WASHINGTON, April 2 (UPI) -- A U.S. federal judge has ordered agencies that worked on Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force to unseal its documents, the Washington Post reported.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled employees of the Department of the Interior and Department of Energy could not claim special confidentiality privileges for private meetings with energy industry representatives.
Friedman said the agencies must search for and produce records of their employees' task force assignments by June 1.
The ruling was a small victory for the National Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, and Judicial Watch, a government watchdog organization, have been trying for three years to obtain the records.
"The court's ruling is a wake-up call to the Bush administration," said NRDC senior attorney Sharon Buccino. "Once Congress and the American people finally get the details about what happened at the task force's closed-door meetings, the administration's energy plan will be revealed for what it is -- a payback to corporate polluters."
