The first one involves whether the White House can continue to keep secret records of Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force, which shaped the controversial energy bill currently stalled in the Senate. The second case involves whether the Administration should have to conduct an environmental study before issuing permits to trucks from Mexico.

In the energy task force case, public interest groups won access to some information about who was on the task force and how it operated, but Cheney appealed.

Created by presidential executive order in 2001, the task force routinely met behind closed doors and recommended a host of industry-backed proposals, such as opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and many other public lands to oil and gas drilling. Cheney has repeatedly refused to reveal who his group met with, even to Congress's investigative arm, the General Accounting Office.[1]

In the Mexican trucks case, a federal appeals court ruled in January that the Administration violated environmental laws when it took steps to grant Mexican trucks full access to U.S. highways without adequately reviewing their environmental impact. The Bush Administration then asked the Supreme Court to step in, even though the Department of Transportation had already begun to comply with the court order.

At least 30,000 Mexico-domiciled diesel trucks could enter the U.S. per year, including many older, pre-1994 trucks that are the most egregious polluters. A study shows that by the year 2010, trucks from Mexico will emit twice as much particulate matter and nitrogen oxides as U.S. trucks.[2]

Meanwhile, one of the Supreme Court justices who will decide "Cheney v U.S. District Court" was the guest of the vice president last week, the Washington Post reports.[3] Justice Antonin Scalia joined Administration leaders celebrating the holidays at the Cheneys' Christmas party in the vice president's residence last Thursday.