- Nov 17, 2002
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More good news re. Bush and his minions. Cheney just lost one appeal in the drive to look inside his energy task force.
Not enough, but it's a start.From The Washington Post, Cheney Loses Ruling on Energy Panel Records
A federal appeals court yesterday rejected Vice President Cheney's bid to keep secret all the workings of his energy task force, saying sufficient safeguards were already in place to prevent the disclosure of genuinely privileged information.
The 2 to 1 ruling, by a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, does not in itself order the release of specific information, but it affirms a lower court judge's order seeking documents that would shed light on the membership of the group Cheney assembled more than two years ago to help develop U.S. energy policy.
[ ... ]
David Bookbinder, a senior lawyer for the Sierra Club, said he expects the government will do whatever it can to drag out the case.
"That's what this whole appeal was about -- a way to delay," he said.
The Bush administration's close ties to the energy industry, starting with the president, have made the task force the subject of considerable scrutiny, particularly by environmental activists who fear that their interests have been overtaken by those of deep-pocketed energy officials.
More broadly, the controversy over the energy task force has, for many critics, become emblematic of the administration's secretive ways.