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Hotel Booking The Supreme Court gave what seemed like a sympathetic hearing to Vice President Cheney's arguments for White House confidentiality yesterday, as several justices expressed concern about the validity of lawsuits by two public interest groups trying to gain access to the internal workings of the energy policy task force Cheney headed in 2001.

Three weeks before the trip, the court agreed to hear an appeal of a case in which the Sierra Club sought information about who had participated in private meetings of Mr. Cheney's energy task force in 2001. Justice Scalia's decision to go hunting with someone who had litigation pending before the court prompted editorial pages across the country to echo the Sierra Club's belief that the public might believe he could not render an impartial ruling.

Travel Agency The Sierra Club, a liberal environmental organization, and Judicial Watch, a conservative anti-corruption organization, say that Cheney's task force was not a purely governmental body but took heavy input from energy-industry lobbyists and therefore must disclose its deliberations under a federal open-meetings law governing public-private advisory commissions.

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Cheap Hotel A federal district judge, in a ruling that was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has granted them access to some of the task force's records to try to prove that claim.

A federal appeals court Tuesday rejected the Bush administration's bid to stop a lawsuit that seeks to delve into the energy industry's ties to Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force. 1 ruling, the court said administration officials must turn over some information about the task force or list specific documents that they intend to withhold from the proceedings. The administration argues that the lawsuit by the Sierra Club and a conservative group, Judicial Watch, is an unwarranted intrusion into the internal deliberations of the executive branch of government.

Flight Booking But members of the Supreme Court repeatedly implied that they see some merit in the Bush administration's argument that it would violate the separation of powers to require disclosure of conversations among the president's advisers based on the Sierra Club's and Judicial Watch's accusation that energy lobbyists were "de facto" members of the task force.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal by Vice President Dick Cheney of lower court rulings that could open the door to taxpayers knowing what industry representatives told his energy task force. This is a step that shouldn't be necessary, either from a legal standpoint or in terms of the Bush administration's interests. What is it all about There has been a suspicion that the task force that helped devise the administration's energy policy was helped along by officials from Enron and other energy companies that might have profited from the policy the task force recommended. This suspicion is augmented by Cheney's resolutely fighting in the courts to keep the slightest word on the matter from getting out.

Travel Agent "They talked to a lot of people, got a lot of advice," Justice John Paul Stevens told Paul Orfanedes, a lawyer for Judicial Watch. "Does that make them de facto members of the committee?" When Orfanedes responded that "these are not mere unsupported allegations," Stevens replied: "Well, I'm not sure that's right."

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Hotel Chicago The complex legal issues in Cheney v. U.S. District Court, No. 03-475, have been overshadowed in recent weeks by a related debate over Justice Antonin Scalia's refusal to recuse himself from the case. The Sierra Club said Scalia's impartiality was questionable because of his January duck hunting trip with Cheney on an oil-services entrepreneur's land in Louisiana. But Scalia said that no reasonable person could question his impartiality because the case does not expose Cheney, an acknowledged social friend, to any criminal or civil punishment.

Online Booking Scalia was in court yesterday, and implied that he, too, thinks that the Sierra Club-Judicial Watch lawsuits are misconceived.

Travel Health Insurance "Involvement of private individuals in the task force does not equate with membership of private individuals in the task force," he noted.

Hotel Reservation The political stakes in the case are high, as well. If the internal records of the energy task force show that officials of such companies as the now-discredited Enron Corp. were intimately involved in formulating Bush administration policy, as the administration's opponents in the case suspect, it would be a major embarrassment for the president.

London Hotel Booking For its part, the administration is seeking Supreme Court validation of one key aspect of its broader attempt to keep internal White House information off-limits to the media, Congress and interest groups.

Discount Travel The mere fact that Stevens, Scalia and other members of the court were challenging the basis of the lawsuit was a victory for Theodore B. Olson, the U.S. solicitor general, who represented Cheney in court yesterday.

Orlando Hotel Technically, what is before the court is the district court's 2002 order granting Cheney's opponents "discovery" -- a legal term meaning access to documents and testimony -- so they can try to substantiate their claim that the National Energy Policy Development Group, which operated from January to September 2001, was actually a public-private body made up of Cheney and other officials, plus "de facto" members from the energy lobby.

Booking Agency If it was, then Cheney would be required to disclose its internal proceedings under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, or FACA.

International Travel Medical Normally, the Supreme Court would not hear a challenge to a lower court's discovery order before it has been precisely formulated with input from both parties to the case, as remains to be done in this case.

New York Hotel Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg drove home that point yesterday, referring to that "firm, final judgment rule" as "the first hurdle" Olson would have to clear before presenting his challenge.

Online Travel Booking But Olson argued that this case is unique, because it touches on the very process of policy deliberation within the White House.

Travel Medical Insurance Since FACA itself is a disclosure law, he noted, granting the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch the right to look through the task force's papers would be tantamount to giving them a victory in the lawsuit itself.

Miami Hotel Olson objected to what he called "the forcing of the president to submit to litigation and discovery -- which, if permitted in this case, could be in any case comparable to it anytime advice is being sought from a citizen or from subordinates who may have then talked to citizens."

Air Deccan Booking The only alternative in such situations, he argued, would be the time-consuming process of formally asserting executive privilege, which the White House has not yet done in this case.

Las Vegas Nevada Travel Justice Anthony M. Kennedy suggested to Olson that perhaps the White House should have asserted the privilege before beginning its appeals of the district court's discovery order.

Las Vegas Nv Hotel But Olson replied that the "case goes far beyond the assertion of executive privilege . . . the objection here is to the process. The president and vice president are being subjected to litigation and discovery which goes far beyond what the [FACA] statute would require."

Hotel Florence Booking Online A decision is expected by July.

Orlando Travel By Charles Lane
Washington Post - 4/28/2004

Topic: White House

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