[Queen of Excelsior]

Same judge as the Mary Frances Berry nonsense, I think.

[KQQL]

DC Judges are all Liberals....this will be appealled all the way to Supreme court

[RCW2001]

I did NOT place this in 'breaking news'....I swear to God I didn't...

[big bad easter bunny]

If it's true that the White House are really protecting the notes they have as confidential information then that still stands as their motive since it is not the W.H. acquiescing.

[xzins]

They won't do this. They will appeal. The principle is this: should the president of the United States be entitled to receive confidential advice? The answer is a resounding yes.

The Supreme Court will go a minimum of 5-4 for the President.

[pray4liberty]

The government has no legal justification "for working at a glacial pace."

Hell, they always work at a glacial pace!

[d14truth]

"I don't know that it's possible for certain to tell what the documents will reveal, but obviously the DOE stonewalled us for almost a year and they presumably had a reason to do that," said Rob Perks, a spokesman for the environmental group."

Let me guess, they wanted to 'jerk your chain'.

[SBeck]

Da Judge:

Judge Kessler was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in July 1994. She received a B.A. from Cornell University and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. Following graduation, Judge Kessler was employed by the National Labor Relations Board, served as Legislative Assistant to a U.S. Senator and a U.S. Congressman, worked for the New York City Board of Education, and then opened a public interest law firm. In June 1977, she was appointed Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. From 1981 to 1985, Judge Kessler served as Presiding Judge of the Family Division and was a major architect of one of the nation?s first Multi-Door Courthouses. She served as President of the National Association of Women Judges from 1983 to 1984, and now serves on the Executive Committee of the ABA?s Conference of Federal Trial Judges and the U.S. Judicial Conference's Committee on Court Administration and Management.

[Demidog]

Right on. Good ruling.

[concerned about politics]

SUE FOR HILLARY HEALTH CARE RECORDS. THE JUDGE HAS APPROVED!

[cricket]

This is just total 'BS'; and I thought Cheney had a good chance of protecting the appropriate branches of Government and their power; what gives?

An Appeal here? I hope so. . .

[d14truth]

National Resources Defense Council

"We work to foster the fundamental right of all people to have a voice in decisions that affect their environment. We seek to break down the pattern of disproportionate environmental burdens borne by people of color and others who face social or economic inequities. Ultimately, NRDC strives to help create a new way of life for humankind, one that can be sustained indefinitely without fouling or depleting the resources that support all life on Earth."
*****
Enviro-whackos. I hope they don't forget to look at the Clinton/Gore DOE papers they 'accidentally' get.

[mrsmith]

"The ruling by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler could undermine the Bush administration's effort to keep secret the names of industry executives and lobbyists who met with the White House as it formulated its energy plan last spring."

Now, if Pete Yost wasn't the best DNC-owned reporter in the AP, he'd say there was no undermining of Cheney because:
" ...The Energy Department and other federal agencies are subject to the Freedom of Information Act, while the White House is not. "

Pete Yost_{TM DNC}

[VA Advogado]

This administration needs to seize judicial watch's nonprofit status, PRONTO.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"the Energy Department must turn over its documents to [...] an environmental group. It must complete the task by April 10. The department had asked to release the material in stages, [...] ending May 15." It sounds like the only issue before the court was the _timing_ of the release. There's nothing here about the DOE contesting their obligation under the Freedom of Information Act.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"obviously the DOE stonewalled us for almost a year and they presumably had a reason to do that". It will be interesting to see whether the Bush-Cheney position looks principled to swing voters after the information is made public.

[Stultis]

"I don't know that it's possible for certain to tell what the documents will reveal, but obviously the DOE stonewalled us for almost a year and they presumably had a reason to do that," said Rob Perks, a spokesman for the [National Resources Defense Council].

Gee, I dunno, Rob. Maybe it's just that they hoped your organization might contribute to the process of policy formulation, rather than criminalizing it in the interest of ideological obstructionism.

Have you and the Dims come up with your own energy policy yet?

Didn't think so.

[FreedominJesusChrist]

The executive branch of government can seek the advice of whomever they wish, but you are wrong in saying that the legislative branch has no authority whatsoever to demand to ever see these records. The fact is, is that it actually depends on whom they are consulting for advice. The vice-president has the ability to claim executive privilege for deliberations on policy with his own staff, but he cannot legally, under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, claim executive privilege for his contacts with private lobbyists. The U.S. Supreme Court has already upheld the Federal Advisory Committee Act as constitutionally sound.

It is true that Dick Cheney met with many “big player” energy executives and not just Enron executives but that is not the issue or the point of conflict at hand. Dick Cheney is allowed to meet with whomever he wishes to in seeking advise for formulating an energy policy. The issue at hand here, is whether or not he can legally keep these deliberations with outside parties’ secret. Because of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, he cannot. The facts of this case are the similar to that of Hillary Clinton’s Health Care Task Force, which was created in 1993 for forming a socialist health care policy. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons filed a request using the Federal Advisory Committee Act to obtain documents concerning the meetings and deliberations of Hillary’s Health Care Task Force, which also included outside lobbying contacts. The Clinton White House denied this Association’s request, so they filed suit. The Court ruled in favor of the Physicians Association and Hillary Clinton had to release these documents; not long afterward her plan to reform the health care system of America failed. Judicial Watch and the GAO are filing their cases through the same court system. Dick Cheney may believe that he is immune to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, but he is not. The law is the law regardless of whether one is Hillary Clinton or Dick Cheney.

Without the discovery of the energy task force documents being released to the public, we will never know for sure how much Enron influenced the Bush Administration's energy policy. An forthcoming and open government tends to be very an honest and the best thing for the Bush Administration to do, is to just release these documents, because they won’t win in court and they can’t dodge the law. I would like to believe that they are better than that and hopefully better than the behavior that has characterized the Clinton era.

[d14truth]

By the way, NRDC and Judicial Watch both want this information to institute lawsuits in which we, the taxpayer, will foot the bill. (Just in case someone was thinking this was being done out of a 'concern' for the truth.)

[lepton]

"What is even more distressing is that" there were at least 11 other requests for the same documents.

How is that even remotely relevant? ..And it's "more distressing".