Cheney Team Sought Environmentalists

AP ^ | 04/11/2002

[Pokey78]

WASHINGTON (AP) - After months of meeting with corporate executives, the Energy Department directed a staffer to make a cursory, two-day sweep of environmental groups to gather their views for Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, newly released documents show.

In a memo dated March 21, 2001, the staffer was told to analyze the environmentalists' responses "and recommend some we might like to support."

The report is "needed by Friday noon," wrote Margot Anderson, who coordinated the project, in her memo sent at 12:49 p.m. Wednesday to Peter Karpoff, a career employee in the department's policy office.

The brief nod to environmentalists came the same week that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham met with executives of Duke Energy, Westinghouse Electric, Entergy, Exelon and other nuclear power industry officials to discuss the administration's energy plan.

Environmentalists have complained that they were largely shut out of the process as the Cheney task force crafted the administration's energy blueprint. The policy document was release in mid-May 2001.

While Abraham met eight times with various energy industry groups from February to April as the energy plan was being formed, he had no meetings with environmental leaders.

The memo by Anderson and handwritten notes made by Karpoff as he surveyed the environmental groups were among about 1,000 pages of papers released by the Energy Department late Wednesday in response to two lawsuits.

The documents gave no indication that Karpoff ever submitted a formal report or list of recommendations, although among the papers released were five pages containing brief handwritten notes pertaining to the telephone contacts with the environmentalists.

DOE spokeswoman Jeanne Lopatto emphasized that the March 21 e-mail and the telephone survey do not reflect all the efforts that were made to enlist environmentalists' views.

"One e-mail isn't going to be a good description of this whole process," said Lopatto. She said, for example, documents were taken off Web sites of various environmental groups and other agencies also had contacts. It was known previously that a group of environmental leaders met with Andrew Lundquist, staff director of the Cheney task force, last April.

The documents released Wednesday involved mostly calendars by midlevel and some senior Energy Department officials and a handful of internal e-mails, including the March 21 memo by Anderson.

"Can you contact these groups and get them to send you any energy policy options they are advocating?" she asked Karpoff. She then asked him to "review the proposals and recommend some we might like to support that are consistent with the administration's energy statements to date."

"You can add others to the list, should you so desire," she continued. "If this requires more than one person let me know ... Need by Friday noon."

The groups listed for Karpoff to contact were the Alliance to Save Energy, Environmental Defense, Union of Concerned Scientists, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, World Resources Institute, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, the American Wind Energy Association, Resources for the Future and the Tellus Institute.

In his handwritten notes, Karpoff indicated he had contacted at least three people, each time adding descriptions of no more than a few words of what they had suggested as energy policy priorities.

"Automotive efficiency ... strengthening CAFE ... clean coal," were among the entries after Karpoff apparently talked to Daniel Becker of the Sierra Club.

After talking with Howard Geller at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, Karpoff made references to the need for new efficiency standards for appliances and noted that Geller will e-mail "some stuff." Documents released earlier by the department included a lengthy paper from the group on energy efficiency.

[Bigoleelephant]

Gee, could it be that the environmentalists are lying knowing that the media will run with the bad story to give the GOP a black eye and when the truth is found out no on will care anymore? Nah!

[Lance Romance]

Notice AP had to put their own spin on it. A "Cursory" Sweep and "After month of meeting with Energy Executives"

He already knew the environmental stance. NO.

[Duke Nukum]

I don't even get why anyone would seek out enviro-wackovist opinion. They're in our face every day. I think we pretty much know what they think:

Don't Drive Anywhere for Any Reason
Don't Eat Styrofoam
Don't Use Any Paper Products for Any Reason
Don't Give Birth to Any Children for Any Reason
When Breathing, Exhale Only Occasionally
Don't Eat Meat Except for Eggs Which Represent Choice
Don't Buy Toilets That Work

I could go on, but I'm embarrassed I know so much of the wackovist agenda.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

Notice the editing-which is shameful. No wonder the media is held in such low regard. First part of article , quotes a memo regarding info on environmentalists energy policies and has this-" recommend some that we might like to support." Period, closed quotes, end of sentence. Makes the administration sound pretty shallow and cavalier. But-later in the article, the entire sentence is printed-"recommend some we might like to support that are consistent with the administrations energy statements to date." Now the take is different-the administration would like to find common ground on energy policy with environmentalists. Never buy a used car from a reporter.