Dateline: 09/08/01

The General Accounting Office (GAO) on Friday announced its intentions to take the White House to court in order to obtain information showing to what extent the energy industry may have influenced President Bush's national energy policy released on May 17.

Since late May, the GAO, the investigative watchdog agency of Congress, has been requesting that Vice President Cheney voluntarily supply a list of energy industry officials who conferred with the White House in the creation of the energy policy. Cheney and the White House, however, have consistently refused to turn over the information.

After the White House again refused on Thursday to cooperate with the GAO, Comptroller General David Walker said in a prepared statement, "We are finalizing discussions with key congressional leaders and are preparing for possible litigation. This is a very significant matter with significant potential implications for the GAO, Congress and the American people."

All previous disputes between the GAO and presidential administrations over supplying investigative information have been settled without court action.

Federal agencies, including the White House, can block the GAO from seeking subpoenas to seize information by filing "letters of certification" testifying that the release of the information could "substantially impair" the agency's ability to conduct government operations.

The White House has not yet filed such a letter of certification in relationship to Cheney's energy task force meetings.

U.S. Reps. John Dingell of Michigan and Henry Waxman of California originally asked the GAO to investigate charges that top energy industry officials had been allowed improper access to Vice President Cheney's energy task force through a series of closed-door meetings held during preparation of the national energy policy.

Information provided so far by the White House was called "clearly inadequate" by the GAO in its statement released on Friday.

Late Friday, Vice President Cheney's spokeswoman, Juleanna Glover Weiss, stated that the White House did not believe the GAO had legal authority to demand the information.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, in a Friday press conference stated, "It is not a matter of public purview for each and every meeting, of each and every minute, of the president and the vice president each and every day to be reported publicly."

Under Title 31- Chapter 7, Subchapter 2, section 712 of the U.S. Code the GAO is granted the authority to:

• (1) investigate all matters related to the receipt,
  disbursement, and use of public money;

• (2) estimate the cost to the United States Government of
  complying with each restriction on expenditures of a specific
  appropriation in a general appropriation law and report each
  estimate to Congress with recommendations the Comptroller General
  considers desirable;

• (3) analyze expenditures of each executive agency the
  Comptroller General believes will help Congress decide whether
  public money has been used and expended economically and
  efficiently;

• (4) make an investigation and report ordered by either House of
  Congress or a committee of Congress having jurisdiction over
  revenue, appropriations, or expenditures; and
  
  
• (5) give a committee of Congress having jurisdiction over
  revenue, appropriations, or expenditures the help and information
  the committee requests.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) is an independent, non-partisan branch of Congress designated to study the programs and expenditures of the federal government. It investigates how taxpayer dollars are spent and reports to Congress and the heads of executive agencies about ways to make government more effective and responsive.