Editorial: White House secrets

Monday, June 28, 2004 | 8:29 a.m.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court handed the Bush administration a victory, refusing to order Vice President Dick Cheney to reveal secret records from an energy task force that he headed. The Supreme Court did send the case back to a lower court so that it could be reconsidered, but the reality is that it will take years to resolve the matter -- well after November's presidential election. That means no embarrassing revelations could come out about the sway that corporate executives had regarding the White House's energy policy, a reason why administration officials were ecstatic about the decision.

The public, of course, is the loser. We should know by now just how much influence that utility, oil and gas executives had in developing the White House's energy policy. We in Nevada are particularly interested in the meetings that nuclear power executives had with Cheney's group before President Bush submitted his plan to Congress to bury 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. But, fortunately for the White House, it had enough support on the Supreme Court to continue its stonewalling ways.

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