Republicans Divide Over Disclosing Information
January 30, 2002
THE POLITICS
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ROBERT
PEAR
W ASHINGTON, Jan. 29 - With
the White House preparing for a
showdown over its refusal to tell
Congress about contacts between
Enron (news/quote) and the
administration's energy task force,
House Republican leaders backed the
White House today. Several
Republican senators, however, varied
from the party line.
After a morning meeting with President Bush, the Republican House speaker,
Dennis Hastert, and the majority leader, Dick Armey, came down staunchly in the
White House camp. Echoing the often-repeated White House position, Mr. Hastert
said, "I think it's proprietary information.
"If any elected member of Congress went down to talk to the president, I think they
would be shocked and chagrined to know that their information was being
disseminated," he continued.
But Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, speaking after the weekly
lunch of Republican senators, said the White House should disclose the
information.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, said she thought Congress
should have some access to information about the meetings, but hoped the White
House and the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, would
settle the dispute without a lawsuit.
And Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, the senior Republican on the
Governmental Affairs Committee, has said that while the law is on the
administration's side, it would be politically wise to disclose the records.
Patrick H. Wood III, chairman of the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, appeared at a Senate Energy and
Natural Resources Committee hearing this morning. He
told the panel that Enron's collapse could be a problem for
efforts to build power plants, although he said the
company's demise had not damaged energy markets.
Other experts told the panel that Enron's onetime
dominance in energy and derivative markets points to the
need for greater disclosure of energy-trading data. And
several senators from Western states suggested that
long-term power contracts signed when prices soared last
year could be ripped up if evidence shows that Enron
artificially inflated prices.
Mr. Wood said that Enron "has not caused damage to the
nation's energy trading or energy markets." The company
collapsed, he said, not because of flaws in the energy
market but because of questionable investments and
accounting.
But he added that a slowdown in new power plants and
other energy- related construction caused, he said, by the
economic slowdown and the impact Enron's collapse has
had on investors - "could be problematic in some regions
as the economy recovers and demand for energy grows."
Mr. Wood also said he did not think there was evidence
that Enron manipulated California energy prices, but he
agreed to a request by Senator Dianne Feinstein,
Democrat of California, that the energy commission
investigate assertions that Enron may have been able to
inflate prices for certain long-term power contracts by
more than 30 percent.
In the House, investigators demanded that Arthur
Andersen turn over records of any consulting work done
for the complicated maze of hidden Enron partnerships
that investigators say played a large role in the company's
collapse. Andersen is under fire for its audits of Enron and
its acknowledged destruction of Enron documents.
The General Accounting Office, led by David M. Walker,
the comptroller general of the United States, has
suggested that it is very likely soon to file a lawsuit against
the administration to force it to hand over records of
meetings held last spring between the energy task force,
which was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, and
executives from Enron and other companies concerned
about the nation's energy policy.
Enron executives met with officials on the energy task
force five times, and the group's eventual
recommendations contained much of what Enron had
sought, though the policy recommendations also reflected
positions embraced by many in the industry and the
government.
At the White House today, Ari Fleischer, the press
secretary, reiterated that the Bush administration believes that investigators are
overstepping their authority and that the accounting office is seeking to encroach
on records that are covered by executive privilege and whose disclosure would hurt
the administration's ability to obtain outside advice.
Mr. Fleischer said that a compromise was unlikely and that there were no
negotiations under way that could avert a legal battle with the accounting office.
Mr. Walker said that the White House had mischaracterized what the G.A.O. was
seeking and that his office was "not asking for nearly as much as they say we are."
He has said that his office wants the dates, names of those attending and general
topics discussed at the meetings, but not details like minutes of the meetings or
notes of conversations.
Asked about the comments by Mr. Hastert and Mr. Armey, Mr. Walker added:
"When they had their press conference, they only had the White House side of the
story. They now have our side." Mr. Walker declined to say whether he had spoken
with the two leaders today.
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