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Lawsuit cheney Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020130/ap_to_po/enron_congress_13http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020130/ap_to_po/enron_congress_13
Republicans say they may try to stop
planned GAO lawsuit
Wed Jan 30, 1:51 AM ET
By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Republicans say they may take action to stop
congressional investigators from suing Vice President Dick Cheney to get
information on business executives who met with him and his aides on
energy policy.
"I think it may come to that," said Sen. Orrin
Hatch, R-Utah, the top Republican on the
Senate Judiciary Committee. Congress'
investigative arm, the General Accounting
Office, shouldn't be "trying to impose disclosure
on internal White House meetings to determine
policy. ... If you have to do that, pretty soon
there wouldn't be any meetings."
David Walker, head of the GAO, was to decide
this week whether the GAO will sue to force
the White House to turn over documents on the
meetings held last year with business executives
as the Bush administration crafted a new
national energy policy.
Some of the meetings included officials from the
now-collapsed Enron Corp., a Houston-based
energy broker with deep ties to Bush.
Enron was a prime topic at a Senate committee
hearing Tuesday during which an energy
consultant suggested the company may have been using largely secret
trades to manipulate energy markets.
Robert McCullough, a consultant whose clients include several Northwest
utilities, testified that in the week after Enron announced its bankruptcy,
the "forward price" of electricity in the West fell sharply. Enron had been
a key trader in this market, which is used as a hedge against future power
price changes and is unregulated.
"That certainly raises the question about whether Enron was manipulating
the West Coast market" by keeping prices artificially high, Sen. Ron
Wyden, D-Ore., said in response to the consultant's testimony.
McCullough said "the clear implication is that Enron may have been using
its market dominance to set forward prices."
Other energy experts said other reasons may have been behind the price
decline. Lawrence Makovich, a power industry expert at Cambridge
Energy Research Associates, said it would be impossible to determine
simply from the decline in price whether prices were manipulated.
Makovich told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that
Enron nevertheless wielded significant power in the electricity markets. It
functioned not only as a buyer and seller in the long-term forward market
but also set up many of the transactions.
"Enron's collapse suggests that it was a mistake to allow a significant
market buyer or seller to be a market-maker without oversight," Makovich
said.
In resisting the GAO, Cheney insists that providing the list of industry
executives would harm his ability to receive advice in the future and that
the congressional investigators are overstepping their bounds. GAO, as a
congressional agency, insists it has the authority to request the
information.
Although lawyers were negotiating earlier, Cheney said on Sunday the
dispute "probably will get resolved in court." It would be the first time in
the GAO's 80-year existence that it sued the executive branch.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, said Tuesday he and
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., planned to "talk to the agency."
"GAO is being pressured here on a partisan political basis, and they are
wrong on the ground on which they are being pushed," Armey said.
Democrats on April 19 requested that GAO investigate the conduct,
operations and funding of the Cheney energy task force.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he was researching to see whether the
GAO would be overstepping its authority by taking on the administration.
"My concerns are that it would encroach upon the deliberative process
and make it impossible for the vice president at the direction of the
president to make a recommendation," Specter said. "It's also a tricky
area on executive privilege."
However, Senate Republicans have not come up with a unified public
position or a plan, Specter said. "There's been discussions on it but I
would not say we've taken a position," he said.
However, "I think that somehow, individually or as a group, we should
express concern to the GAO leadership," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
"I'm just amazed at this development. I don't think they're going to win in
court, and if they don't win in court, they ought to be embarrassed.
"Congress shouldn't be eavesdropping on executive branch discussions," he added. "I think it's a legitimate
separation of powers issue. If it's a question of criminality, they have the power to obtain it, but to snoop,
to eavesdrop on conversations is not legitimate."
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