Senate Armed Services Committee Stopping the Revolving Door Between DoD and Industry?

Not surprisingly, POGO is extremely excited about the Ethics Commitment by Executive Branch Personnel Executive Order that includes two-year revolving door bans for appointees leaving AND entering the government.  But given this principle, our previous concerns about Deputy of Defense Secretary Nominee William J. Lynn III are only exacerbated.  As we said in our press release:

It is because we believe so strongly in the positive impact that such a change will have that we urge the President to withdraw his nomination of William J. Lynn III as Deputy Secretary of Defense.  President Obama should not compromise his standards and the effectiveness of the Department of Defense by allowing a top defense industry lobbyist to receive a waiver from these standards.  The defense industry is in a class of its own among all of the industries that have had a pervasive stranglehold on public policy to advance their own financial interests.

But we're excited to see that Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) has postponed a committee vote on Lynn's nomination until questions about his lobbying history have been resolved.  Sen. Levin's statement:

Given the President's new stricter rules requiring his appointees to recuse themselves from matters or issues on which they have lobbied, the Senate Armed Services Committee will need further information before proceeding with the nomination of William J. Lynn III to be Deputy Secretary of Defense. The committee will await the administration's assessment as to whether the new rules will preclude Mr. Lynn, who was a registered lobbyist for a defense contractor, from participating in key Department of Defense decisions, and if so, whether a waiver will be forthcoming.

It's also worth considering whether the waiver provision applies to Lynn.  President Obama’s Executive Order limits ethics waivers to specific cases when the restriction is inconsistent with the Pledge’s purpose or when it is in the public interest to grant the waiver--with public interest being defined as including (but not being limited to) "exigent circumstances relating to national security or to the economy."  Although that list in not all inclusive, we question the urgent nature and the minimal contacts that would justify a public interest waiver.

POGO suggests that the committee also make an assessment of their own, and might we suggest that their assessment include asking questions taking off from where Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) left off?

-- Mandy Smithberger and Scott Amey

Comments

[Cat]

Please note that Def. Sec. Gates interviewed lots of folks for the post of Defense Dept. budget chief and he found Lynn to be the best. Lynn also wrote a book, "Toward a More Effective Defense"--which may be why Obama wants him: he wants to lower defense dept. spending which is too big a chunk of GDP and Lynn might help him achieve this. Whoever's blocking Lynn might be defense contractors and the politicians in their pockets.

[Robert L. Cerra]

If President Obama doesn't withdraw Lynn' nomination then the Prseident's talk about excluding lobbists is just that - talk. I've listend to all this rhetoric about change for months and within days the President appears to be just contradicted his own position - its absurd.

PGO'd statment cncenring lynn is soft and muted and it looks like he has fooled you too !

Regards
Bob C.

[Dave Huntsman]

While I applaud the sentiment on this one issue, I think you're missing the bigger picture, and that is his Exec Order doesn't really do what he says it does.

A couple of things are needed to truly make the stated intent realities; without them, then things only get worse (ie, he becomes another dishonest politician who intentionally misleads about whether he is doing anything concrete or not).

1. ENFORCEMENT - Without further changes, some of these improvements are (almost) meaningless. For example:
- enforcement of Obama's orders is given to OGE, the Office of Government Ethics. But enforcement is almost never possible without investigative ability- and OGE does not have any investigative authority.
"Matters Outside of OGE's Jurisdiction:
PLEASE NOTE: The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) generally does not conduct investigations, does not have any investigative staff, and cannot represent citizens in legal matters. Please see section on complaint forwarding below for related information."
http://www.usoge.gov/about/matters_outside.aspx.

In short - enforcement is given to an Agency that is not allowed to do serious enforcement. Sounds like the usual bait and switch - doesn't it? Nor is its budget and manpower being increased to enforce these over the up to 3000 employees they apply to.

2. The no-lobbying-after-leaving restriction is only applied to lobbying the White House - but most ex-White House employees lobby congress as part, or even all, of their duties.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Obama must submit to Congress a change to the law mandating enforcement for such ethics be added to OGE - as well as requisite increase in budget and manpower authority.

2. As an up-front condition of Executive Branch employment, departing employees must agree to not lobby Congress also for 5 years; also to be enforced for a newly-strengthened OGE. Obama doesn't need a law to impose this condition (any more than he needed on to supposedly impose this weeks').

[Ed]

I agree that the Secretary of Defense should withdraw Lynn from the nomination -- it sends the wrong message to have a defense contractor lobbyist as the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Everyone knows that the Deputy runs the day-to-day operations of the Pentagon, not the Secretary. It will be impossible for Lynn to recuse himself from dealings on Raytheon and still be able to carry out his duties. The Bush administration thrieved on loopholes - let's hope Obama holds firm to his ideals and executive orders. There are plenty of people that could be an effective Deputy that were not a lobbyist for defense contractors.