Editorial: Energy secret coming out

Friday, Nov. 18, 2005 | 7:35 a.m.

Shortly after President Bush took office in January 2001, he appointed Vice President Dick Cheney to head a task force charged with making recommendations for a national energy policy. Naturally, the task force drew the interest of environmental groups and consumer advocates. They wanted to meet with the task force and place their views about energy on the record.

Cheney rebuffed their entreaties. Furthermore, he conducted all of the task force's meetings in secret. Not surprisingly, when the task force finished its work in May 2001, it had concluded that the best energy policy was one that continued the tradition of almost total reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear power.

We wondered then, as now, about the influence wielded by the executives of nuclear power plants. Nevada's Yucca Mountain has long been singled out by the federal government as the planned site for containing the plants' high-level nuclear waste.

Nevadans -- and all Americans who would be affected by transportation of the waste -- have a right to know.

Nevadans, along with millions of other Americans, also wanted to know how much weight the opinions of conventional energy producers carried, and if any serious consideration had been given to alternative forms of energy. But Cheney steadfastly refused to reveal whom his task force had met with.

Members of Congress tried, but even they couldn't find out who attended the meetings. Following lawsuits by two nonprofit groups, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to order that the records be made public, and sent the case back to a federal appeals court for review. That court decided the issue in Cheney's favor.

But that was no guarantee that the names of those who influenced the task force would remain secret forever. This week The Washington Post reported on a White House document it obtained showing that among those the task force met with were officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before the oil company merged with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. The newspaper also reported that the Government Accountability Office (which argued on behalf of Congress to open the meetings) has found that Chevron Corp. "gave detailed energy policy recommendations" to the task force.

Even though the full story is not yet known, it is clear that Cheney's task force met almost exclusively with conventional energy companies. Based on what is already known, it's no surprise that the energy bill Bush signed in June was laden with subsidies for the nuclear, oil, natural gas and coal companies.