Lobbyists Pushed off Federal Advisory Panels

Looks like Obama is going to live up to his pledge to reduce the influence of lobbyists.

From the Washington Post

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34169108/ns/politics-washington_post

Lobbyists pushed off federal advisory panels
New White House initiative to curb influence could affect thousands

WASHINGTON - Hundreds, if not thousands, of lobbyists are likely to be ejected from federal advisory panels as part of a little-noticed initiative by the Obama administration to curb K Street's influence in Washington, according to White House officials and lobbying experts.

The new policy -- issued with little fanfare this fall by the White House ethics counsel -- may turn out to be the most far-reaching lobbying rule change so far from President Obama, who also has sought to restrict the ability of lobbyists to get jobs in his administration and to negotiate over stimulus contracts.

The initiative is aimed at a system of advisory committees so vast that federal officials don't have exact numbers for its size; the most recent estimates tally nearly 1,000 panels with total membership exceeding 60,000 people.

Under the policy, which is being phased in over the coming months, none of the more than 13,000 lobbyists in Washington would be able to hold seats on the committees, which advise agencies on trade rules, troop levels, environmental regulations, consumer protections and thousands of other government policies.

"Some folks have developed a comfortable Beltway perch sitting on these boards while at the same time working as lobbyists to influence the government," said White House ethics counsel Norm Eisen, who disclosed the policy in a September blog posting on the White House Web site. "That is just the kind of special interest access that the president objects to."

But lobbyists and many of the businesses they represent say K Street is being unfairly demonized by a White House intent on scoring political points with scandal-weary voters. They warn that the latest policy will severely handicap federal regulators, who rely heavily on advisory boards for technical advice and to serve as liaisons between government and industry.

"It's taken me years to learn what the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is," said Robert Vastine, a lobbyist for the Coalition of Service Industries who also serves as chairman of a trade advisory board. "It's a whole different and specialized world. It is not easily obtained knowledge, and they are crippling themselves terribly by ruling out all registered lobbyists."

‘Bureaucratic labyrinth’
Vastine is deeply familiar with the system because he helped create it as a top Senate Republican staffer during the early 1970s, when Congress approved the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The result, as Vastine puts it, is a "bureaucratic labyrinth" that has expanded to include virtually every aspect of the sprawling federal government, from the 179-member National Petroleum Council, which closely advises the Department of Energy, to the influential Defense Policy Board, which wielded enormous clout in the decision to go to war in Iraq.

According to the most recent estimates from the General Services Administration, 52 government agencies use 915 advisory committees organized under the law, with a total membership of more than 60,000. Other estimates put the figure at about 1,000 panels. Federal officials say they do not know how many panel members are lobbyists.

Most committee members receive no pay for their participation. They often are urged to take part by companies, trade groups or advocacy organizations that hope to sway government decisions to their advantage. While their operations vary, the panels tend to hold open meetings and issue reports and recommendations, and they often wield significant influence with policymakers because of their expertise in arcane subjects, from nuclear plant safety to wild burro management.

Administration lawyers determined that they couldn't ban lobbyists from advisory committees directly because most of the panels are overseen by individual agencies rather than the White House; so Eisen encouraged -- rather than ordered -- the prohibition. Nonetheless, administration officials said, most Cabinet secretaries have implemented the recommendation, usually by barring renewals or new appointments for lobbyists.

Lobbyists up in arms
The reaction from the lobbying community has been swift and overwhelmingly negative. Some of the loudest criticism has come from the Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITACs), a collection of more than a dozen panels that provide policy advice and technical assistance to the Commerce Department and the U.S. Trade Representative. The ITACs, whose roughly 400 members include at least 130 lobbyists, officials say, have taken the lead in attacking the White House policy as misguided and harmful to U.S. business interests; a letter to Obama from committee chairs last month included executives from Boeing, IBM, Harley-Davidson and International Paper.

"This action will severely undermine the utility of the advisory committee process," the letter read. ". . . The characteristics that make many Advisors valuable to the Administration [are] the same characteristics that are being used to artificially disqualify them from participation in the Committee system."

The panel on automotive equipment and capital goods, for example, stands to lose at least seven of its two dozen members, including lobbyists for the National Association of Manufacturers and the auto supplier Delphi, when the committee is reconstituted early next year. Critics note that the removals come as domestic automakers struggle to survive and the Obama administration attempts to jump-start trade talks with South Korea and other nations.

"At least for a year and maybe longer, I think we will completely neuter the voice of American business in these negotiations," said panel Chairman Brian T. Petty, senior vice president for government affairs at the International Association of Drilling Contractors. "You are clearing out some of the most competent people."

One lobbyist, William C. Lane, has served on that panel for 20 years while working as the chief Washington representative for Caterpillar, the equipment manufacturer.

"We tend to focus on issues of competitiveness and opening up markets, which is good for everybody," Lane said of the advisory committee. "It's good for communities; it's good for our suppliers."

‘New voices’
Administration officials remain sanguine, saying the criticism is overblown and arguing that top corporate officers are free to sit on advisory panels as long as they aren't lobbyists. Eisen, in a response letter to the ITAC leaders last month, wrote that "arguments that only lobbyists can bring requisite experience to provide wise counsel . . . are unconvincing on their face."

