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Show jrfl j n Vs v 1 1 "1 1 ' I Sunshine on Energy 4 By DAVID COHEN Oil company executives openly acknowledge that the public doesn't believe them about fuel shortages. Consumers are angered by rising prices. The Carter Administration has moved back and forth with uncertain direction on the energy issue, alternately attacking Congress, consumers, and the oil industry. Congress has refused to deal with the energy problem in any serious way. And the newly-formed Department Depart-ment of Energy completed its first year behind "closed doors." The DOE leads all federal agencies in the number of freedom of information requests it denies. Sixty percent of all requests for information infor-mation the DOE received in its first year of operation were partially or fully denied, according accord-ing to a recent Common Cause study. Seventy-five Seventy-five per cent of those denials that were appealed ap-pealed were reversed at least to some extent. If a judge's decisions were reversed three-quarters three-quarters of the time, that judge would be viewed as being ignorant of the law. The Energy Department is plainly flouting the freedom free-dom of information law. DOE has other bad secret habits. It withholds from the public almost al-most three-quarters of the raw data it collects from energy reports. Some special interests do get inside access to information that is refused the public. In a recent investigation of the Energy Department, the newly created independent Inspector General Gen-eral (IG)-the DOE office that blows the whistle on department fraud and abuse found that the Energy Department provided confidential information in-formation to an oil industry trade association lobbyist before releasing this information to the David Cohen is President of Common Cause, a non-partisan citizens ' lobby. public. The IG concluded that the Energy Department De-partment had "maintained a double standard of access to information" that favored the American Petroleum Institute. President Carter and the Congress ought to take the IG report seriously by insisting on adequate staff for the Inspector General so that the large scale fraud and abuse that the IG says is "now undetected, unprevented, and unpunished" un-punished" stops immediately. How can policies be sensibly evaluated or issues fairly discussed if vital information is locked up or oil and gas interests get favored treatment by the Department? How do we reduce our growing dependence on foreign oil imports, increase our supplies, accept conservation practices and develop alternative al-ternative energy resources? How do we muster the kind of public support and national commitment commit-ment required to give serious solutions a chance? The answers are not easy. But one thing is certain. The Department of Energy must end its pro-secrecy policy. What cannot be done administratively should be done by Congressional action. Whether it is crude oil stocks, uranium resources, or other matters, the public, Congress and other sectors of the federal government have a right to know what is behind the information and to 'make sure fraud is stopped. Americans are historically selfless in times of crisis. But no one is going to sacrifice in ignorance. |