Friday May 18 5:31 PM ET

Lawmakers Want Probe of Cheney's Energy Panel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers have asked the investigative arm of Congress to determine what business interests participated in the behind-closed-doors meetings of the task force that helped form President Bush's energy plan.

``It is our understanding that the task force has conducted a number of meetings ... and some, if not all, of these meetings have included exclusive groups of non-governmental participants -- including political contributors -- to discuss specific policies, rules, regulations, and legislation,'' Democratic U.S. representatives Henry Waxman of California and John Dingell of Michigan wrote in their April 19 request to the General Accounting Office.

Bush unveiled the energy plan on Thursday to criticism from environmental opponents who say it concentrates heavily on increasing supplies of fossil fuels coal, oil, and natural gas and not enough on conservation.

Waxman, the ranking minority member of the committee on Government reform, and Dingell, the ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, also requested the identities of the energy task force plan participators from the Department of Energy's Andrew Lundquist, the task plan's staff director.

That letter said the task force's decision to meet behind closed doors and exclude ``certain parties from participation in its discussions may violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FAA),'' which bars debating public policy in private.

GAO is requesting data and information from Vice President Dick Cheney's task force which formed the energy plan, said Bob Robinson GAO's managing director of Natural Resources and Environment. Robinson said GAO would write a report and deliver it to the congressmen

Counsel to Vice President Cheney, David Addington, replied in early May to Dingell and Waxman that FAA is not applicable to the task force because it ``does not apply to a group 'composed wholly of full-time, or permanent part-time, officers or employees of the Federal Government.'''

Environmental groups have also been attempting to find out the identities of the shapers of the plan.

The Natural Resource Defense Council filed a Freedom of Information Act request in late April. On Monday, the DOE sent some documents to the NRDC, but so far it has not revealed the identities of task plan participants.

NRDC senior attorney Sharon Buccino said if the DOE does not reveal the participants within the 20 days, it will pursue the matter in court.

-- Oil & Nuke (insiders@white.house), May 20, 2001