Critics have long suspected that the Bush administration’s energy policy was the result of very cozy relations with corporations, and now they’ve got the evidence to back it up: Eighteen of the energy industry’s top 25 financial contributors to the Republican Party advised Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force, according to interviews and election records. The White House has refused to release the names of consultants to the energy policy, which calls for additional oil and gas drilling and the building of 1,300 to 1,900 more power plants over the next 20 years. The General Accounting Office has sued Cheney for a list of advisors to the task force, and a federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Energy Department to turn over 7,500 pages of related documents, after the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
