US Vice-President Mr Dick Cheney has for the first time acknowledged that he and his officials had a series of meetings last year to discuss energy policy with Enron, the energy-trading giant which collapsed in November amid accusations of improper financial dealings.
The meetings reveal a close working relationship between the White House and a major Republican contributor and friend of the President, at a time when Mr Cheney was heading a secretive task force to determine a new energy policy.
Mr Cheney has for nine months refused to disclose who was consulted by the task force before it drew up guidelines that advocated drilling in national parks and more energy deregulation.
Enron's chief executive Mr Kenneth Lay was the biggest single donor to President George W Bush's presidential election campaign, and the Houston-based company lobbied heavily in Washington for a more deregulated energy policy.
Details of the contacts were given in a letter faxed from Mr Cheney's White House office to Democratic Congressman Mr Henry Waxman on Capitol Hill. It listed six meetings between the vice-president or staff members on the energy task force and Enron representatives. Four of the meetings, including one between Mr Cheney and Mr Lay on April 17th, took place before the task force issued its recommendations on May 17th.
A day after his meeting with Mr Lay, the vice-president said publicly the Bush administration would reject price caps on wholesale electricity prices as a solution to the energy crisis in California - a policy Enron strongly advocated.
Mr Waxman, the ranking member of the Government Reform Committee, described the contacts as "extensive". He said they raised "questions about how much Enron may have influenced the administration's energy policies or provided information about its own operations". The letter from the vice-president's office stresses that in the meetings the participants "did not discuss information concerning the financial position of the Enron Corporation".
Mr Waxman wrote to the White House on December 4th asking for details of contacts and if Enron had passed on information about its "precarious financial position" at any of the meetings. A House of Representatives hearing on Enron's activities and possible criminal actions by Mr Lay and Enron former president Mr Jeffrey Skilling resume on January 24th.
The Cheney letter "fails to reveal ... the subjects discussed at the meetings; any requests for changes in federal policies made by Enron executives; copies of any documents presented or discussed, and the names of persons attending the meetings," Mr Waxman said.
