ThinkProgress

EPA happy to waive ethics rules for industry lobbyists joining the agency

Nearly half of the political appointees at Trump’s EPA have strong industry ties.

Mark Hand       March 9, 2018

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. Credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

President Donald Trump’s executive order on ethics, signed one week after his inauguration, has not stopped the administration from appointing lobbyists and industry officials to key positions at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other government agencies.

Trump’s order mandated that any political appointee who worked as a registered lobbyist within two years of their appointment be barred from participating in any matter related to their previous job. According to a new Associated Press report, though, nearly half of the political appointees hired by the EPA in the first year of the Trump administration have strong industry ties, creating serious concerns about conflicts of interest.

The AP report shows that Trump administration has either blatantly ignored the executive order or granted waivers to former lobbyists that allow them to work on issues involving their former clients.

The administration’s hiring of large numbers industry lobbyists — and then granting them ethics waivers so they can work on issues related to their former clients — also violates Trump’s pledge during the presidential campaign to “drain the swap” of the revolving door of government and industry officials. Needless to say, the astounding number of former industry officials and lobbyists brought on board by Trump has only worsened, not improved, Washington’s corporate lobbying and corruption problems.

Influx of anti-regulation political appointees turns EPA’s mission on its head

Craig Holman, who lobbies in Washington for stricter government ethics and lobbying rules for advocacy group Public Citizen, told the AP that not only are key provisions simply ignored and not enforced, when in cases where obvious conflicts of interest are brought into the limelight, the administration readily issues waivers from the ethics rules.

The EPA released a report earlier this week that listed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s “accomplishments” over the past year. As summarized by Alex Formuzis at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, the report lauded the EPA’s decision to stop the ban of a pesticide that the agency’s own scientists wanted banned because it causes brain damage in children. Pruitt bragged about rescinding a rule to protect streams that provide drinking water for millions of Americans. In the report, he also proudly looked back at his push to repeal the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s landmark rule to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for power plants.

Pruitt’s environmental rollbacks could not have happened without the help of the agency’s industry-linked political appointees. ProPublica has tracked the total number of lobbyists the Trump administration has hired and puts the count currently at 187, many of whom have been appointed to positions in which they can do favors for the clients they used to represent.

One blatant example at the EPA is the hiring of Erik Baptist, who worked until 2016 as a registered federal lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, the top trade group for the oil and gas industry, where he pushed Congress to repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard. Baptist now works as a top EPA lawyer who was granted approval by White House counsel Don McGahn to advise Pruitt on issues surrounding the renewable fuel law.

AP reporters reviewed records that showed McGahn has issued at least 24 ethics waivers to top administration officials at the White House and executive branch agencies. The waivers were signed months ago, but the Office of Government Ethics disclosed several of them on Wednesday.

Given how many waivers have been granted over the past year, Holman said he believes Trump’s pledge to drain the swamp was little more than campaign rhetoric.

Ethics rules were much stricter under President Obama whose administration issued about 70 waivers during his eight years in office. The waivers were more narrowly focused and offered a fuller legal explanation for why the waiver was granted, according to the AP.

While about half of the political appointees at the EPA have strong industry ties, about one-third of the 59 EPA hires tracked by the AP worked as registered lobbyists or lawyers for chemical manufacturers, fossil fuel producers and other corporate clients.

Jeffrey Sands, a lobbyist for Syngenta, a pesticide manufacturer, was granted permission by McGahn to work for Pruitt as his senior adviser for agriculture. Following a request from the EPA, McGahn determined it was “in the public interest” to allow Sands to work as Pruitt’s senior adviser for agriculture. In a memo, obtained by E&E News, McGahan said Sands’ “extensive expertise” in farming issues warranted the waiver from the president’s ethics pledge.

Trump’s new EPA appointee violates his own ethics order, senators say

Another top EPA official, Dennis Lee Forsgren, deputy assistant administrator in the agency’s water office, was granted a waiver so he could work with the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, one of his former lobbying clients, during last year’s hurricane season. Before joining the EPA, Forsgren also worked as an attorney for HBW Resources, a fossil fuel lobbying firm known for orchestrating campaigns on behalf of industry clients.

EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox told the AP that all agency employees work with its ethics office regarding any potential conflicts they may encounter during their time at the agency.

Early in Trump’s administration, the EPA appointed former energy lobbyist Elizabeth “Tate” Bennett as deputy associate administrator of the agency’s Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations, the agency’s primary liaison between Congress and state governments.

Bennett came to the EPA from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), which represents more than 900 rural, consumer-owned electric utilities. As an organization, NRECA opposed nearly a dozen EPA regulations, including the Clean Power Plan, the Waters of the United States rule, and the Steam Electric Effluent Limitation Guidelines rule, which sets limits on the amount of toxic metals that can be discharged into water from power plants.

The influx of all of these former industry lobbyists at the EPA aided Pruitt in his organized an assault on several Obama-era regulations. The Trump administration has “slowly been stocking” the EPA with appointees with “serious conflicts of interest,” wrote Keith Gaby, senior communications director of climate, health, and political affairs for the Environmental Defense Fund.

Good Morning America

Interior to spend $139,000 on new doors for Zinke’s office

Stephanie Ebbs, Good Morning America     March 9, 2018

The Interior Department plans to spend more than $139,000 on new doors and repairs for Sec. Ryan Zinke’s office at the department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., the agency confirmed to ABC News on Thursday.

