Documents from the Cheney energy task force, grudgingly released (but heavily redacted) after a court order as a result of FOIA requests, show "how oil industry lobbyists not only played a pivotal role in developing the administration's national energy strategy, they wrote much of it themselves."
The
Cheney Energy Task Force (see the slide show)
Quote:
Among the more significant revelations unearthed from the heavily redacted documents:
* A March 20, 2001 email from the American Petroleum Institute to an Energy Department official provided a draft Executive Order on energy. Two months later, President Bush issued Executive Order 13211, which is nearly identical in structure and impact to the API draft, and nearly verbatim in a key section.
* In March 2001, a Southern Company lobbyist emailed a DOE official suggesting "another issue" for inclusion in the energy plan: so-called reform of the Clean Air Act and related enforcement actions. The suggestion was incorporated into the energy plan, launching the Administration's controversial effort to weaken the Clean Air Act and retreat from high-profile enforcement actions against the nation's largest polluters, including the Southern Company.
http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020327.asp
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With influence like this, the oil industry can get any model it wants.