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06-18-2006, 02:40 AM
June 17, 2006, 10:50PM
From Homeland Security to lucrative contract work
New jobs raise questions for those who were in Bush administration
By ERIC LIPTON
New York Times
WASHINGTON - Dozens of members of the Bush administration's domestic security team, assembled after the 2001 terrorist attacks, are now collecting bigger paychecks in different roles: working on behalf of companies that sell domestic security products, many directly to the federal agencies the officials once helped run.
At least 90 officials at the Department of Homeland Security or the White House Office of Homeland Security — including the department's former secretary, Tom Ridge; and the former undersecretary (and current candidate for the governorship of Arkansas), Asa Hutchinson — are executives, consultants or lobbyists for companies that collectively do billions of dollars' worth of domestic security business.
More than two-thirds of the department's most senior executives in its first years have moved through the revolving door.
That pattern raises questions for some former officials.
Federal law prohibits senior executive branch officials from lobbying former government colleagues or subordinates for at least a year after leaving public service. But by exploiting loopholes in the law, — including one provision drawn up by department executives to facilitate their entry into the business world — it is often easy for former officials to do just that.
Few modern parallels
The shift to the private sector is hardly without precedent in Washington. But veteran Washington lobbyists and watchdog groups say the exodus of such a sizable share of an agency's senior management before the end of an administration has few modern parallels.
What troubles Scott Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, are not the lucrative paychecks earned by former officials, but what he sees as an effort to disregard the spirit of the lobbying ban in pursuit of those rewards.
"It is a dirty way to get around the conflict-of-interest and ethics rules," Amey said. "It is legal. But is it appropriate? I don't think so."
What the law says
The law that governs the so-called post-employment life for federal officials was enacted in 1962. It prohibits senior officials from "any communication to or appearance" before their former government department or agency on behalf of another for one year from the date they leave their job.
Robert E. Coyle, the designated ethics official for the Homeland Security Department, said he believed that former department executives were almost universally honoring the rules.
But the experience in the short life of the agency shows that the law often does little to prevent former officials from moving quickly to lobby the government on domestic security matters on behalf of their new bosses or clients.
Perhaps the biggest loophole was created in late 2004 at the request of senior department officials, when the first big wave of departures began. The Office of Government Ethics approved a request by the department to split it into seven components for the purposes of the ethics rules.
Once in the private sector, most former department officials were prohibited for one year from lobbying the same component where they once worked.
That meant that Michael J. Petrucelli technically complied with the ethics rules. He was once acting director of citizenship and immigration services, and moved within months of leaving his post in July 2005 to a job in which he lobbied the Coast Guard, another unit of the department. The reason he was in compliance: The Coast Guard is not part of the component that contained Petrucelli's former agency, Citizenship and Immigration Services.
From Homeland Security to lucrative contract work
New jobs raise questions for those who were in Bush administration
By ERIC LIPTON
New York Times
WASHINGTON - Dozens of members of the Bush administration's domestic security team, assembled after the 2001 terrorist attacks, are now collecting bigger paychecks in different roles: working on behalf of companies that sell domestic security products, many directly to the federal agencies the officials once helped run.
At least 90 officials at the Department of Homeland Security or the White House Office of Homeland Security — including the department's former secretary, Tom Ridge; and the former undersecretary (and current candidate for the governorship of Arkansas), Asa Hutchinson — are executives, consultants or lobbyists for companies that collectively do billions of dollars' worth of domestic security business.
More than two-thirds of the department's most senior executives in its first years have moved through the revolving door.
That pattern raises questions for some former officials.
Federal law prohibits senior executive branch officials from lobbying former government colleagues or subordinates for at least a year after leaving public service. But by exploiting loopholes in the law, — including one provision drawn up by department executives to facilitate their entry into the business world — it is often easy for former officials to do just that.
Few modern parallels
The shift to the private sector is hardly without precedent in Washington. But veteran Washington lobbyists and watchdog groups say the exodus of such a sizable share of an agency's senior management before the end of an administration has few modern parallels.
What troubles Scott Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, are not the lucrative paychecks earned by former officials, but what he sees as an effort to disregard the spirit of the lobbying ban in pursuit of those rewards.
"It is a dirty way to get around the conflict-of-interest and ethics rules," Amey said. "It is legal. But is it appropriate? I don't think so."
What the law says
The law that governs the so-called post-employment life for federal officials was enacted in 1962. It prohibits senior officials from "any communication to or appearance" before their former government department or agency on behalf of another for one year from the date they leave their job.
Robert E. Coyle, the designated ethics official for the Homeland Security Department, said he believed that former department executives were almost universally honoring the rules.
But the experience in the short life of the agency shows that the law often does little to prevent former officials from moving quickly to lobby the government on domestic security matters on behalf of their new bosses or clients.
Perhaps the biggest loophole was created in late 2004 at the request of senior department officials, when the first big wave of departures began. The Office of Government Ethics approved a request by the department to split it into seven components for the purposes of the ethics rules.
Once in the private sector, most former department officials were prohibited for one year from lobbying the same component where they once worked.
That meant that Michael J. Petrucelli technically complied with the ethics rules. He was once acting director of citizenship and immigration services, and moved within months of leaving his post in July 2005 to a job in which he lobbied the Coast Guard, another unit of the department. The reason he was in compliance: The Coast Guard is not part of the component that contained Petrucelli's former agency, Citizenship and Immigration Services.