GOP Donors Lobbied Hard on Energy

A review of newly released government records shows that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, while working on the administration’s national energy plan, met with more industry officials than his aides had previously reported.

Many of the special interests that lobbied the administration while the plan was being drafted were big campaign contributors to the Republican Party.

A day after the Energy Department and other agencies released 16,000 pages of records that had been sought under the Freedom of Information Act, the legal and political fracas intensified over how much influence industry lobbyists and campaign contributors wielded in shaping the administration’s energy policy.

Environmentalists, who documents show did not get an audience with Abraham, said the material supported their contention that the policy was drawn up to favor the coal, gas, oil and nuclear industries.

“The overwhelming evidence is that the Bush administration listened to their campaign contributors when they weighed in with their wish lists of policies,” said Daniel Becker, director of the Sierra Club’s global warming and energy program.

But White House spokesman Ari Fleischer responded that environmentalists’ views were included, citing a $3-billion provision to promote hybrid fuel-cell vehicles, and he downplayed Abraham’s meetings with energy companies.

“News flash: It’s no surprise to anybody that the secretary of Energy meets with energy-related groups,” Fleischer said.

The release of the documents did nothing to calm the debate over whether the White House should have to identify individuals who met with Vice President Dick Cheney and other task force members and to disclose what was discussed in those meetings.

Recent court rulings required only the Energy Department and other agencies to release documents related to the task force, formally known as the National Energy Policy Development Group.

Because much of the information on the documents released Monday was deleted, Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that had sued to obtain the material, vowed to go back to court to make the administration justify the omissions and explain why it withheld 15,000 additional documents.

Recommendations from government officials on policy options were deleted from the documents, because, the Energy Department argues, they are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act as part of the “deliberative process.”

Environmental groups said they had requested meetings with Cheney and Abraham and were turned down.

Representatives of those groups did meet a handful of times with lower-ranking officials, including one large meeting April 4 with Andrew Lundquist, the task force’s executive director.

The meeting with Lundquist merely gave the environmentalists time to introduce themselves, Becker said. Lundquist then asked them to send their ideas in writing.

“Contrast that with the Exxons, Enrons and General Motors of the world. They were consulted early, throughout and late--and got what they wanted,” said the Sierra Club’s Becker.

The documents show that Abraham met with more than the 36 representatives of business interests that his aides listed on an attachment Monday.

Those meetings, held from Feb. 9 to May 10 of last year, included groups such as the Nuclear Energy Institute, which has contributed $436,154 to Republicans since 1999, and executives of Excelon Corp., which contributed $937,386, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Abraham’s own schedule shows at least 20 additional meetings with lobbyists, oil and coal industry representatives.

Abraham met Feb. 21 with representatives of the American Petroleum Institute and five oil companies, including the president of Anadarko Petroleum, which has contributed $838,921 to the GOP since 1999, and the president of Chevron Texaco, which has contributed more than $1.6 million to the GOP since 1999.

In total, Abraham met with industry groups and lobbyists that have contributed more than $17 million to politicians since 1999, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. More than $12.6 million of that total went to Republicans.

The documents indicate that key energy officials frequently sought information from lobbyists and industry groups as they were preparing the administration plan.

There are several groups of e-mail volleys between Joseph T. Kelliher, senior policy advisor and chief coordinator of the agency’s efforts on the energy plan, and lobbyists or representatives from various energy industries. Kelliher was nominated in October as a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

For instance, Linda Stuntz, an energy lawyer and lobbyist and former senior official in the first Bush administration’s Energy Department, e-mailed Kelliher on May 21, replying to his request for “concrete examples” of states having trouble siting transmission lines.

She offered a Southern California example--the Rainbow Valley Project, which she said long had tried unsuccessfully to site 31 miles of transmission lines connecting Romoland to San Diego County.

“I think what [Kelliher] was doing was asking us to be a resource,” Stuntz said Tuesday.

Stuntz also reached out to Kelliher, whom she described as a personal friend, to ensure that the energy plan made electricity grid standards mandatory.

Both issues were priorities for one of Stuntz’s clients, the North American Electric Reliability Council, which represents all public and private utilities.

Times staff writer Edwin Chen and researcher Robert Patrick contributed to this report.