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Slow Down The Revolving Door From Congress To Lobbying Firms

Slow Down The Revolving Door From Congress To Lobbying Firms

By Suzanne Dovi, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Frank Underwood of Netflix’s House of Cards may seem like America’s most corrupt politician. He will stop at nothing, not even murder, to advance his political career. But as a political scientist, I know that real-life corruption is much more commonplace — and frankly more boring. Usually it’s just a job offer.

Remember Jack Abramoff, one of the best-connected lobbyists on Capitol Hill during the George W. Bush administration? In 2006, Abramoff was convicted on federal conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion charges. The scandal eventually led to the conviction of or plea bargains from 21 people, including White House officials, fellow lobbyists, congressional staffers and former Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH).

According to Abramoff’s playbook on how to gain influence in Washington, you could “own” a congressional office as soon as you said to a top staffer, “You know, when you’re done working on the Hill, we’d very much like you to consider working for us.”

Those magic words win access and information more readily than campaign donations. With a job offer on the table, the official or staff member is all but working for the lobbying firm, on the taxpayers’ dime.

This isn’t just hypothetical. Political scientist Adolfo Santos has found that public officials who have plans to become lobbyists act differently while in office from their colleagues who don’t. Interestingly, they are more successful at passing the bills they introduce than officials who don’t go on to be lobbyists. Does this behavior reflect their desire to please their potential future employer or something else? We can’t tell. What we do know is that public officials who are no longer thinking about reelection are freed from the sanctioning power of constituents.

Of course, the law recognizes problems with the flow of public officials to lobbying firms. Current law requires a two-year waiting period before a member of Congress or staffer enters the lobbying world. But two years is simply too soon.

Job offers, usually with much higher salaries, lure powerful public officials and their staff away from public office. Dick Armey, Tom Daschle, Tom Foley and Trent Lott, all once very powerful members of Congress, are among those who became lobbyists. According to OpenSecrets.org, more than 420 former members of Congress are registered lobbyists. (This number does not include former members who influence public policy without registering as lobbyists.) In addition, more than 5,400 former congressional staffers have left Capitol Hill to become federal lobbyists in the last ten years.

One report found that congressional members, on average, get a 1,452 percent raise when they become lobbyists. And in another finding, from the Sunlight Foundation, lobbyists who list a government staff position on their resumes can command a median salary of $300,000.

Others earn more. Former Rep. Steve Largent (R-OK), for example, makes $1.5 million as a lobbyist for a trade group, more than he made as a Hall of Fame NFL wide receiver.

That means one can make much more from trying to influence legislation than from writing legislation. (New York Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, accused of earning millions of dollars in kickbacks, may be an exception.) And, interestingly, according to one study, former staff members can generate more revenue (and earn higher salaries) than former members of Congress.

But don’t these public officials see the ethical problem of shifting allegiances from constituents to their potential future bosses? Often the shift can be so subtle that nobody notices, which reinforces an ethical obliviousness.

Of course, the timing of some hires can raise public suspicions. Take the case of John Pemberton, who was the chief of staff in the Environmental Protection Agency’s division on air pollution programs. He raised eyebrows when he announced only one week after the agency eased regulations on air pollution controls that he would be a lobbyist for a company that owns coal power plants.

But in general, the media have a short attention span, and the public rarely tracks what their representatives do when they leave office. Only those of us with an interest in lobbying tend to keep track.

Perhaps we’d all keep a closer eye on post-Congress careers if we stopped thinking of corruption as blatant crimes like bribery, blackmail or even murder. That’s what corruption looks like on television. What we need to recognize is that a prospective job offer is the moral equivalent of a blank check.

Two years is too short a time to make officials and staffers wait before they cash in on the personal connections and expertise they acquired as public servants. They should have to wait at least six years, the length of one Senate term. A six-year wait would significantly weaken their connections and diminish their earning power as lobbyists. And that would reduce the temptation to treat public service as a trial job period, acting on behalf of a future boss rather than the constituents.

Without a longer waiting period, the democratic system as a whole will pay.

Suzanne Dovi, an associate professor at the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona, is author of The Good Representative. She is currently a Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project. She wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.

Photo: Public Citizen via Flickr

Americans For Prosperity Legislative Agenda Is Koch Industries Wishlist

Americans For Prosperity Legislative Agenda Is Koch Industries Wishlist

by Lee Fang, Republic Report.

Americans for Prosperity, the grassroots organizing group founded by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, spent $125 million in the midterm elections last year. Now, they’re calling in their chips.

At the National Press Club yesterday, AFP president Tim Phillips and several officers with the group laid out their agenda. The group is calling for legalizing crude oil exports, a repeal of the estate tax, approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, blocking any hike in the gas tax, a tax holiday on corporate profits earned overseas, blocking the EPA’s new rules on carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants, and a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, along with a specific focus on the medical device tax.

