Enron Survey Assailed

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) on Friday called the White House response to his request for information about its dealings with Enron Corp. “unacceptable”--the latest pull in the tug of war between Congress and the Bush administration over the issue.

Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, hinted that he might seek subpoenas to get the information for his inquiry into whether the government could have done more to prevent the energy giant’s collapse.

In a letter to President Bush’s lawyer, Lieberman said the panel is wrapping up the information-gathering stage of its inquiry and cannot wait much longer for information. “It does not appear that the [White House] is making serious efforts to collect all information responsive to the committee’s request,” he wrote to White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales.

“We’ve said that we are committed to working with the committee on all reasonable requests, and we are doing that,” said White House spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo.

Gonzales asked senior White House officials earlier this week to report contacts they may have had with Enron officials. But Gonzales also suggested in a letter to Lieberman that the committee chairman might be seeking information that goes beyond the scope of his panel’s inquiry.

Lieberman has sought, among other things, information about White House contacts with Enron officials during the drafting of the administration’s energy plan early last year.

Noting that the White House energy task force was disbanded months before Enron filed for bankruptcy in December, Gonzales wrote: “We are having difficulty understanding and assessing the committee’s needs in this area.”

Lieberman’s letter comes as the Enron investigation frenzy that followed the company’s collapse has eased on Capitol Hill. But while the number of televised hearings has declined, partisan wrangling has intensified over Enron-inspired bills that call for accounting and pension reforms.

And Democrats have continued to use Bush’s ties to former Enron executives to portray the GOP as too cozy with special interests. Republicans have responded by pointing out that many Democrats also took Enron contributions.

Lieberman, a possible Bush rival in 2004, was critical of a survey sent out earlier this week by Gonzales asking more than 100 senior administration officials to report by May 10 on contacts they may have had with Enron representatives.

Lieberman assailed the “three-question” survey as “destined to produce an inadequate response” and said it is unclear whether the survey would detail contacts that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had with Enron officials.

The administration has acknowledged that Enron officials met six times with members of the energy task force, including once with Cheney, who headed it.

But Democratic lawmakers have sought more details about the private meetings with Enron and other industry advocates.

The Energy Department and other federal agencies have released thousands of pages of documents indicating that the energy industry enjoyed far greater access to officials drafting the energy plan than did environmentalists.

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has filed a lawsuit to force Cheney to provide details about his meetings with industry lobbyists.