Responding to a request from US Senate energy leaders, five multinational oil company executives who testified at a Nov. 9 hearing on oil profits said they were not members of Vice-President Dick Cheney’s energy policy task force early in 2001.
Four of the five also said their companies were not represented on the task force, formally known as the National Energy Policy Development Group.
The fifth, ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Officer James Mulva, said the group did its work when Phillips Petroleum Co. and Conoco Inc. were separate companies and he was chief executive of Phillips, which also did not participate.
Mulva noted that a Nov. 16 Washington Post report said two Conoco officials, Archie B. Dunham and Alan Huffman, attended or participated in a Cheney energy policy task force meeting in 2001.
He said he based his answer-“We did not, no”-on his knowledge of Phillips before its merger with Conoco when Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) asked him and the other four executives during the hearing if their companies or any representatives from them participated on the Cheney energy policy task force.
“During Mr. Dunham’s tenure as chairman of ConocoPhillips (from August 2002 until his retirement in September 2004), I recall no discussions between us related to the task force,” Mulva said in his written response to Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) and Chief Minority Member Jeff Bingaman (D-NM).
“To my knowledge, I have never met Mr. Huffman, and I understand that he was employed by ConocoPhillips for only a brief time after the merger,” Mulva continued.
‘Apparent inconsistencies’
Domenici and Bingaman asked the five executives to provide written clarification to their responses by Nov. 30 because of “apparent inconsistencies” raised in the Post’s Nov. 16 story. Lautenberg’s question reflected allegations that major oil companies played a direct role in formulating the administration’s energy policy early in President George W. Bush’s first term.
The executives essentially denied this. But they also said they and other representatives of their companies regularly provide government officials and other interested parties information on energy issues.
ExxonMobil Corp. said in a statement that Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lee R. Raymond’s response-“No”-to Lautenberg’s question on Nov. 9 was correct.
“Our absence from [the Cheney] task force meetings is not to be confused with a failure to share information on energy supply and demand matters with a broad audience,” the company said in a statement posted on its web site.
It said ExxonMobil officials met with Bush administration officials on Feb. 14, 2001, at the company’s request to provide its assessment of global energy supplies and demand. The company officials also supplied the information the same day to Congress’s Government Accountability Office and to Democratic and Republican staff members from Senate and House energy committees, the statement said.
Chevron Corp. Chief Executive Officer David J. O’Reilly reiterated on Nov. 18 that he and others from that company did not attend meetings of the Cheney task force in 2001 or discuss its activities or meet with administration officials concerning its work.
O’Reilly told Domenici and Bingaman that he did write the White House a letter on Feb. 5, 2001, outlining energy policy recommendations, which he shared “with over 90 members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, including both of you, and with officials of the administration.”
Routine meetings
Chevron employees discussed energy policy questions with various administration officials and their staff members early in Bush’s first term, said O’Reilly, but these meetings were routine and were not directly about the task force.
He added that he and other oil executives met with then-Sec. of Energy Spencer Abraham on Feb. 21, 2001, “with the express purpose of making our introductions to a newly named cabinet member.”
Ross J. Pillari, president and chief executive of BP America Inc., said representatives of that company provided comments on a range of energy issues to staff members from the Cheney energy policy task force. “We provided comments and information much like we continue to do, on a routine basis, with members of Congress and the administration,” he said.
Shell Oil Co. Pres. John D. Hofmeister said he was not aware of any meetings between representatives of that company and the Cheney task force. “However, Shell representatives did meet with the administration, including the vice-president and his staff, on a broad range of energy policy issues,” he told Domenici and Bingaman.
Mulva also said representatives from Phillips and ConocoPhillips “have had many meetings with various members of the administration, just as we did with representatives of prior administrations.”
Mulva added, “We value greatly our opportunities to provide information, assistance, and our company’s perspective concerning energy policy to our nation’s elected and appointed officials.”
The responses may not satisfy Lautenberg, who said Nov. 23 that representatives from major oil companies could have participated in the Cheney task force’s work without actually being members by presenting information that influenced its conclusions.✦