The announcement was touted by NPR as a “conservative agenda for Congress.” But it’s also a near-mirror image of Koch Industries’ lobbying agenda. Koch Industries — the petrochemical, manufacturing and commodity speculating conglomerate owned by David and Charles — is not only a financier of political campaigns, but leads one of the most active lobbying teams in Washington, a big part of why the company has been such a financial success.

Koch Industries transports both crude oil and coal, making the AFP’s work to legalize crude oil exports and to block the EPA from rules that would diminish the coal market in the U.S. particularly important to Koch Industries’ bottom line. As multiple news outlets have reported, Koch also owns a substantial stake of Canadian tar sands, positioning the company to benefit from approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Indeed, on EPA and other issues, Koch Industries’ lobbying office in D.C. has instructed its influence peddlers to work many of the same issues as AFP.

And what makes the AFP agenda almost a self-parody is its focus on the estate tax, which it called the “death tax” during the press event yesterday. In reality, this tax only affects the wealthiest 0.15 percent of Americans because only those who stand to inherit from family members with $5.43 million in wealth are impacted. Couple this with AFP’s focus on a corporate overseas tax holiday, again only an issue that impacts wealthy global companies, and AFP’s purported goal of helping regular Americans loses all credibility.

Charles Koch has made headlines in recent weeks over his claim that he will devote significant energy to criminal justice reform. But curiously, no issues relating to such reforms — even though over-prosecution of petty crimes and abuses such as asset forfeiture clearly fall under the umbrella of economic concerns AFP purports to champion — will be addressed by Charles Koch’s marquee advocacy group, AFP. The issues that are part and parcel of Koch’s bottom line, however, appear to take priority.

This article originally appeared on Republic Report.

Screenshot: YouTube

U.S. Gas Exports Flow Through D.C. Lobbying’s Revolving Door

U.S. Gas Exports Flow Through D.C. Lobbying’s Revolving Door

by David Halperin, Republic Report.

Even as President Obama pursues an aggressive new public effort to fight global warming by regulating U.S. power plants, his administration is quietly advancing an energy policy — exporting America’s liquid natural gas (LNG) — that may well raise the volume of climate-increasing greenhouse gases even more than emphasizing coal, while at the same time polluting U.S. communities through increased use of the controversial practice of hydraulic fracking. (The American Petroleum Institute notes that “a government-industry study found that up to 80 percent of natural gas wells drilled in the next decade will require hydraulic fracturing.”) Worse, the policy also could hurt U.S. consumers by raising energy prices.

As awareness of the harms of LNG exports has grown, public protests are increasing.  Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) charged last week that gas exports may be illegal. But the gas industry is using highly paid revolving-door Washington lobbyists, Democrats and Republicans, to push policymakers to accelerate these bad decisions. They also are using the Ukraine conflict as a hook, arguing that U.S. exports can reduce Europe’s dependence on Russia.

While the coal industry, once heavily bipartisan in its friendships, has increasingly deepened its love affair with the Republican Party, natural gas has become the Democrats’ fossil fuel of choice. White House senior advisor John Podesta earlier this year defended the decision to emphasize natural gas as a more-climate friendly source of power generation. But there’s a difference between producing gas for the U.S. market, which, despite all the environmental hazards, helps reduce energy prices for U.S. consumers and businesses, and shipping that gas overseas, which could produce a bonanza for big energy companies but potential harms to most everyone else in the U.S..

That doesn’t seem to concern the Democrats and Republicans alike who are cashing in as paid advocates for this gas rush.

The clearest example of how U.S. natural gas exports are flowing through the D.C. lobbyist revolving door is last week’s announcement that Heather Zichal, who until recently was President Obama’s deputy assistant for energy and climate change, was named to the board of directors of Cheniere Energy, Inc.  Cheniere, in 2012, became the first company to obtain the critical approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to export U.S.-produced natural gas overseas, from its Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana.

Zichal’s background is in politics and policy work, not geology, construction of energy facilities, or other private enterprise activity. Part of her appeal for Cheniere, undoubtedly, is her knowledge of how to influence the Obama administration, and her connections to Obama and his team; she is apparently highly regarded by Obama, who personally pressed her not to leave the administration. Cheniere’s statement of Zichal’s qualifications for board service is this: “Ms. Zichal has extensive knowledge of the domestic and global energy markets as well as the U.S. regulatory environment.” As an Obama official, Zichal already was advancing the cause of gas and fracking, and discussing the potential for LNG exports.

