This concerns the question Lautenberg asked the oil execs about their "participation" in Cheney's task force:The chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co. and Chevron Corp. answered no. The president of Shell Oil Co. said his company did not participate "to my knowledge," and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know.
The Bush administration has refused to identify who participated in the task force meetings. But The Washington Post reported last week that a White House document shows that in 2001, officials from Exxon Mobil, Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil and BP America 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.
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.
"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.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/22/AR2005112201655.html