New Obama Policy Bars Lobbyists From Federal Advisory Panels
Some actual good news from Washington, some Change We Can Believe In, a promise fulfilled:
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.
Predictably, those “experts” are going nuts. Or, their lobbyist firms and the businesses that pay them are flipping out about it. Apparently, we’re going to lose so much darn expertise and unique insight that is so valuable to the government and citizens of this country.
What will we do without the panel members that pushed us towards invading Iraq and destroying labor regulations and opening up markets to the point that jobs left this country like a gaping sieve?
Honestly, what will we do without people like this:
“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.”
I wonder which communities he’s talking about? The exclusive, gated ones? Their voices have sunk this ship, and the argument that we’ll be losing out by excluding them is about as preposterous and laughable as the insistence of failed financial firm executives that they need to pay those billions in bonuses to retain the geniuses who crashed our economy straight into the ground.
Somehow, I think we’ll be okay. There are a hell of a lot of economists and academics out there, a lot of them having spent a lot of time on the outside looking in at Washington as it was raided by corporate interests.
If anyone actually listened to groups like Common Cause, they’d hear common sense, such as this:
“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.
And generally speaking, that agenda just doesn’t seem to dovetail with what’s right for 99% of the country.
After a lot of tough love, I’ve got to applaud the Obama Administration on this one. Now I just wonder how long it’ll take before this is walked back. Midterm elections are coming up, and those are expensive, after all.
