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According to thousands of documents released on orders from a federal court, President Bush's Energy Department met with dozens of energy industry representatives -- including many campaign donors -- while developing the administration's energy policy, shunning consumer and environmental groups. Of the 36 energy industry representatives that met with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, most donated large amounts of unregulated soft money to the Republican party to support President Bush's campaign. A dozen of the companies donated $1.2 million to the GOP, most of which went to elect President Bush. According to the documents, Abraham had no meetings with conservation or consumer groups while developing the Bush administration's energy policy. The Energy Department released the documents under a court order that came as the result of a Freedom of Information request by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Many of the documents had important information blacked out or missing. Some of them had only a subject line, while thousands of documents included in the order were omitted entirely. The NRDC has said it will challenge those omissions in court. The NRDC also disputes claims by the Bush administration that it worked the environmental group's recommendations into its final energy policy. The Department of Energy said that nine NRDC recommendations made it in, but NRDC senior attorney Sharon Buccino called that claim "an outright lie." [Washington Post; 3/26/02]
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