Cheney’s Energy Success

[Geee]

National Review:

It’s hard to remember — after Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Blackwater, etc., took turns dominating our collective consciousness — but the Cheney Energy Task Force was once among the gravest of the Bush administration’s sins. Created in the second week of Bush’s first term, it was seen as the birth of the Bush-Cheney hyper-secretive neo-conservative crypto-fascist military-industrial crime syndicate.

Now, Obama frequently brags that under his administration, domestic oil production has hit an eight-year high. As he also points out, however, the president can’t have a significant, instantaneous effect on the energy supply. Indeed, we are currently enjoying this surge of oil production largely because of improvements to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which has increased the oil produced on state and private land. Much of the credit should go to technological innovators and the oilmen who’ve adopted their techniques. But some credit should be reserved for the Cheney Energy Task Force, which established the guidelines for the Bush administration’s response to these developments.

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The Cheney Energy Task Force (proper name: National Energy Policy Development Group) consisted of the vice president; the heads of the Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the secretaries of state, the Treasury, the interior, agriculture, commerce, transportation, and energy; and others. Their mission was simply to develop “a national energy policy designed to help bring together business, government, local communities and citizens to promote dependable, affordable, and environmentally sound energy for the future.” After meeting with about 300 groups and individuals, including representatives from the energy industry and environmental activists, the Task Force published its 169-page National Energy Policy report in the spring of 2001.