Revolving Door Working Group

FRESNO, Calif. — For more than 10 years, Jason Peltier was a paid advocate for the irrigation-dependent farmers here in the Central Valley of California, several hundred landowners who each year consume more water than the city of Los Angeles does.

Now Mr. Peltier works for the Bush administration, and he helps oversee the awarding of new water contracts for the people he used to represent as head of the Central Valley Project Water Users Association. The federal contracts, tying up water for a quarter-century or more from the world's largest irrigation project, have the potential to bring the farmers a huge windfall if they turn around and sell the water on the open market.

At the same time Mr. Peltier — as the deputy assistant secretary for water and science at the Interior Department — is involved with reviewing a request by the water association to stop paying up to $11.5 million a year into an environmental restoration fund, as required by a 1992 law.

Mr. Peltier's role influencing decisions that could have a direct financial impact on his former employer is part of a pattern at the Interior Department over the last five years, critics say, with a revolving door between managers on the government side, and the people who buy or lease federal water, land or forests on the other side.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 — It might be said that Senator John Thune went through the revolving door — backward.

As a lobbyist in 2003 and 2004, Mr. Thune earned $220,000 from the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad, a small but ambitious company in South Dakota. The railroad hopes to rebuild and rehabilitate 1,300 miles of track, the nation's largest proposed railroad expansion in more than a century.

Now, as a junior senator from South Dakota, Mr. Thune is working to make that happen, raising questions about whether there should be curbs on lobbyists-turned-lawmakers in the same way that there are on those who take the more traditional route of leaving Capitol Hill for K Street.

We've long been concerned about the revolving door that spins public employees out into the private sector where they may take advantage of their government contacts to benefit their new employers, to the detriment of the taxpayers.

In the 1990s, Virginia finally put in place some restraints on how and when former government officials newly in the private sector could work with government again in such jobs as lobbying.

Now a new report highlights, at the national level, the reverse effect from the revolving door: private-sector leaders appointed to public posts who may exercise loyalty to their former industries, to the detriment of the taxpayers.

In its report, A Matter of Trust, the Revolving Door Working Group says the problem has worsened under the Bush administration.

Many people from the private sector have been appointed to top positions overseeing their former industries.

Cross-pollination between the public and private sectors can be healthy.

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But private-sector appointees can result in an outlook that is too narrowly focused. As public servants, appointees new mandate is to serve all the people. If they fail to adopt this new outlook, if they remain primarily loyal to their cronies back in industry, they make the error of shifting public policy to the opposite extreme - from excessive opposition to the private sector to excessive pandering to business and industry.

A coalition of do-gooder groups has issued a report listing a startling number of folks who have spun through the revolving door, making stops in industry, the administration and Congress. It all contributes to a cynicism about government -- who is making policy and why, and who is making money off public service.

More importantly, the Revolving Door Working Group says the report, "A Matter of Trust," provides recommendations on how to get the spinning door under control and restore public confidence in government.

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Among the group's proposals: All ethics matters for Congress and its staff should be handled by a single independent agency that can issue and implement rules, and subpoena witnesses. The group also suggests that appointees be required to recuse themselves on matters involving their former employers or clients for the 24 months prior to government service, and that the one-year cooling off period be extended to two years to prevent lawmakers and their staff from lobbying former colleagues. During that period, they wouldn't be allowed to formulate lobbying strategy, which they may do now.

"Two years is one session of Congress, so it helps break that close network of friends," said Craig Holman , a Public Citizen lobbyist and member of the working group, which also includes Common Cause, Defenders of Wildlife, the Government Accountability Project and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, among others.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) are spearheading legislation that includes some of the suggestions.

Holman insisted that the proposals are realistic and not designed to prevent lobbying as a career option for government officials. "I'm a lobbyist, and I have no interest in shutting down lobbying," Holman said.

With a confluence of Washington, D.C., scandals reaching a fever pitch, several Congressional watchdog groups came together Wednesday to call for tighter rules restricting lobbyists and their interactions with government officials.

