I've been workin' on the Cheney gang ...

by RonK, Seattle

The investigative arm of Congress has arrived at a dead end in its review of big corporate influence on VP Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force.

"The extent to which submissions from any of these stakeholders were solicited, influenced policy deliberations or were incorporated into the final report is not something that we can determine based on the limited information at our disposal," the GAO said.

Administration officials did not account for much of the money spent on the task force and could not remember whether anyone took official notes during the 10 Cabinet-level meetings the group held in 2001, the investigators said.

Not to worry, though.

Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise advised critics to put the dispute behind them. "Now that the courts have dismissed the GAO lawsuit and GAO has issued its final report, we hope that everyone will focus as strongly as the administration has on meeting America's energy needs," she said.

Congress comes back after Labor Day, we're still in the dark about why everything went dark, and the Energy Bill now in House/Senate conference is a train wreck ... and a train wreck of badly-built trains, at that.

Posted August 25, 2003 07:47 PM | Comments (48)