Watered-Down Ethics Rules Let a Lobbyist Help Run an Agency He Lobbied

 

As a candidate, Trump regularly railed against lobbyists and led crowds in chants of “Drain the swamp!” But as president, Trump last month signed an executive order that weakened significant aspects of the Obama ethics policy, including scrapping a ban on lobbyists joining agencies they had recently lobbied.

For example:

Geoff Burr spent much of the last decade as the chief lobbyist for a powerful construction industry trade group. Burr sought to influence a host of regulations of the Department of Labor, opposing wage standards for federal construction contracts and working against an effort to limit workers’ exposure to dangerous silica dust.

In the Obama administration, someone like Burr would have been barred by ethics rules from taking a job at an agency that he had lobbied.  In the Trump administration, Burr now has a top job at the Labor Department.

In another example occuring several weeks later, a Fidelity lobbyist was hired to lead the Administration's decision making on regulations (or lack thereof) on Wall Street with regard to retirement matters:

What does this mean?

This is a grave problem for the public because the agency may well represent the special interest rather than the public interest.”

Sources: https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-watered-down-ethics-rules-let-lobbyist-help-run-agency-he-lobbied and @JustinElliott 

Date: 
Monday, February 13, 2017
Tags: 
Regulations
Justice