A push to seal White House records

Justices hearing energy-panel case

By Pete Yost, Associated Press, 10/1/2003

WASHINGTON -- Records of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force should remain confidential, the Bush administration told the Supreme Court yesterday, arguing that the demands for disclosure present serious constitutional issues.

In a 25-page filing, Theodore Olson, the Justice Department's solicitor general, urged the Supreme Court to consider "fundamental separation-of-powers questions" raised by a federal judge who says the Cheney panel should produce information about its operations.

The conservative Judicial Watch and an environmental organization, the Sierra Club, have filed suit, alleging that corporate executives and company lobbyists in effect became members of the Cheney panel that formulated the Bush administration's energy policy in 2001.

The administration says the "unsupported allegation" in the lawsuit is contradicted by the president's order creating the panel comprising Cabinet members.

US District Judge Emmet Sullivan has ordered the administration to produce documents in order to assess the accusations in the lawsuits.

The Justice Department papers said the judge has engaged in a "wholesale expansion" of federal law.

"Legislative power and judicial power cannot extend to compelling the vice president to disclose . . . the details of the process by which a president obtains information and advice from the vice president," Olson argued.

The Justice Department also said a federal appeals court erred in its handling of the Bush administration's arguments. The appeals court rejected the case, concluding that bringing it to a higher court was premature.

But the Justice Department argued otherwise, saying the demands for documents impose the same result as if the case had already been concluded with a final ruling against the administration.

The lower court judge is imposing "problematic disclosure requirements" based "upon mere allegations," Olson said.

"Far from rendering separation-of-powers problems premature," the demand for documents "only exacerbates them," the court papers read.

The administration has lost two rounds in the federal court of appeals for the District of Columbia, where a three-judge panel ruled, 2 to 1, against Cheney, followed by the refusal of the full appeals court to consider the issue.

Drafted in 2001, the administration's energy plan favors the opening of more public lands to oil and gas drilling and proposes other steps supported by industry.