EMPIRE: OIL

From the Wilderness: IN YOUR FACE

- Connections between Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force, 9/11 and Peak Oil “On the Table”

- July '04 Supreme Court Ruling on Secrecy, Task Force Documents Obtained through FOIA Suit on Collision Course as Cheney “Duck Hunts” with Scalia

- The Reason Why Activists of All Stripes are Ineffective

January 29, 2004 1700 PST ( FTW ) – Nothing can change the facts.

When, in May 2001, the conservative legal watchdog group Judicial Watch filed suit to see the records of Dick Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), it was the first to protest the unheard of secrecy at the energy task force. As the White House stonewalled, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) filed suit the following February. Congress had, after all, funded the project. Non-governmental officials had played major roles in its deliberations and, under the Constitution, the GAO had an obligation to see how the money was spent and what was produced. White House refusals prompted media speculation about deals with Enron and big oil companies; a divvying of spoils, a rape of the environment. Judicial Watch was later joined in its suit by the Sierra Club. A scandal for everyone!

It's a sure bet that of all the plaintiffs; from Congressman Henry Waxman (D – CA) and Comptroller General David Walker who fought for the GAO; to Judicial Watch's Larry Klayman, who had previously fought Bill Clinton; to the environmentalists, none had a clue as to what they were really asking for or why Dick Cheney fought them so ruthlessly.

The fight was just beginning.