Obama Balks on Revealing Coal Company Visits to White House

The Secret Service has denied a request from the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, which sought logs of visits by coal company executives. The move comes despite the Obama administration's promises for a new era of transparency in government dealings, and continues a practice begun under the Bush-Cheney White House.

The group says in a statement that it is filing a complaint in federal court against the Department of Homeland Security, under the Freedom of Information Act. In its compalint, CREW states that,

CREW is harmed by DHS’s failure to process CREW’s FOIA request on an expedited basis, because that failure hampers CREW’s ability to satisfy the compelling public need for full, accurate and current information about the influence that executives of the 10 largest coal production companies within the United States have had, or attempted to have, on the president and his administration in formulating the nation’s energy policy. Absent this critical information, CREW cannot advance its mission of educating the public to ensure that the public continues to have a vital voice in government.

The Secret Service also denied a request from MSNBC to release the names of all visitors to the White House since January 20.

The Secret Service claimed in its response to CREW that the logs of visitors to the White House are presidential and vice-presidential records, rather than agency records, and so not governed by Freedom of Information Act statutes, and also protected under a "presidential communications priviledge."

This particular executive privilege argument was pioneered under the Bush administration. It's been rejected twice by federal judges, and is still under litigation. "In late January and again in May, the Obama administration had opportunities to change course, when it filed papers in the appeals court, but stuck with the Bush position," reports MSNBC.

At a press conference today, White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs stated that this is a policy that's under review.

But by any measure, this is a very disheartening decision by the Obama administration, especially coming less than a week after it declined to order a ban on mountaintop removal mining of coal. It enhances a growing perception that President Obama is soft on the politically powerful coal industry. "President Obama and the green activists he has appointed to run his interior-focused regulatory agencies surely know this. But their contortions over mountaintop mining would make a Cirque du Soleil performer wince," wrote the editors of the Los Angeles Times over the weekend. "...Obama is clearly intimidated by coal's powerful lobby. The industry is a major employer in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and other Appalachian states, where miners tend to vote for whichever party is friendliest to Big Coal."

Perhaps this is simply a question of old security theatre habits dying hard. But it's time to lay them to rest. What enhancement of national security or the safety of the President or Vice President will come from withholding the record of who's visited the White House from the public?

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Image: Via White House photostream on Flickr