{"id":5914,"date":"2005-11-23T11:29:03","date_gmt":"2005-11-23T16:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5914"},"modified":"2005-11-23T11:29:03","modified_gmt":"2005-11-23T16:29:03","slug":"it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-participation-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-participation-is\/","title":{"rendered":"It depends on what the meaning of ‘participation’ is"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, it seemed the CEOs from the nation’s biggest oil companies had been caught dead to rights. During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing over escalating energy prices, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) asked the five CEOs if their company, or any of its representatives, participated in Vice President Cheney’s energy task force in 2001. They said they hadn’t, which became a tad controversial when a White House document surfaced showing they did<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Never fear, clever Republican attorneys can explain everything<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Marnie Funk, a spokeswoman for the GOP staff of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, one of the two panels that convened the hearing, said its lawyers had reached a preliminary conclusion: Based on a court decision in which two groups unsuccessfully challenged the secrecy of the Cheney task force, Funk said the executives appeared to be telling the truth.<\/p>\n

“What we simply determined was that the definition of ‘participation’ was something litigated, and what the court concluded was that attending meetings, and even making presentations, did not rise to the level of fully participating,” Funk said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s the pitch: Dick Cheney (former oilman) led a task force that held secret meetings to shape the nation’s energy policy. As part of the effort, each of the country’s major oil companies spoke to administration officials and contributed information about the issue. In turn, according to the General Accounting Office, the VP “collaborated heavily<\/a>” with the companies’ representatives in shaping policy. But none of this, according to the new defense, constituted “participation” on the part of the companies with Cheney’s work.<\/p>\n

At a minimum, these guys deserve an “A” for creativity.<\/p>\n

Sen. Lautenberg was less amused, saying, “I think we’re getting down to almost a silly discussion.” He’s still asking the Justice Department to investigate whether the oil execs broke the law during their committee testimony.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, it seemed the CEOs from the nation’s biggest oil companies had been caught dead to rights. During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing over escalating energy prices, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) asked the five CEOs if their company, or any of its representatives, participated in Vice President Cheney’s energy task force in 2001. They […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}