The purchase is the latest in a series of questionable agency expenses connected to President Donald Trump’s cabinet leaders. Last week the Department of Housing and Urban Development canceled an order for a $31,000 dining set for Sec. Ben Carson’s  office suite.

Federal contracting records show that the Interior Department signed an order for $139,669.68 described only as “Secretary’s Door” on Nov. 6 of last year. The order was supposed to be completed by the end of that month but was later amended to be completed by the end of January.

Interior Spokeswoman Heather Swift said in a statement that Secretary Ryan Zinke was not aware of the order before the Associated Press report on Thursday and agrees that it is too expensive. The AP first reported the story.

“This project was requested by career facilities and security officials at Interior as part of the decade-long modernization of the historic FDR-era building. The secretary was not aware of this contract but agrees that this is a lot of money for demo, install, materials, and labor,” Swift said in a statement to ABC News. “Between regulations that require historic preservation and outdated government procurement rules, the costs for everything from pencils to printing to doors is astronomical. This is a perfect example of why the Secretary believes we need to reform procurement processes.”

The order has been planned since last summer to replace three sets of double doors in the secretary’s office, according to a statement from Joe Nassar, director of the office of facilities and administrative services at Interior Department.

Nassar said in his statement that two sets of doors that lead outside have been in disrepair and allow air and water into the office during inclement weather, which then damages the wooden floor. The order would replace those with fiberglass and repair an interior set of doors while preserving the existing fixtures.

He said the doors were last replaced about 11 years ago.

“The cost is reasonable when taking into account there are two sets of double doors, the doors must be custom built, they must meet historic building requirements, includes both sets of door frames, demo of the current structure and installation,” Nassar said in the statement. “In order to control costs, the contractual documents included a request to use existing door handles, locks and latches. The contract and the amount also included repairs to the interior double doors.”

Zinke has been under scrutiny for his spending on travel, which has been an issue with several other cabinet officials. Interior’s inspector general is currently looking into whether all of Zinke’s spending followed proper procedures.

Democrats on a committee with oversight of Interior quickly weighed in on Twitter asking Zinke to explain the expense.

And Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff tweeted “think how many dining sets” or private jets Zinke could have chartered with that money.

MSNBC

The Rachel Maddow Show – The Maddow Blog

 Why is a top aide to the EPA chief ‘moonlighting for private clients’?

 By Steve Benen       March 6, 2018

The headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stands in Washington, D.C. Photo by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty

Since Donald Trump put Scott Pruitt in charge of the EPA, the agency has faced one controversy after another, but today’s is just … bizarre.

Last year, Pruitt hired a Republican political consultant named John Konkus to serve as the EPA’s deputy associate administrator for public affairs. It’s not, however, just a public-relations job. The Washington Post  reported in September that Konkus, despite his lack of environmental policy experience, is in charge of “vetting the hundreds of millions of dollars in grants the EPA distributes annually.”

We learned at the time that Konkus “reviews every award the agency gives out, along with every grant solicitation before it is issued.” As part of his reviews, he looks out for “the double C-word” – climate change – and according to the Post, he’s repeatedly “instructed grant officers to eliminate references to the subject in solicitations.”

It’s against this backdrop that the Associated Press reports that the EPA official is also moonlighting for unnamed private-sector clients.

A key aide to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has been granted permission to make extra money moonlighting for private clients whose identities are being kept secret.

A letter approving outside employment contracts for John Konkus – signed by an EPA ethics lawyer in August – was released Monday by Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The ethics official noted that Konkus’ outside contracts presented a “financial conflict of interest” and barred him from participating in matters at EPA that would have a “direct and predictable” financial benefit for his clients.

Apparently, Konkus, a former Trump campaign aide who now receives a $145,000 annual salary at the EPA, received permission to work for at least two unnamed clients, with the expectation that this list will grow.

What’s more, according to the AP, he’s not the only one.

Along with the information about Konkus’ side jobs, the House Democrats also got a copy of letter approving similar outside employment for Patrick Davis, another Trump political appointee working as a senior adviser for public engagement in the EPA’s regional office in Denver.

Like Konkus, Davis is a Republican political consultant who led Trump’s presidential campaign in Colorado. According to a 2015 report by ProPublica, Davis was accused two years earlier of defrauding a conservative super PAC called Vote2ReduceDebt, which was funded by an elderly oil tycoon. The group collapsed after Davis allegedly paid nearly $3 million of the PAC’s funds to organizations run by him or his close associates, according to the news report. […]

An EPA ethics lawyer in February 2017 approved of Davis receiving outside compensation for work as sales director for a company called Telephone Town Hall Meeting, which provides services such as robocalls to political campaigns and advocacy groups. The agency redacted how much Davis is to be paid for the agreement, but his outside compensation would also be capped at less than $28,000.

I don’t know how long it’ll take to repair the Environmental Protection Agency, but I have a hunch it’s going to take a while.

Update: Norm Eisen, the chief ethics lawyer in Obama’s White House, described these EPA waivers as “insane,” adding, “In the Obama White House, I even made people quit uncompensated non-profit outside positions because of conflicts risks. This is for-profit work that could conflict with official duties.”