The Revolving Door Working Group - a coalition that includes Public Citizen, Common Cause and the Project on Government Oversight - released a report focused on slowing the revolving door between public and private sectors.

They called for strengthening conflict-of-interest rules for political appointees, doubling the one-year cooling-off period restricting lobbying by former officials and revoking special privileges for lawmakers-turned-lobbyists. Many of the recommendations are already reflected in bills submitted this summer by Democratic Reps. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) and Marty Meehan (Mass.), and in a similar Senate bill offered by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.). Meehan and Feingold both attended Wednesday's news conference.

"I think we are rapidly approaching a tipping point where the public will become fed up with the status quo and demand reform," Feingold said at the event. "This report will add a lot to the effort to pass legislation to address the problem."

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Craig Holman, the group's lobbyist, said the political ramifications of the reform issue are clouding debate as lawmakers look to 2006 midterm elections.

"It's a double-edged sword," he said. "On the one hand, it's holding their feet to the fire. In another way, it can become a partisan game for the elections."

Two key Democratic lawmakers said Oct. 26 that lobbying and ethics controversies are creating momentum on Capitol Hill for new reform legislation.

"I think we are rapidly approaching a tipping point, where the public will become fed up with the status quo and demand reform," said Sen. Russ Feingold (R-Wis.). He said concern about scandals involving prominent lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others is growing to the point where the public will demand change, as it did in previous years before passage of gift and lobbying reforms and campaign finance legislation.

"As the investigations continue and more wrongdoing is uncovered, I believe momentum will continue to build for real reform," said Rep. Martin Meehan (D-Mass.)

The two made the remarks during a news conference to release a new report from a coalition of public interest groups on the "revolving door" that allows individuals to move between government and industry jobs. The report calls for beefing up current ethics rules, with recommendations that track some provisions of legislation introduced recently by Meehan and Feingold.

The new report's recommendations would go further than the Meehan and Feingold bills, however. For example, the watchdog groups call for creation of a new, independent agency to enforce ethics rules on Capitol Hill, taking over responsibilities from the House and Senate ethics committees. The report also calls for beefing up the power of the existing Office of Government Ethics to enforce ethics rules in the executive branch agencies.

A coalition of government watchdog groups released a report today that details what it says are the institutional pitfalls of the "revolving door" between government officials and lobbyists. The report details the movement of elected officials and top staffers among important government, industry and lobbying jobs. It recommends better lobbying disclosure, stronger conflict-of-interest and recusal rules and a two-year lobbying moratorium on former members of Congress and staffers. Many of the proposals are already included in lobbying overhaul bills by Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., and Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis. The report is the product of 18 organizations, including Common Cause, Public Citizen and the American Corn Growers Association, which have collaborated as part of the newly formed "Revolving Door Working Group."

Common Cause President Chellie Pingree said she is not predicting that Congress will necessarily overhaul lobbying rules in the 109th Congress, but she said GOP leaders might conclude that it is "politically redemptive" to embrace lobbying reforms. Pingree said a string of ethics controversies among prominent officeholders, including Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, has increased scrutiny of lobbying practices and interest in institutional changes. "It's a better opportunity than we have had in a long time," she said. Meehan and Feingold each have offered bills that would require lobbyists to file quarterly electronic reports, require disclosure of grassroots and coalition lobbying, increase penalties for violating prohibitions against lobbyists funding member travel and a two-year lobbying moratorium. Feingold's bill builds on Meehan's legislation with a stricter moratorium, expanded gift limits, specific disclosure of whom lobbyists have contacted and the reimbursement of corporate jet travel. "The relationship between K Street and Congress has gotten too cozy," Meehan said at an afternoon news conference to unveil the report. "The revolving door is spinning out of control."

Even by Washington standards, Aurene Martin's spin through the revolving door was a quick one. On Sept. 10 of last year, the former acting head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs stepped down to become a partner in the Indian law group of Holland & Knight. Within weeks, according to Senate disclosure forms, she was lobbying her former agency on behalf of the Lower Lake Rancheria, a landless, 53-member tribe seeking to build a controversial casino in Oakland, Calif. She also began lobbying Congress on behalf of the National Indian Gaming Association.

