Energy Task Force
[5] The Task Force was composed of Vice President Dick Cheney and the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation and Energy, as well as other cabinet and senior administration-level officials.
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), these members held ten meetings over the course of three and a half months with petroleum, coal, nuclear, natural gas, and electricity industry representatives and lobbyists.
[6] The GAO stated that "the National Energy Policy report was the product of a centralized, top-down, short- term, and labor-intensive process that involved the efforts of several hundred federal employees governmentwide".
However, the Policy also states the necessity for plans to improve and expand the current pipeline systems within the US, implying that reliance on oil and natural gas will exist for years to come.
In a section titled "Diversity of Supply", the policy explains why diversifying dependence on foreign oil is a key factor in securing short term stability.
The Obama Administration finalized a new regulation that would require commercial trucks, vans, and buses produced in the years 2014–2018 to be tested for national fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards.
[9] Another goal that President Barack Obama had in regards to efficient energy use was to reduce emissions that are unsafe to the environment, which in turn would result in climate change and cause air and water pollution.
President Obama has started a Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, to aid in policies and programs on a Federal level.
[10] On the grand scale, President Obama is taking measures to protect the American soil, the bodies of water and the atmosphere from severe pollution and other problems caused by inefficient energy use.
The Obama Administration has now modernized the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in order to allow a fair governing on the quality of our environment.
The revision is for better and improved efforts by the Federal agencies on protecting communities, the economy and also to find ways to get the American public to be involved in the decision making.
[12] Most of the activities of the Energy Task Force have not been disclosed to the public, even though Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests (since 19 April 2001) have sought to gain access to its materials.
Additionally, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental advocacy group, filed a suit to obtain the records of the task force meeting in April 2001.
[14] After several years of legal wrangling, in May, 2005 an appeals court permitted the Energy Task Force's records to remain secret.
Vice President Cheney was reported to have met personally with the chief executive officer of BP during the time of the Energy Task Force's activities.
"[22] On July 18, 2007, The Washington Post reported the names of those involved in the Task Force, including at least 40 meetings with interest groups, most of them from energy-producing industries.
Rouse, then vice president of ExxonMobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration; Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron; Jack N. Gerard, then with the National Mining Association; Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute; and Eli Bebout, an old friend of Cheney's from Wyoming who serves in the state Senate and owns an oil and drilling company.
