Cheney Panel Ordered to Release Papers

WASHINGTON —  A federal judge Friday rejected efforts by the Bush administration to resist handing over documents related to a White House energy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan approved a public interest law firm’s plan for preliminary fact-finding, which seeks records relating to the workings of the task force and who it met with.

Sullivan gave the Justice Department 30 days to object to or comply with the request.

The suit filed by Judicial Watch, and later joined by the environmental group Sierra Club, seeks all records of the Cheney task force in an effort to find out what influence energy companies, including now-bankrupt Enron Corp., had on policy.

The White House points to its right to seek confidential advice in battling a string of lawsuits and congressional requests for information on the task force.

Justice Department lawyers argued in court Friday that Judicial Watch had not supplied any evidence that nongovernment employees participated in the task force. This means it is not subject to the federal law on advisory committees cited in the lawsuit, they said.

Sullivan rejected the arguments. “Under what you are suggesting, no one can conduct a reasonable investigation ... in an effort to determine whether the law was complied with,” he said.

Cheney’s task force produced a policy in May 2001 that called for more oil and gas drilling and a revived nuclear power program. Environmentalists say they were largely shut out of policymaking.