White House Is Told to Justify Cheney Secrecy

A federal judge warned Bush administration lawyers Friday that he would reject efforts to block the release of records on Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force unless the White House provides specific reasons.

At a hearing on two lawsuits, the Justice Department revealed that Secretary of State Colin Powell may have been invited to some of the task force meetings. The department provided no details.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan told government lawyers that simply citing special presidential privileges or the Constitution would not be enough to keep task force records from public view.

“It is not appropriate to say, ‘executive privilege,’ ” Sullivan said to lawyers for the administration. “It is not appropriate to say, ‘This request is unconstitutional.’

“I need to know what the basis is,” he said.

Sullivan gave the government until Sept. 3 to make that argument when it answers a motion by the plaintiffs to release all White House records relating to the energy task force.

The lecture was the latest sign that Sullivan is running out of patience with the administration as two groups seek records about whether the Cheney task force was influenced by industry executives in crafting the nation’s energy policy.

The Sierra Club, an environmental organization, and Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, have filed lawsuits to shed light on the task force’s membership and its influences.

Sullivan, who was appointed by former President Clinton, chastised the administration’s lawyers in July for advocating too broad a legal view of executive privilege. The proper approach, he said, is to examine whether disclosure would prevent the executive branch from carrying out any constitutionally assigned function.

Run by Cabinet heads, the Cheney panel directed federal agencies writing a plan last year that focused on energy production -- a position favored by the industry.

The administration maintains that only government employees were members of the task force, which disbanded last year. But Judicial Watch alleges that former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay was a member.

“We want all of the information on the energy task force to come out as soon as possible,” said Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch.

That could take months. Sullivan said Friday that he anticipates objections from the administration that would take “an enormous amount of time for this court to resolve.”

Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club maintain that Cheney’s panel is subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, designed to open government panels in the executive branch to public scrutiny.

The idea behind the law is that public disclosure would counteract lobbying by special interests.