But a review of lobbying disclosure forms reveals that Cheniere is far from alone in hiring revolving door advocates for its cause.  Many of the Washington lobbyists who already have been pushing government to unleash the flow of LNG exports have high-level connections to the Obama administration or to senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The newest winner in the LNG lobbying effort is the giant natural gas holding company Sempra Energy, which last week became the second company to receive FERC approval, to export gas from its existing Cameron LNG terminal, located in Hackberry, Louisiana, and now used for gas importing.  Sempra, like Cheniere, already had cleared a separate hurdle from the Department of Energy to export LNG to countries such as Japan and nations of Europe.

Sempra has employed a battalion of DC lobbyists who, like Zichal, can take advantage of the connections they built working in government — a classic illustration of how ambitious people now use taxpayer-funded public service as a stepping stone to lucrative K Street careers where policy chops, persuasive skills, and D.C. connections are sold to the highest bidder.

Sempra’s lobbyists for LNG exports include:

  • A team at Ogilvy Government relations, whose website makes it easy for corporations to select the right lobbyists by color-coding their headshots, blue for Democrats and red for Republicans. Ogilvy took in $60,000 from Sempra for lobbying Capitol Hill and the Department of Energy on LNG exports and “general energy issues” in the first quarter of 2014. The Ogilvy lobbyists include: Moses Mercado, who is a former deputy executive director at the Democratic National Committee and 2004 campaign adviser to now-Secretary of State John Kerry and has donated about $248,000 to political candidates over the past 15 years; Dean Aguillen, a former aide to Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and donor of $175,000 to politicians over 15 years; Gordon Taylor, who worked as a House of Representatives staffer for both Democrats and Republicans and has donated over $200,000 to politicians in the past 20 years; Chris Giblin, former chief of staff to Rep. John Carter (R-TX) and donor of some $236,625 in the past 15 years; and Dee Buchanan, former chief of staff to Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX).
  • David Leiter, the president of ML Strategies, a former Senate chief of staff to John Kerry and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy. His firm got $30,000 from Sempra in the first quarter of 2014 to lobby the House, the Senate, the Energy Department, the Commerce Department, the White House and Kerry’s State Department on LNG exports. In the past 20 years, Leiter has contributed some $137,116 to politicians, almost all to Democrats, but also, in 2010, $1000 to Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), now the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
  • Lisa Epifani, a former Assistant Secretary of Energy and White House aide under President Bush and before that a senior GOP staff member for the Senate Energy Committee, who lobbied with the firm Van Ness Feldman before leaving last month for a position with Chevron. She received $20,000 in 2014′s first quarter for DC lobbying on LNG exports.
  • Sempra overall reported spending $470,000 in the first quarter of 2014 on lobbying on a range of issues, including LNG exports, and listed Scott Crider and Tim Ransdell as its in-house lobbyists on that issue. Another energy company with a stake in the Cameron export terminal, the U.S. unit of France-based GDF-Suez, reported spending another $110,000 on lobbying, including LNG exports.

Asked for comment, Sempra Energy responded to some of my questions in writing. A message from company spokesman Art Larson stated, “Sempra Energy employs a low carbon strategy that is described in detail within the corporate responsibility report we released yesterday (June 25). We support reasonable rules and regulations to ensure that all natural gas producers are operating to an appropriate standard – one that protects consumers, the environment, the energy industry and our nation’s access to this abundant supply of domestic energy.” In response to my question about whether Sempra selects its Washington lobbyists in part because of their career connections to executive and legislative branch officials, Sempra’s response, not surprisingly, was some form of “duh”: “Developing major infrastructure projects of interest to our customers and shareholders and participating in the public debate over major public policy issues requires inside and outside resources that help advance an open dialogue with regulators, government officials and the local communities where we operate. Engaging with these stakeholders to make our views known and understand their concerns is an important part of the process.”

Neither the Ogilvy lobbyists nor Leiter responded to my requests for comment. A Van Ness Feldman partner, responding to my query re: Lisa Epifani, wrote to me, “Since you are a lawyer, I hope you’ll appreciate that our firm is not in a position to talk about the work we do for a client. We are required by the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct not to discuss client information.” (You all might be aware, though, that lawyers frequently, with client authorization, speak about their clients’ interests.)

This article originally appeared on Republic Report.

This article also appears on Huffington Post.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

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Leader Of Attack On Obama Global Warming Plan? Rudy Giuliani’s Firm

Leader Of Attack On Obama Global Warming Plan? Rudy Giuliani’s Firm

by David Halperin, Republic Report.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, New York’s Rudolph Giuliani became “America’s Mayor,” mobilizing his city and standing as a defiant foe of the forces of terrorism. Then, after the devastating force in the New York area of Superstorm Sandy, Giuliani, campaigning in 2012 for Mitt Romney, again presented himself as a protector of the people, charging that President Obama’s reaction to Sandy was “disgraceful.”

