E.g.

BIG OIL

Wayne Gibben CONOCO April 12
Alan Huffman CONOCO April 12
Alby Modiano CONOCO April 12
Kevin Brown Sinclair Oil March 21, 2 p.m.
Clint Ensign Sinclair Oil March 21, 2 p.m.
Kathi Wise Sinclair Oil March 21, 2 p.m.
Willie Hensley Alyeska Pipeline Service Company March 7, 9 a.m.
Lindsay Hooper Small Refiners Group March 15, 10 a.m.
Paul Freer Marathon Oil, Conoco, Amerada March 29, 2 p.m.
Rick Shelby AGA Leadership Council March 26
Sir Mark Moody-Stuart Shell Oil April 17, 10 a.m.
Steven Miller Shell Oil April 17, 10 a.m.

DAMN GREENIES!

The Stella Group March 28, 10 a.m.
National Bioenergy Industries Association March 28, 10 a.m.
Jaime Steve American Wind Energy Association March 28, 10 a.m.
Glen Hamer Solar Energy Industry Association March 28, 10 a.m.
Karl Gawell Geothermal Energy Association March 28, 10 a.m.
The Alliance to Save Energy David Nemtzow March 28, 10 a.m.
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy Howard Geller March 28, 10 a.m.
Environmental Energy Study Institute Beth Bliel March 28, 10 a.m.
Environmental Energy Study Institute Carol Werner March 28, 10 a.m.
American Biomass Association Meagan Smith March 28, 10 a.m.
American Green David Flory March 28, 10 a.m.

Howard Ris Union of Concerned Scientists April 4, 10 a.m.
Alden Meyer Union of Concerned Scientists April 4, 10 a.m.
Elizabeth Thompson Environmental Defense April 4, 10 a.m.
Roger Rufe Center for Marine Conservation April 4, 10 a.m.
Jim Lyon National Wildlife Federation April 4, 10 a.m.
Erich Picha Friends of the Earth April 4, 10 a.m.
Alyssondra Campaigne Natural Resources Defense Counsel April 4, 10 a.m.
Deborah Callahan League of-Conservation Voters April 4, 10 a.m.
Robert Musil Physicians for Social Responsibility April 4, 10 a.m.
Anna Aurilio US Public Interest Research Group April 4, 10 a.m.
Katherine Silverthorne World Wildlife Fund April 4, 10 a.m.
Sandra Sshubert [sic] EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund April 4, 10 a.m.
Robert Dewey Defenders of Wildlife April 4, 10 a.m.
Kevin Curtis National Environmental Trust April 4, 10 a.m.

Can't be giving those representative bodies too much time can we?

A message for anyone considering Whistleblowing. Do it now - you could embarrass a lot of important people and stop bad things happening before they do.

Keith Farnish
www.theearthblog.org

Keith Farnish www.theearthblog.org

Were the participants at those "meetings," or rather communal orange-juice-and-coffee-drinking sessions, sworn to secrecy about whether they had been there?

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Have you noticed how all the similar groups got lumped into single 1-2 hour sessions, yet each oil or major energy company got their own special session with Cheney.

Yeah, an hour or two to tell each and every environmental and alternative energy representative to "go fuck yourself" does seem excessive, even for Cheney.  But then, he did collect the opinions of all the oil company reps first--and there were a lot of them--so I suppose he had to take a few minutes to relay the personalized way each of those organizations chose to express more or less the same sentiment.  Tough as that may have been for the environmentalists, looking back on it, I am sure they are all glad Cheney took the time to cuss each of them out individually instead of taking more of a shotgun approach while he had them all caged for his pleasure.

Well, sounds like maybe the 2nd after Jimmy Carter.  Bill Clinton said he'd never been briefed on peak oil.  I think you're right and have always believed those meetings formed the logic for invading the middle east with a permanent set of bases.   And I think Cheney is an oil industry shill - what they want more than anything else in the whole wide world is access to that middle east nationalized oil.  Which, of course, is what the "new oil law" in Iraq is all about and why both parties support that as an important indicator of `political progress.'

But to predict correctly escalating oil prices you'd have to know about peak oil. And I've heard that Matt Simmons was also one of the people in those meetings - he was absolutely aware of peak oil at the time, and that's always been the basis of my beliefs about what transpired at those meetings. My guess is that it was some combination of Exxon and BP who suggested invading Iraq.

Fighting the release of this list gave Cheney many benefits.  First, time.  Time itself is a resource...as much as the environmental community may have protested the particulars of his Energy Policy itself, much effort, time and money was wasted in arguing for disclosure of who he met and when.  From an effects perspective, that information is essentially meaningless, no more than a red herring to waste time, energy and money of his opponents, I'd bet.  Beyond the lost opportunity costs of time (and money and effort), Cheney wins a modicum of credibility with middle of the road people, while reinforcing his standing in the Fox-watching community.  Why?  He can easily now claim that he met with environmental concerns and gave them due regard.  That shifts the burden back on us, so to speak, to argue conspiracy, that he ignored us, etc.  In a "he said, she said" thing, nobody wins...it's just more of the same old deterioration of virtue, truth and integrity, begotten by process and form without substance.

I just mean, now Cheney can just say, "hey, I met with them.  There was never any issue here.  Now let's get back to the business of serving the American people."  He's a bastard for sure, but incredibly resourceful and intelligent.

There's no reason to let this nonsense of process distract from the reality that renewable energy never really had a chance with Cheney to start with...no matter who he met with.

If balanced means matching supply with rising demand then you could say there was some balance in their energy plan.  If increased permitting, weakened regulation, more mining, more drilling, more imports, and higher prices helped the supplies keep pace with that rising demand then you could say the policy conformed quite well with the only part of the plan that mattered to the ruling class who brought Cheney and Bush to power. The hell with security and the environment.