For the Historical Record

Before they were lying to us about the war and stonewalling on felonious smear campaigns run by the Vice-President's office, there was a little matter of an energy task force. You may remember the many charges from environmentalists that this task force was really just a confab wherein representatives of large oil companies determined the country's energy policy.

But Cheney refused all attempts to force him to reveal who he'd met with, so we could never know for sure. And he got away with it. And while the administration was riding high, and the press was bewitched into fawning transcription, no more could be said.

But the invulnerability of the administration has worn off. As the press has shown a new willingness to actually report, various people in places of minor power are showing their unhappiness with what's been going on, and are leaking information they would have held close before. The facts and the evidence are slowly trickling out all over.

Last week, several of the Big Oil executives testified before a congressional hearing, and said they had not participated in Dick's task force meetings. I guess that was too much for someone on the inside who knew the truth and who knew someone at the Washington Post.

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not participate "to my knowledge," and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know.

Chevron was not named in the White House document, but the Government Accountability Office has found that Chevron was one of several companies that "gave detailed energy policy recommendations" to the task force. In addition, Cheney had a separate meeting with John Browne, BP's chief executive, according to a person familiar with the task force's work; that meeting is not noted in the document.

But, for those of us who, somehow, are able to continue being amazed at the audacity, duplicity, and bold shenanigans of the administration and its supporters, the story holds another bit of sparkle. Those lies to Congress? For some reason, they weren't under oath...

The executives were not under oath when they testified, so they are not vulnerable to charges of perjury; committee Democrats had protested the decision by Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) not to swear in the executives. But a person can be fined or imprisoned for up to five years for making "any materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or representation" to Congress.

To be fair, it seems like the CEOs may just not have known the truth, since they weren't personally involved in the meetings. There have been some mergers and re-orgs since 2001, and oil companies are big organizations.

But you'll note that only one of them said "I don't know."

Perhaps we need an ethics refresher course for our nation's executives. Meanwhile, let the record reflect that, in fact, the energy policy was determined by meeting with the large oil companies.