WASHINGTON, March 23: A US Senate committee has issued subpoenas to Enron Corp. board members to ask about their contacts with the Bush and Clinton administrations, including communications on energy policy, a committee spokeswoman said late on Friday.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee issued 29 subpoenas to Enron, its former auditing firm Andersen and members of the board going back to 1992, said committee spokeswoman Leslie Phillips.

The subpoenas ask them for documents about their White House contacts during the administrations of President George W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton and federal agencies that regulated the bankrupt former energy giant, Phillips added.

The committee is chaired by Sen Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat.

It is the first time a Congressional committee has sought to subpoena information linked to the White House since 10 House of Representatives and Senate panels began probes of Enron’s collapse late last year.

But the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has gone to court to try to get information about industry executives consulted by the Bush White House while it crafted its energy policy a year ago.

Those who will receive committee subpoenas include former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, a longtime and generous donor to Bush’s political campaigns, as well as Jeffrey Skilling, the former chief executive of the collapsed energy trader, Phillips said.

Subpoenas also were being sent to Enron director Wendy Gramm, wife of Texas Republican Sen Phil Gramm, and Lord John Wakeham, a former Conservative minister in Britain who left Enron’s board last month, Phillips added.

In December, Enron filed the largest bankruptcy in the US history, wiping out thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in equity held by employees and other investors.

Bush has sought to distance himself from the scandal, and so far the political fallout form the company’s collapse has been limited. High-ranking Bush administration officials say Lay telephoned them asking for help last year as the company faced bankruptcy but that they did nothing and the president knew nothing about it.—Reuters