Ethics laws ban senior-level government officials from directly lobbying their former agencies for one year. But Martin benefited from a special exemption: Since the 1970s, ex-BIA officials have been able to represent tribes before their former agency without waiting out the one-year cooling-off period. "People on the outside have the perception that it's a huge influence game," says Martin. "[But] I think you have to believe in the good of most people."

The revolving door is swinging as fast as ever: From 1997 to 2004 the 20 largest federal contractors alone hired 224 former high-ranking government officials to serve as lobbyists, board members, or executives, according to a report by the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight.

There are ethical controls in place aimed at restricting the ability of those officials to lobby their former agencies on behalf of industries and special interests. But Martin's move is one of many examples of ways around those controls. And, critics complain, the ones that are in place are largely toothless...

There are now so many legions of lobbyists working the rich federal turf that sponsors can hire a different firm to lobby each key member of the major Congressional committees. The founding fathers' vision of a citizen's basic right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances" has turned into a multibillion-dollar influence industry that is far too loosely tracked and regulated. The lobbyists' symbiotic relationship with lawmakers is based on their inside track as Capitol buttonholers and the campaign money trail, where lobbyists help to ensure that incumbents are enriched and their gratitude secured...

... Clearly, it is time to enact credible controls. Worthy proposals have been submitted for clearer electronic tracking of spending, the curtailing of Congressional junkets arranged by lobbyists and tighter controls on the leaps to private-sector riches that Congressional and White House specialists routinely make. Some of the newest and highest-paid lobbyists in the Medicarefest were instrumental to writing and selling the law. Surely those who so easily catered to that special interest might spare a minute for the public interest.

... For many years, Congress has regularly responded to the public's anger over the power of moneyed interests by reining in campaign donations and limiting the ways that lobbyists can enrich the lawmakers they're paid to influence. But lawmakers and lobbyists have often found ways to get around the restrictions -- on "soft money," on gifts, on travel and the like. What lobbyists get is extra access to federal decision-makers that average citizens rarely have...

"One of the capital's great ironies is that lobbyists can't treat lawmakers to golf or an expensive meal unless they're handing over a check for the congressman's election or for his charity, which, of course, only compounds the problem," said Bill Allison, editor-at-large for the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity. "Some of the most outrageous things that happen in Washington are perfectly within the rules."

... It was no surprise to learn that Philip Cooney, who resigned last week as chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, will soon take a job at Exxon Mobil. His yeoman work in fighting against limits on greenhouse gas emissions, first as a lawyer for the oil industry's main lobbying group and then at the White House, where he sanitized reports to play down the link between emissions and global warming, clearly earned the reward of a cushy job with Exxon, a leading opponent of curbs on emissions.

Yet it is surely a cause for dismay that the Bush administration has seen fit to embed so many former lobbyists in key policy or regulatory jobs where they can carry out their industry's agenda from within. Whereas the word lobbyist once connoted those who hung around in lobbies to buttonhole powerful politicians when they emerged from the inner sanctums, these modern-day lobbyists occupy the inner sanctums themselves...

... The "revolving door" in which people shuttle back and forth between jobs in government and industry is a sad fixture of Washington life. There are rules, albeit weak ones, that seek to limit what government officials can do when they first return to the private sector. But the public has little protection against the machinations of lobbyists who are invited into government and given the levers of power. In an administration that saw fit to put Vice President Dick Cheney, a former oil industry executive, in charge of drafting its closed-door energy policy, there is little prospect for reining in the special interests. The public will be the loser.

... The Pentagon acquisition system is still vulnerable to the abuses committed by Darleen A. Druyun, the Air Force procurement official who pleaded guilty to criminal charges after showing Boeing Co. preference for years before taking a job with the company, a defense advisory report has found.

The likelihood of a similar situation is "remote," the Defense Science Board concluded, but there "is nothing in the current general acquisition structure or policies of the Department to prevent it from happening again."

