An environmental group sues the Cuomo administration to secure the release of documents that would shed more light on how the state drafted its plan to permit high-volume hydraulic fracturing for shale gas.
But the public dissent, which brought to the surface long-running debates that had been going on behind closed doors while the administration was drafting its plan, has taken senior Obama aides by surprise.
Yesterday, Speaker Gifford Miller cautioned that the Council was just beginning to draft its position, although he plans to reach a resolution with the administration by early next week.
The Republican majority in the State Senate is drafting its own plan, and may be ready to present it to Mr. Lacey on Monday, officials said.
But one official cautioned that Mr. Bush's national security team was still drafting its negotiating plan, and that the outcome of the talks was far from certain.
The accounting office is investigating how the administration drafted its energy plan and has demanded the names of business executives and lobbyists who visited the White House to express their views.
The Bush administration has moved away from an international agreement, known as the Kyoto Protocol, to cap global-warming emissions, but California has drafted its own plan and several Northeastern states may follow suit.
If the agency gets the lesser Senate amount, under the current rules requiring the money up front, Burkina Faso, a West African country that has spent more than two years qualifying for and drafting its $560 million to $620 million plan, will get nothing, agency officials said.
In 1993, on behalf of AAPS, Orient filed suit to force the Clinton Administration to reveal the inner workings of the committee drafting its 1,300-page 1,300-pageeform" health care.
Drafting its final plan, due next summer, the Legislature has shown bipartisan sympathy for the issue, said State Assemblywoman Sheila J. Kuehl (D-Santa Monica).
