Energy policy is stuck in a developing constitutional showdown between the US Congress and the administration of President George W. Bush. Congress, through the General Accounting Office (GAO), wants information about administration meetings with outsiders on energy. The administration won't comply.
The dilemma is important legally, politically, and practically. Of the three, the political context has the greatest potential to influence events. Bush and Vice-Pres. Richard Cheney, however, have focused on the legal context, arguing that surrender of records sought for 9 months by congressional Democrats would weaken the Executive Branch. Cheney leads this defense of presidential prerogative.
Weakened presidency
The vice-president told ABC News on the program "This Week" that "unwise compromises" have weakened the presidency for 30-35 years. And he told "Fox News Sunday" that the core issue is "the ability of the president and the vice-president to solicit advice from anybody they want in confidence-get good, solid, unvarnished advice without having to make it available to a member of Congress."
His case is strong. The administration acts willing to argue it in court, where the GAO threatens to take the matter if it doesn't receive meeting logs of an interagency task force, led by Cheney, that produced the administration's energy proposals last year. For now, executive privilege looks like a legally defensible answer to Democratic politicos scrounging for a smoking gun where there is still no sign of a shooting.
Democrats would of course say the meeting logs showed favorable treatment for campaign donors in the making of energy policy. Their prize would be Enron Corp., the Houston energy trader whose bankruptcy has become a scandal. Enron was the Bush campaign's biggest financial supporter. Its representatives are known to have met frequently with the energy task force. Later, its top managers contacted administration officials in futile appeals for federal assistance when their company was collapsing.
Campaign money. Secret meetings. Cozy-sounding phone calls. In an election year, it's all savory meat for scandal stew.
Democrats are making the best of it. That they have yet to find a truly scandalous link between Enron and the Bush team is beside the point. Suspicion, in an election year, is enough. Democrats don't have to prove anything. They just have to sustain suspicion until next November.
Their cause benefits from having energy at the center of controversy. Energy generates automatic suspicion in a political arena that recognizes no difference between energy trading and transportation (Enron), exploration and production (Bush), and oil field services (Cheney).
So it doesn't matter in politics that the centerpiece of the Bush energy proposal-oil and gas leasing of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain-had no direct bearing on Enron's business. It doesn't matter in politics that Enron's calls for financial rescue yielded nothing. What matters in politics are secret meetings, big campaign contributions, and an industry most Americans don't comprehend and therefore suspect of the worst.
Appeals to executive privilege can only aggravate this welter. The constitutional principle suffers from association with the former President Richard Nixon, who used it to keep embarrassing documents away from prying lawmakers. He won his court case. He lost his presidency.
With less extreme consequences, Bush, too, might win legally but certainly will lose politically from obstinacy over executive privilege. And energy policy will be the first casualty. Already, energy has become a question more of campaign finance than of supply security, environmental responsibility, and economic health. Discourse this skewed won't produce durable policy, if it produces any policy at all. That's the practical context of the disclosure controversy.
Worth a donnybrook
The presidency's ability to conduct business is worth a partisan donnybrook. But what says the Bush team surrenders any of that ground if it complies with GAO's request, which doesn't even cover meeting notes? If it keeps up the resistance, the administration will lose on energy policy. Worse, it will appear to have something to hide.
Executive privilege isn't the only constitutional notion at issue here. Within practical limits, the government is supposed to conduct the republic's business in public. Secrecy can be legal and wrong at the same time. The administration should surrender the meeting logs.
