White House faces lawsuit over Enron

MIKE ALLEN, THE WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON -- Setting up a historic test of presidential power, the investigative arm of Congress announced plans Wednesday to sue the White House for records of Vice President Dick Cheney's meetings with Enron Corp. and other industry interests that sought to influence the administration's energy policy.

The General Accounting Office, a nonpartisan agency that investigates federal spending at the request of lawmakers, announced that it will file suit in federal court in the next two to three weeks in an effort to obtain records of the task force that developed the industry-friendly energy policy President Bush announced on May 17.

"The formulation and oversight of energy policy and the investigation of Enron-related activities represent important institutional prerogatives of the Congress," David Walker, the U.S. comptroller general, wrote in a letter announcing the plans to sue.

Memo revealed

The GAO announcement came on the same day that the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Enron chief executive Kenneth Lay had used an April meeting with Cheney to present a three-page memo of eight "priorities" on national energy policy for the task force that was preparing the policy. White House officials said they could not say if Cheney had received the memo, and said two of the priorities were included in the report.

One of those was a rejection of federal price caps on California electricity. "That's always been our position," a senior administration official said Wednesday. "That was going to be in the report, whether someone handed it to him or not."

Details of such meetings are the goal of the suit promised by the GAO. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer Wednesday told reporters aboard Air Force One that Bush "believes very strongly that this White House and all future White Houses should have a right to receive the advice and the thoughts of citizens and to do so without those thoughts being turned into virtual news releases."

"The president will strongly promote that right, and fight for that right in court, and the White House expects to prevail," Fleischer said.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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