Oil Executives & the Bush Administration: Links & Investigations

(1)A White House document shows oil executives met with Vice President Dick Cheney's 2001 energy task force which critics say secretly formed energy policy favorable to the industry, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The document, obtained this week by the newspaper, shows that officials from four major oil companies met in the White House complex with Cheney aides who were formulating the Bush administration's energy policy, the report said. The newspaper said the document shows that officials from Exxon MobilCorp. , Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met with the Cheney aides.

(2)When Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., asked last week during a hearing on oil industry profits whether any of the companies' representatives had participated in the task force, four of the executives said they did not and the fifth said he did not know. The oil executives weren't put under oath at the hearing, but it is still a crime to lie to Congress, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Fuss. Lautenberg wants the Justice Department to look into it. "It's bad enough to hide the truth to the American people, but it's illegal to make false statements to the Congress, whether you've raised your right hand or you haven't," Lautenberg said.

Here's the deal: the oil companies were there to answer questions about recent prces, especially after Katrina, and suddenly with this leaked information, this story as gotten legs. As a New deal Democrat, the whole situation strikes me as one of the greatest bell-wethers of what's to come. This is the test of wether America is once again home to the Robber-Barons, and this time they're not building libraries. Sources: (1)Oil execs met Cheney task force: WP - ABC News, November 16 (2)Congress To Oil Execs: Clarify - CBS news, November 17