It is slowly dawning on Congress that the deepening influence of lobbyists' money on the inner workings of the Capitol is looking bad back home. The ethical travails of the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, are rooted in his aggressive courting of the K Street lobbying brigade, a $3-billion-a-year industry veiled from proper public scrutiny. But now the spotlight Mr. DeLay brazenly invited is widening to embarrass his colleagues who also cut corners in taking overseas junkets with lobbyists hovering like caterers. The timing is perfect, then, for the tough and long-overdue controls proposed by two Democratic representatives, Martin Meehan of Massachusetts and Rahm Emanuel of Illinois...

"...We have done everything by the book," Mr. DeLay has emphasized in defending his coziness with Washington's power lobbyists. The sad comment on what is supposed to be the people's house is that Mr. DeLay may be right. It's time to rewrite that book.

... Since 1998, drug companies have spent $758 million on lobbying – more than any other industry, according to government records analyzed by the Center for Public Integrity, a watchdog group. In Washington, the industry has 1,274 lobbyists – more than two for every member of Congress

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"They are powerful," says Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "You can hardly swing a cat by the tail in that town without hitting a pharmaceutical lobbyist." ... The industry's deep inroads into the government are rooted in its dependence on federal decisions. ... But now, the industry faces the possibility of increased regulation. Grassley and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., are pushing legislation that would force drug developers to release data from all clinical trials of a new medicine – including negative ones the companies don't like to disclose. They also plan to introduce a bill that would strengthen the FDA's ability to protect patients if safety problems crop up after a drug has been approved for sale...

...Of the 1,274 people registered to lobby in Washington for drugmakers in 2003, according to the Center for Public Integrity, 476 are former federal officials – including 40 former members of Congress. "They are one of the strongest, most well-connected and most effective lobbies in Washington," says Amy Allina of the National Women's Health Network. "Going up against them is more often than not a losing battle."

... There also is evidence that the industry's allies sought to dissuade Grassley from holding the Nov. 18 hearing. Grassley says he received entreaties from GOP colleagues worried about alienating an industry friendly to their party. He recalls: "I had one or two colleagues say to me, 'Why would you want to have that hearing? The pharmaceutical industry is so helpful.' "

When it comes to lobbying Congress, Washington is now a $3-billion-a-year company town. The influence industry is multiplying so fast that no one really knows how many lobbyists are at work these days.

...Lobbying has now become an established part of representative government. But that doesn't remove the need for far better disclosure rules and regulation, as should be obvious from the tale of Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist-insider being investigated because of allegations that he gulled Indian tribes to collect scores of millions of dollars. A few lawmakers, like Representative Martin Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat, have proposed stronger restraints on the Congressional alumni who so quickly turn around to lobby their old committees. He would also require disclosure by the murky, mushrooming world of "grass roots" lobbying via outside pressure groups and television ads. Such good ideas, of course, don't draw the attention of Washington's power lobbyists.

Former senator Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), following a bipartisan path blazed by many prominent ex-members of Congress, has moved from Capitol Hill to K Street, joining Alston & Bird as a special adviser in the law firm's legislative and public policy group... Daschle is merely the latest high-profile former lawmaker to jump to the lucrative world of lobbying and law firm work in what has become an increasing trend. Others who recently made the switch include John Breaux, former Democratic senator from Louisiana who became a senior counsel at Patton Boggs, and W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.), former chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce who is the new head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America...

"The revolving door is just spinning out of control these days," said Craig Holman, legislative representative for Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group.

Holman said that in the 1970s only about 3 percent of retiring members of Congress wound up in K Street law and lobbying firms. These days, the figure is more like 32 percent, he said, in part fueled by the dramatic increase in pay for such positions...

The revolving door between the U.S. Congress and the firms seeking to influence it is spinning faster than ever. Former Representative Billy Tauzin and former Senator John Breaux are among a dozen senior lawmakers who left Congress in January and immediately jumped into jobs with lobbying firms or trade organizations representing industries they regulated only months before. Representative Jim Greenwood even announced that he would become president of a trade association six months before he left office...

...After suffering numerous setbacks in President Bush's first term, business lobbyists now say they have the wind at their backs...

