiry. "I don't think that it's a good idea for one part of government to sue another part," Mr. Walker said in an interview today. "But we are on the right side of this, and if we have to go to court, we will go." The G.A.O. has been investigating how Vice President Dick Cheney and his top aides compiled the Bush administration's energy plan and has demanded the names of outsiders, including business executives and lobbyists, who met with administration officials to express their views. Congressional Democrats, including the two House Democrats who first requested the G.A.O. inquiry in April, say they suspect that energy company executives may have had undue influence on shaping the administration's energy plan, which advocates a range of legislative and executive steps to increase energy production and conservation. Unless the matter is resolved by a last-minute compromise or an intervention by Congress, the standoff seems likely to lead to a legal test of the power of a Congressional body to investigate a policy-making matter at the White House. Since the Watergate scandal, all administrations have faced Congressional inquiries they considered intrusive or threatening to presidential prerogatives. But some observers say the Bush administration's decision not to cooperate in this case is odd, given that the inquiry targets the vice president, not the president, and does not involve matters that might be considered confidential for national security reasons. "By refusing to release this information, Bush has made a modest one-day story into a significant story," said Paul Light, a scholar of government at the Brookings Institution in Washington. He predicted that the accounting office would eventually prevail in court. "They thought they could just insist that these meetings are no one's business, but that's looking like a political mistake," Mr. Light said. The White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, said today that the administration believes it "is not a matter of public purview for each and every meeting, for each and every minute of the president and vice president each and every day to be reported publicly." The administration, which has taken a legalistic stand since it first rejected the agency's inquiry last spring, has argued in written communications that the agency exceeded its statutory powers. The White House says the agency's authority is limited to auditing the use of Congressionally appropriated funds. The G.A.O., created in 1921 to keep the government's books, claims it has long-established authority to examine not only the use of funds but also the results of official activities. Mr. Walker, a certified public accountant who has headed the agency for three years, says a case he originally saw as a routine investigation has grown into a clash between the executive and legislative branches, threatening his agency's mission and leaving him little choice but to push the inquiry forward. "This is about openness, accountability and transparency in making energy policy — something that affects the lives of every American," he said. fred