Political appointees and lobbyists

Obama Curbing Only Lobbyists Who Disagree with Him. By Jeff Stier, Esq., and Henry I. Miller
Avoiding Conflict of Interest, or Conflicting Ideas?
ACSH, Sunday, February 8, 2009

In order to avoid conflicts of interest, President Barack Obama promised repeatedly that he would not appoint lobbyists to positions in his administration, and one of his first actions in office was to issue an executive order forbidding executive branch employees from working in an agency, or on a program, for which they have lobbied during the previous two years.

It's a commitment that owes more to rhetoric than reality -- brass-knuckle politics under the guise of integrity in government. The president already has violated both the letter and the spirit of his pledge. A politician breaking campaign promises? So what else is new, right? But in government, personnel choices are policy, and policy is what spells the difference between the success or failure of individuals and the nation. The president's choices will ensure that (left-wing) politics trumps good government -- and will have dire consequences for the nation's economy and the wellbeing of consumers.

Consider Bill Corr, the deputy secretary-designate of Health and Human Services. He was executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, which (despite its name), partnered with tobacco behemoth Altria to draft the legislation that would give Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco. The bill is widely expected to pass this year -- and because the FDA is part of HHS, Corr would be in an influential position as FDA decides how to implement its new authority. For example, regulators would have to decide whether to allow "harm reduction" claims for smokeless tobacco, which helps smokers reduce the risk of tobacco use -- a potentially useful approach that Corr's organization vigorously opposed under his leadership.

In spite of President Obama's commitment "to change the way Washington does business and curb the influence of lobbyists on our government," he found a way around the rules: Corr would recuse himself from deliberations on tobacco policy. But as President Obama (himself a smoker) must surely know, cigarettes are the most preventable cause of death in this country. How could the deputy secretary of HHS not be allowed to address tobacco issues? That alone should disqualify Corr for the position.

Another former health lobbyist appointed to the top ranks of HHS is Mark B. Childress, the new chief of staff for the HHS secretary. There are at least a dozen others elsewhere in the administration, including former Goldman Sachs Group lobbyist Mark Patterson, the incoming chief of staff for the Treasury secretary.

Apparently, President Obama is not trying to curb the influence of lobbyists -- but only of lobbyists whose views don't gibe with those of the administration.

There is another, broader issue related to the presence of lobbyists in the administration -- namely, the appointment to critical positions of people who have been "unofficial" lobbyists, both within and outside government agencies. Many of the Obama appointments might not have been official "registered lobbyists," but they certainly have been activists and lobbyists by any reasonable definition. Tom Daschle, who withdrew his nomination as HHS secretary because of tax problems, was a perfect example. Since he left the Senate in 2005, he has made millions as an influence-peddler and "policy adviser" to a wide variety of companies and organizations. He has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the health care industry. Is he a lobbyist? Well, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Another important, broader question is whether government bureaucrats themselves may also be considered to be lobbyists of a sort. The late economist Milton Friedman observed that you can usually rely on individuals and institutions (including regulatory agencies) to act in their own self-interest -- and to lobby for and adopt policies that will enhance it. In the case of regulators, their behavior is influenced in large part by the desire to stay out of trouble (which means not making waves or taking unpopular positions) and by the yearning for larger budgets and grander bureaucratic empires

An example is Lisa Jackson, the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who most recently headed New Jersey's environmental agency and is a 16-year veteran of the EPA, during which she developed some of the agency's most unscientific, wasteful and dangerous regulations.

While at EPA, Jackson worked on Superfund (officially the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act), an ongoing EPA program intended to clean up and reduce the risk of toxic-waste sites. It was originally conceived as a short-term project -- $1.6 billion over five years to clean up some 400 sites (by law, at least one per state and, not coincidentally, about one per congressional district). But it has grown into one of the nation's largest public works projects, with more than $30 billion spent on about 1,300 sites.

After the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars, no beneficial results have been demonstrable; on the other hand, Superfund projects have caused a great deal of harm. The risk of fatality to the average cleanup worker -- a dump-truck driver involved in a collision or a laborer run over by a bulldozer, for example -- is considerably larger than the cancer risks to individual residents that might result from exposures to contaminated sites. (And consider that cancer risks are theoretical estimates over many years or decades, while worksite fatalities occur during the much shorter duration of the cleanup.)

With this kind of history, we would consider Ms. Jackson a lobbyist for the interests of the most radical, doctrinaire elements of the environmental community -- and for the bureaucrats who defend and strive to expand the Superfund program. Are former lobbyists for the energy or chemical industry less suited than she to head the EPA?

We were promised change and greater transparency, but behind the rhetoric we're seeing business as usual. We are reminded of Obama's remark during the campaign, "If you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig."

Miller is a physician, Hoover Institution fellow and was an FDA official during the Reagan administration. Stier is associate director, American Council on Science and Health.