For a man who spent much of his childhood in public housing, Tom Ridge has done pretty well for himself. His salary as secretary of homeland security, $175,700, is more than five times what the average American earns. But he is about to do a whole lot better. After a long career in government service as a congressman, Pennsylvania governor and cabinet member, Mr. Ridge is stepping down but staying in Washington. His job prospects are stratospheric, say executive hiring experts and old Washington hands.

Mr. Ridge is being bombarded with offers, friends say, though he has made no commitments. If he postpones full-time employment for a turn on the lecture circuit, he could easily command $50,000 per appearance, topping his annual cabinet salary in a single week of speech making. If he dusts off his law degree and signs on as a rainmaker for a big Washington law firm, he could earn $1 million a year. And if he takes his name brand to a corporation competing for the burgeoning business of domestic security, that million could multiply many times over...

...To make rational choices, doctors and consumers need the F.D.A. and other agencies to be independent arbiters of not just the safety and efficacy of new drugs and devices, but of their relative medical usefulness and economic viability. Moreover, the medical oversight system needs a new ethic - one that scrupulously adheres to a standard that says its studies and decisions have been made entirely free of commercial bias and conflicts of interest.

Sadly, that is very far from the situation today. Drug and device companies sponsor most clinical trials; F.D.A. advisory panels are larded with scientists tied to private companies; corporate user fees help finance the F.D.A. that is conducting reviews; doctors get most of their medical information either from sales representatives of drug companies or corporate-sponsored continuing medical education; and the companies are given primary responsibility for post-marketing safety surveillance of their own products.

To break these ties, there needs to be an independent arm of F.D.A. that contracts with independent clinicians and scientists for the final testing of all new drugs and medical devices....

... We are not optimistic that a Republican-dominated Congress and administration, beholden to drug industry campaign contributions, will leap to change a system that works to the industry's advantage. But the last three presidents and their Congresses got the F.D.A. into this bipartisan mess, so Washington ought to fix it. One solution would be to revisit the agreement so corporate money could be used to support a wide range of postmarketing checks, not just initial drug reviews. An even better approach would be to increase federal support for the F.D.A. so safety monitoring would be adequately financed and the industry's influence would be proportionately reduced. That should not prove frightfully expensive and would be a price worth paying.

The railroad industry and its federal overseer have long been closely intertwined. And increasingly, like many other federal regulators, the Federal Railroad Administration has emphasized partnership as the best, quickest way to identify, and fix, safety problems from the roots up. But the story of its recent oversight of Union Pacific --- spelled out in a series of internal memorandums from agency officials and inspectors --- raises questions about whether this closeness has actually served to dull the agency's enforcement edge.

Critics of the agency say that it has, over the years, bred an attitude of tolerance toward safety problems, and that fines are too rare, too small and too slowly collected... The ties between industry and regulator are many-layered...

...more than 100 high-level officials under Bush [...] helped govern industries they once represented as lobbyists, lawyers or company advocates, a Denver Post analysis shows. In at least 20 cases, those former industry advocates have helped their agencies write, shape or push for policy shifts that benefit their former industries. They knew which changes to make because they had pushed for them as industry advocates. The president's political appointees are making or overseeing profound changes affecting drug laws, food policies, land use, clean-air regulations and other key issues. Government watchdogs call it a disturbing trend, not adequately restrained by existing ethics laws.

Among the advocates-turned-regulators are a former meat-industry lobbyist who helps decide how meat is labeled; a former drug-company lobbyist who influences prescription-drug policies; a former energy lobbyist who, while still accepting payments for bringing clients into his old lobbying firm, helps determine how much of the West those former clients can use for oil and gas drilling.

"When you go to work in lobbying, it is clearly understood and accepted that your job is to advocate for the interests of those who hired you," said Terry L. Cooper, a University of Southern California ethics and government professor. "When you go to work in government, you are supposed to be responsible for upholding and maintaining whatever you can identify as the public interest..."

...Government ethics standards are part of the problem because they don't fully address the kind of issues that now permeate Washington, Cooper and some inside government say. The rules focus mainly on direct financial conflicts. Other, more nuanced conflicts aren't addressed...