Ethics Newsline®

WASHINGTON
Vice President Dick Cheney does not have to disclose the names of energy industry insiders who helped craft the nation’s energy policy, a federal appeals court ruled last week, likely ending a legal effort to enforce government transparency in the energy issue.

Cheney, who headed oil services giant Halliburton until running for office, led a task force in 2001 that devised a national energy policy whose recommendations largely mirrored industry wish lists, including expanded oil and gas drilling on public land, a push for nuclear power, and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reported the Associated Press.

Critics accused the task force of excluding input from environmental and conservation groups, while at the same time opening its deliberations to many of Cheney’s former industry colleagues, including former Enron chief Kenneth Lay.

After the White House refused to provide details of who met with the task force, two organizations û the environmental group Sierra Club and the conservative legal group Judicial Watch — sued.

The groups alleged that Cheney’s task force gave so much preferential treatment to energy executives that they became de facto members, making the panel a federal advisory committee subject to transparency laws.

After a series of back-and-forth lower court rulings, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit last week ruled unanimously against the plaintiffs, saying their lawsuit should be dismissed.

Saying there was no proof that energy executives played a role more substantial than advising the task force, the court said the executives were like congressional aides, noted the New York Times.

“An aide might exert great influence, but no one would say that the aide was, therefore, a member of the committee,” formally known as the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), the court ruled.

“Neither Judicial Watch nor the Sierra Club explicitly claimed that any nonfederal individual had a vote on the NEPDG or had a veto over its decisions,” Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote for the court.

Jonathan Turley, a professor of constitutional and environmental law at George Washington University, said the court’s ruling creates “an absurd standard” by forcing the plaintiffs to prove that energy executives played an undue role without allowing them access to the documents needed to investigate the charge.

“It’s impossible to establish that industry substantially participated in these meetings, if you deny them basic discovery needed to show those facts,” Turley told the Washington Post.

Cheney’s office welcomed last week’s ruling as a “complete vindication,” saying it upheld the White House’s claim that concealing the identities of consultants and advisors is necessary to ensure that their input is full and forthcoming.

Judicial Watch president Tim Fitton disagreed, saying the White House position and appeals court decision create a troubling standard for doing business behind closed doors.

Given last week’s ruling, “the public will simply have to take the word of the government that no outsiders are improperly influencing the decisions of their government,” Fitton told Bloomberg.