Barbour, a lobbyist whose clients include utility giant Southern Co ., told Cheney in the March 1, 2001 memo that people expected the Bush administration to carry out policies that would mean "more affordable energy". Barbour headed the RNC from 1993 to 1996.

He noted that a decision was soon expected on whether to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

"A moment of truth is arriving in the form of a decision whether this administration's policy will be to regulate and/or tax CO2 as a pollutant," Barbour wrote.

"The question is whether environmental policy still prevails over energy policy with Bush-Cheney, as it did with Clinton-Gore," Barbour continued.

"Demurring on the issue of whether the CO2 idea is eco-extremism, we must ask, do environmental initiatives, which would greatly exacerbate the energy problems, trump good energy policy, which the country has lacked for eight years?"

Two weeks later, Bush pulled the United States from the Kyoto Treaty, an international attempt to limit greenhouse gases.

Bush said that the Kyoto treaty's proposed reduction in U.S. emissions by about 7 percent below 1990 levels during 2008-2012 would be too costly to the American economy.

This was a change of stance from the Republican president's campaign pledge that carbon dioxide was a pollutant, and thus susceptible to emission controls.

But the White House denied that Bush had been swayed by the Barbour memo.

"The decisions that the president made related to his national energy plan were done so based on the merits and the benefits to the American people," said White House spokeswoman Anne Womack.

The Commerce, Transportation, and Energy departments all released papers to Judicial Watch last week; the Barbour memo was among the Commerce documents. The Energy Department also released some papers to the environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Both groups sued for the papers under the Freedom of Information Act, alleging environmentalists had been largely shut out of administration deliberations with representatives of industry - such as the failed Enron Corp . - that led to a pro-oil drilling, pro-nuclear policy last year.

But both groups complained that 400 pages of the Energy Department releases were late, and said they would be returning to court to demand some papers that have not been released.

The Energy Department produced a 532-page list with brief descriptions of 4,418 documents it does not intend to release.

President Bush vowed earlier this year to keep details of his inter-agency task force secret, saying the administration had the right to private advice. The White House is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act, and none of its documents on the energy task force have been released.

However two lawsuits are pending to try and force it to do so. One is by Judicial Watch; the other is by the The General Accounting Office, which is suing to get the papers as part of Congress' oversight of the executive branch.

The House of Representatives last year approved an energy plan that reflected much of what Bush wanted, but the Senate passed a different version last week, and negotiators are expected to take months working out the differences.