WASHINGTON – At a Governmental Affairs Committee business meeting Thursday, Chairman Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., announced his intention to issue additional subpoenas to Enron and Arthur Andersen, LLP, as well as to past and current members of Enron’s Board of Directors.
The subpoenas will seek information about Enron’s communications with the White House or other federal agencies regarding the National Energy Policy; their communications with the Commerce Department, the Energy Department, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Export-Import Bank, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Department of Labor; and their communications with the White House regarding those agencies.
“Senator Thompson and I have reached agreement on a number of subpoenas that will go out and, therefore, according to the rules of our Committee, the subpoenas will not need to be voted on by the Committee,” Lieberman said. “We are trying to be as thorough as we can, to turn over every stone we can turn over to understand what government agencies knew about Enron’s practices and whether there was anything they could have, or should have done to prevent the company’s collapse, and to make sure something like this never happens again.”
The subpoenas will request information from January 1992 through December 12, 2001. Lieberman said he would also write letters to the White House and the United States Archivist seeking information about the current and previous White Houses’ contacts with Enron regarding the agencies listed above and the National Energy Policy.
The Committee expects to issue the subpoenas within the next few days.
On February 15, Lieberman issued two subpoenas to Enron and Anderson for their contacts with certain federal regulatory agencies, and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued 51 subpoenas in January.