The 'looming crisis' over oil isn't about an oil shortage. It is about the amount of time a US president serves, and how much an oil energy president can exploit their power for their own financial benefit, and the benefit of their cronies. Four years minimum, eight years maximum. In other words, critics of the Bush administration are concerned about much more than the idiotic 'energy policy' proposed by the administration. Those critics are also concerned with a corporate monopolization of the energy industry, with the industry created California "energy crisis" and with corporate and government corruption at the highest levels of government, to benefit those in power in both government and industry who are, through their association with the Bush administration officials at the highest levels.

The first problem with the Cheney Energy Task Force is it's secrecy, and refusal by the White House, Justice Department, DoE, and other government agencies, to allow the public to be privy to and part of the process of setting energy policy.

The second problem is with the privatization of government services, well underway during the Clinton administration, and now running rampant and roughshod over the best interests of the US citizenry in the Bush administration. The US government is not a corporation, and executive privlege in the administrative branch of the US government is not equatable to propriety information for US corporations. The Bush administration has always been clear that it intends to privatize/corporatize as much of the government process as it can get away with on their watch, and to run the government as if it were a corporation. Perhaps that is acceptable to some US citizens, but many US citizens disagree strongly with the privatization of government services (particularly with the level of corruption it engenders in both the public and private sectors), and with the philosophical underpinnings of those who believe the mission of government is best achieved by serving private interests before public interests, in a vain pursuit of what they now refer to as "accountability".

Another problem that was raised by Teribus, is the process which grants Framework Contractors exclusive commercial rights to doing the government's business. There is absolutely no evidence that shows this is a more efficient and cost effective way to accomplish governmental tasks and provide government services. No studies on how best to accomplish the tasks and provide services has ever been done. It is clear, however, that the current process of granting exclusive commercial rights to corporations with strong ties to the government officials who grant those rights, is extremely lucrative to those corporations who gain such favored status from the government.

The setting of policy by a democratically elected government is meant to be transparent, and the information upon which the making of public policy is based, must always be available to the public. Please note Teribus and Stark, that I said public policy, not the privleging of corporate marauders. There is no legitimate argument that can be made that information gathered about the oil resources of the planet, is sensitive intelligence that rises to the level of national security. The information gathered and disseminated regarding the use and exploitation of the planet's oil and gas reserves is a matter of public policy, not national security.

However, there is a whole lot of information being gathered by our government to benefit the corporations this current administration wishes to favor with government contracts. As has been noted here, there is nothing sinister about the information being gathered (ie the maps, etc.) that was brought to light by the Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit. What is sinister and highly suspect, is the insistence of the Bush administration, the participating corporations, and the Energy Task Force Committee's refusal to make the process transparent and accountable to the public. We are talking about energy, not military affairs and national defense. There is no reason for the secrecy surrounding the making of US government energy policies, unless there is corruption involved, and/or there is the appearance (at the very least) of impropriety in terms of who will benefit from the policy. We as citizens have the right to know who will benefit, at what cost, and to whom.

Considering the track record of corruption and government influence buying by major players involved in the Energy Task Force, including Enron and Kenneth Lay, every genuine citizen of the US should be demanding a high level inquiry into the Energy Task Force, to investigate the accountability and transparency of the process, including but not limited to the granting of government energy contracts, and the very real possibility that the Bush administration had, prior to 9/11, established a timeline for seizing control of Caspian and Middle East oil fields either by military intervention, or by proxy (ie via Israel and Arab allies in the region) under the guise of national security.