Cheney energy papers may have Yucca policy answers

Tuesday, July 2, 2002 | 9:49 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Energy policy documents that Vice President Cheney has kept under wraps may indicate why the Bush administration switched its position on Yucca Mountain, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday as he joined a legal effort to unlock the documents.

Nevada lawmakers have voiced concern that a White House task force led by Cheney met privately last year with nuclear industry officials -- but sought little input from Yucca critics -- as they developed a national energy policy. Those meetings may have led Bush to abandon a promise to allow "sound science" guide his decision about the planned high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Reid said.

Bush broke his promise when he approved Yucca in February, before important scientific studies were complete, Nevada lawmakers say.

"The administration needs to stop hiding the truth," Reid said. "They should tell the public which executives the Vice President met with and when he met with them."

Reid on Monday filed an amicus "friend of the court" brief in federal court in support of the General Accounting Office's lawsuit to make certain energy documents public. Many lawmakers want to know who White House officials met with as they drafted the administration's sweeping energy policy released in May 2001. The policy endorsed a national nuclear waste dump amid other far-reaching proposals.

White House officials have declined to release the documents because they say they have a right to solicit information in the protected confines of a private meeting. Bush wants the ability to get candid views outside the government, aides say.

The GAO is the investigative arm of Congress. The White House's position of hiding information about U.S. policy threatens the ability of Congress to do its job, Reid said.

"This administration is systematically pursing a policy of hiding this information from the people -- something which should not be tolerated in a democracy," Reid said.