"If the result of this new approach is that business owners join the conversation in D.C. about issues affecting them, that's fine," Eisen said in an interview. "It's healthy to move away from the professional advocates for the special interests and let some new voices be heard."

And though lobbyists are unhappy, some good-government advocates say the policy is sound.

"You may lose a lot of expertise, but these people are also paid to have a point of view; they have an agenda," said Mary Boyle, a vice president at Common Cause. "We support what the administration is doing to get deep-seated special interests out of the business of running our government, so this seems like a step in the right direction."

 

On the flip side the Obama Admin. has also met with several lobbyists from the health care industry according to the WH records. The influence of these lobbyists is unclear though.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34151914/ns/politics-white_house/

Records show White House health care talks
Lobbyists for health industry visited Obama's top aides, AP analysis shows


WASHINGTON - Top aides to President Barack Obama have met early and often with lobbyists, Democratic political strategists and other interests with a stake in the administration's national health care overhaul, White House visitor records obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press show.

The AP in early August asked the White House to produce records identifying communications that top Obama aides — including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, senior advisers David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett and Pete Rouse, and 18 others — had with outside interests on health care. The AP in late September narrowed its request to White House visitor records for those officials on health care.

The White House on Wednesday provided AP with 575 visitor records covering the period from Jan. 20, when Obama was inaugurated, through August. The records give the name of each visitor to the White House complex to see people on AP's list, the date of the visit, who they were supposed to see, how many people attended the gathering, and in a sampling of cases, the purpose of the visit. The records do not identify the visitors' employers, say on whose behalf they were there or give any specifics on what was discussed.

The records show a broad cross-section of the people most heavily involved in the health care debate, weighted heavily with those who want to overhaul the system. Among them were Dr. Eliot Fisher, a Dartmouth health researcher who has estimated that nearly one-third of health care dollars are wasted on unneeded services, and Dr. David Himmelstein of Harvard Medical School, who is among the top advocates of a single-payer health care system.

The list also includes George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Health Plans; Scott Serota, president and CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association; Kenneth Kies, a Washington lobbyist who represents Blue Cross/Blue Shield, among other clients; Billy Tauzin, head of PhRMA, the drug industry lobby; and Richard Umbdenstock, chief of the American Hospital Association.

Several lobbyists for powerful health care interests, including insurers, drug companies and large employers, also visited the White House complex, the records show:

Laird Burnett, a top lobbyist for insurer Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc., and a former Senate aide. Kaiser has spent some $1.7 million lobbying Congress over the past two years.
Joshua Ackil, a lobbyist whose clients include Intel, U.S. Oncology Inc., and Knoa Software Inc., all of which have reported lobbying on the health care overhaul. Ackil met with Dan Turton, the White House's deputy legislative affairs director who works with the House, in August. Seven people were at the Aug. 21 meeting, the records show.
Alissa Fox, a lobbyist with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, met March 31 with Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget. Four people attended, the records show. The health insurance federation has spent at least $6.7 million lobbying this year.
Mark Agrast, a lobbyist for the Center for American Progress Action Fund, met in June with Phil Schiliro, the White House legislative affairs director, with 22 people there, the records show.
Amador "Dean" Aguillen, a former aide to Nancy Pelosi who is now with Ogilvy Government Relations, where he lobbies for clients including pharmaceutical companies SanofiPasteur and Takeda Pharmaceuticals America, Pfizer Inc., and Amgen USA Inc., all of which reported lobbying on health care issues this year. Aguillen appears to have attended the same Aug. 21 meeting with Turton that Ackil did.
Merribel Ayres, a lobbyist who appears to focus on environmental issues such as energy and climate change. Ayres visited Schiliro on Aug. 18 at a meeting attended by five people, the records show.
The logs show a late-July meeting between Nancy-Ann DeParle, the director of Obama's Office of Health Reform, and lobbyists from the Business Roundtable, the association representing chief executives of major U.S. firms that has spent $9.3 million lobbying over the last two years and is keenly interested in the outcome of the health overhaul debate. Among the attendees at that session were the group's top lobbyist John J. Castellani, and Antonio Perez, the CEO of Eastman Kodak Company.

Demonstrating the political element of the health care debate, the records show that senior adviser Axelrod held what was described as a "communications message meeting" on March 13 with 18 people, including prominent Democratic strategists Brad Woodhouse, the party's communications director, and his predecessor Karen Finney; Steve McMahon, a campaign veteran and media strategist; Hilary Rosen, the former top lobbyist for the music industry; Jennifer Palmieri of the liberal Center for American Progress, John Edwards' former press secretary and a veteran of the Clinton White House; Maria Cardona, a specialist in Hispanic outreach at the Dewey Square Group; and Simon Rosenberg a founder of the centrist New Democrat Network.

Democratic pollsters Joel Benenson, Stanley Greenberg and Celinda Lake met with Jim Messina, the White House deputy chief of staff, on July 17. Twenty-seven people were there, the records show.

 

I report, YOU DECIDE!