But when it comes to curbing forces that could lead to more violent storms like Sandy, Giuliani is decidedly not on the side of protecting people. Because there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels is rapidly causing climate change, and that climate change leads to extreme weather events. And Giuliani’s own law firm is now at the forefront of efforts by the coal industry to block President Obama’s groundbreaking effort to regulate the burning of fossil fuels, specifically carbon emissions from power plants.

In 2005, Giuliani expanded his already extensive business activities by joining the 60-year-old Bracewell law firm, now called Bracewell & Giuliani. The firm has nearly 500 lawyers spread across 10 offices, including New York, Washington, D.C., Dallas, London, and Dubai.

Bracewell & Giuliani are particularly active as lobbyists and litigators on behalf of fossil fuel industries — oil, gas, and coal.

The day before the Obama administration issued its new rule for power plants, Scott Segal, a Washington lawyer with Bracewell & Giuliani, was already denouncing the rule in the New York Times. “Clearly,” Segal said, “it is designed to materially damage the ability of conventional energy sources to provide reliable and affordable power, which in turn can inflict serious damage on everything from household budgets to industrial jobs.” Segal, who represents Arch Coal, Southern Company, and others in the coal and power industries, has been lobbying to oppose the rule. He told the Times that he would sue to block its implementation.

One of Segal’s partners in the D.C. office of the Giuliani firm, Jeff Holmstead, previewed for The Wall Street Journal last week what arguments the coal industry will make in the lawsuit.

Holmstead is a classic revolving door lobbyist, having parlayed a job as an associate White House counsel under President George H.W. Bush, where he worked on environmental regulations, into a job as an environment practice lawyer-lobbyist at the powerhouse firm Latham & Watkins. There he represented the Alliance for Constructive Air Policy, a group backed by coal-fired power companies that opposed air pollution rules. He also became an adjunct scholar at Citizens for the Environment, a spinoff of the Koch brothers’ Citizens for a Sound Economy.

Holmstead returned to government under George W. Bush, heading the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation from 2001-2004.  While he was at EPA, according to his law firm bio, Holmstead was “the architect of several of the agency’s most important initiatives, including … the Mercury Rule for power plants.” It’s bold of Holmstead to claim credit for this set of rules, because the Washington Post reported in 2004 that they contained language identical to that in “two memos sent to federal officials by a law firm representing the utility industry.” The name of the firm? Latham & Watkins, Holmstead’s previous employer: “A side-by-side comparison of one of the three proposed rules and the memorandums prepared by Latham & Watkins — one of Washington’s premier corporate environmental law firms — shows that at least a dozen paragraphs were lifted, sometimes verbatim, from the industry suggestions.” Holmstead’s explanation to the Post for adopting so much language from his old firm: “It came to us through the interagency process.”

In 2003, Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and James Jeffords (I-VT) wrote to Holmstead asking him to respond to evidence that, in 2002, he gave false testimony to Senate committees about the EPA’s assessment of how new regulations revisions would affect ongoing lawsuits against utilities for violating the Clean Air Act.

Holmstead followed his time at EPA by joining Bracewell & Giuliani, where he has lobbied for Southern Company, Duke Energy, Arch Coal, and others in the coal and power industries. Thursday, I attended a panel discussion held by the group Resources for the Future, at which Holmstead attacked the new Obama rule.

These are Giuliani’s men on the ground seeking to block measures that could slow global warming.  But what of Giuliani himself?

As a candidate for president of the United States in 2008, Giuliani was asked by CBS News about climate change.  He responded, “There is global warming. Human beings are contributing to it.” Then he gave his solution: coal. “I think the best answer to it is energy independence. We’ve got more coal reserves in the us than they have oil reserves in Saudi Arabia. If we find a way to deal with it and use it so it doesn’t hurt the environment, we’re going to find ourselves not contributing to global warming and also being more energy independent.” Giuliani then discussed other sources of energy.  But he wasn’t candid about the fact that thus far there has been no success in cost-effectively making coal “cleaner” so it doesn’t hurt the environment. And he didn’t mention that his firm represented the coal industry and other energy companies.

As the Ukraine crisis unfolded in March, Giuliani again criticized President Obama as ineffective, contrasting him with Russian president Vladimir Putin, of whom he said, “That’s what you call a leader.”  But if he wants to be a true leader, then Giuliani needs to call off his law firm from blocking efforts to curb the very real and very dangerous threat of global warming.

Mayor Giuliani’s office said he was not available to respond Thursday and was headed out of town for two weeks.

This article originally appeared on Republic Report.

This article also appears on Huffington Post.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

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