Well, I'm shocked.

Today, the Washington Post reported that representatives from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco, Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met with Dick Cheney's energy task force in 2001 to provide "detailed energy policy recommendations". Even more strangely (right), the Big Oil executives who met with Congress last week either denied being part of the task force meetings, or said they didn't know whether any of their officials had participated.

According to the article, environmentalists had suspected that the oil companies had been invited to the White House, but there was no proof until now.

The task force's activities attracted complaints from environmentalists, who said they were shut out of the task force discussions while corporate interests were present. The meetings were held in secret and the White House refused to release a list of participants. The task force was made up primarily of Cabinet-level officials. Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club unsuccessfully sued to obtain the records.

As some political bloggers have been saying, no wonder the executives weren't sworn in for last week's congressional hearings.