Judge Won't Kill Cheney Energy Suits

WASHINGTON (AP) - A judge on Thursday rebuffed a Bush administration effort to kill lawsuits aimed at revealing the inner workings of Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s energy task force.

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U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said he will allow the private groups Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club (news - web sites) to take the first step in delving into the operations of the task force.

Run by Cabinet heads, the Cheney panel directed federal agencies in writing a plan last year that focused on expanding energy production — a position favored by the industry.

Sullivan said he may require that any material from the Cheney panel be turned over to him instead of to the private groups until he decides whether there is a legal basis for the case to proceed.

The administration maintains that only government employees were members of the task force, which disbanded last year. But the conservative group Judicial Watch alleges that former Enron chairman Ken Lay and lobbyists Mark Racicot, Haley Barbour and Thomas Kuhn were members.

Racicot is now Republican National Committee (news - web sites) chairman. The ex-Enron chairman and the three current and former lobbyists are defendants in the Judicial Watch case, with which the Sierra Club lawsuit has been combined.

Outside the courtroom, Alex Levinson of the Sierra Club said that "if Enron wrote part of the White House's energy policy, we want to know about it." The White House has acknowledged half a dozen meetings between Enron and Cheney or his aides on the task force.