The Washington Times reports the statement by Kashkari in a way that makes it seem that he is revealing something more than his own opinion. (This makes me think of this great post by Michael Scherer at the Time Magazine blog on the media’s obsession with simulacrum.) That being said, Kashkari’s opinion on the rules does raise questions considering the Treasury Department has yet to announce a full set of rules for lobbyists and has yet to implement them nearly eight months after announcing them.

Considering that the administration also announced rules for the stimulus spending that were met with intense opposition from lobbyist groups, the likelihood that these rules were announced solely for political purposes seems doubtful. What I’m really wondering is: why has the Treasury Department slow-walked the implementation of lobbying rules and who is behind that?

The Washington Post profiled super-lobbyist Heather Podesta a couple of days ago. A big focus in the story is the jet-setting life a top lobbyist must lead to get to the big fundraising parties. Dancing with the Ways & Means Chair one night (“Doesn’t get any better than that … A kiss from the chairman.”) and tasting wines at Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s vineyard a few days later. This is “the Summer of the Lobbyist.”

Tim O’Reilly asks, “What does Gov 2.0 mean to you?”

Even though we haven’t discussed the disclosure of detainee abuse photos or memos, I found this post by Marc Ambinder illuminating as to how a commitment to transparency can have unintended consequences.

Two months ago, I wrote a post on the health care clients of Daschle’s law firm, Alston & Bird. The list includes many powerful players who have organized on both sides of the health reform debate. Perhaps the most important client is UnitedHealth Corp., a powerful insurance company that has opposed the most controversial provision in the debate, the public option. The Times article notes this conflict:

Now the White House and Senate Democratic leaders appear to be moving toward a blueprint for overhauling the health system, centered on nonprofit insurance cooperatives, that Mr. Daschle began promoting two months ago as a politically feasible alternative to a more muscular government-run insurance plan.

It is an idea that happens to dovetail with the interests of many Alston & Bird clients, like the insurance giant UnitedHealth and the Tennessee Hospital Association. And it is drawing angry cries of accommodation from more liberal House Democrats bent on including a public insurance plan.

Below is a complete list of Alston & Bird’s health care clients culled from 1st quarter lobbying reports:

Apparently, the $80 billion cost savings that the pharmaceutical industry agreed to with the Obama administration came with a price. In return, the White House promised to protect the industry from further attempts to extract cost savings from them including allowing the government to negotiate drug prices. Now we know what those trips to the White House were all about.

The House Selecte Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is investigating the forged letters sent to three congressmen by a grassroots lobbying firm on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). ACCCE has been trying to distance themselves from Bonner & Associates, the firm in question, and has denounced the letters. In a new letter sent by Chair Ed Markey, ACCCE is questioned as to why they did not act on the forged letters after they discovered their existence on June 24, two days prior to the vote on the cap and trade bill.

A new hire by the State Department may exploit a loophole in the administration’s lobbying ban.

The Washington Post has a useful interactive graphic to compare the various versions of health care reform in Congress.

The 787 billion dollar question is how does the OMB’s July 24th guidance on stimulus recovery lobbying differ from its April 7th memo? (For a short video explaining the old rules, see this.) Here’s how the rules have changed.

Who Is Covered?

The rule against agency officials engaging in oral communications with persons applying for federal financial assistance under the Recovery Act has been expanded to nearly everyone, instead of only encompassing lobbyists, as it did before.

However, the ban specifically exempts certain groups of people. It doesn’t reach federal government employees. It doesn’t cover the elected chief executive of a state, local, or tribal government (e.g., governors and mayors). And the ban doesn’t apply to the Presiding Officer or Majority Leader in each chamber of a state legislature.

In addition, the ban does not apply if the subject of the communication to an agency official regards a purely logistical question, or was made at a widely attended gathering. Nor does it cover people responding to communications initiated by agency staff – that is, to answer agency staff questions.

Interestingly enough, it is not clear whether the new rules pertain to Congressional staff or Members of Congress. It seems reasonable to conclude that Congressional staff can communicate with agency officials under the “federal government employee” exemption. However, Members of Congress are not specifically exempted from these rules, although elected officials at the state and local level are specifically mentioned as exempted. (It would be a stretch to fit Members of Congress under the “federal government employee” exemption.)

The omission of Members of Congress probably is an oversight. If followed, banning communications by Members of Congress would likely be unconstitutional, as Congress has oversight responsibilities over agency activities.

When Does The Ban Take Effect?

The ban on oral communications set forth in the April 7th memo prohibits communications “regarding Recovery Act matters” that pertain to “particular projects, applications, or applicants for funding.” Under the old rule, oral communications are prohibited upon the first expression of interest by a party, or even earlier than that, if there’s enough indication that the party is interested in a specific project or application.

The new memo changes this considerably. Now, persons interested in receiving Recovery Act money may communicate with agency officials up until the point they file a “formal application.” This is much later on in the process. Conceivably, persons interested in Recovery Act funds may hold off on filing an application for a grant while they lobby administration officials, and then submit the formal paperwork once they’ve laid the groundwork.

What Does The Ban Cover?

Under the new rule, the ban covers only oral communications concerning pending applications for a competitive grant or other competitive form of federal financial assistance under the Recovery Act. The previous rule covered oral communications regarding all grants, regardless of whether they were competitive or issued based upon a formula. The new OMB memo explains that only competitive grants are covered because “in formula-driven grant contexts, grantees . . . are designated by statute and do not have to compete with others to receive their awards from Federal agencies.”

Final Thoughts

The OMB memo says that the administration will soon release a “web tool” to “facilitate disclosure of lobbyist contacts concerning the Recovery Act.” This will go a long way towards making this a more transparent process. Hopefully, the form will look something like this.

Last Friday’s memo also partially closed a loophole identified in an earlier post. Agencies are now required to publish online written communications from lobbyists concerning Recovery Act policies. This alleviates the concern about lobbyists can ask for the creation of specific grants that would benefit their clients without having to disclose their request. It leaves open, however, the ability of lobbyists to ask for the creation of formula-driven grants that would ultimately be distributed to their clients.

Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate. The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy.

While the administration required lobbyists to meet a pretty high transparency burden for the stimulus funds, health care lobbying is allowed to fester without the transparency Obama repeatedly promised during the campaign. Now, negotiations do not necessarily need to be televised — in fact that’s probably a bad idea — but disclosing who is meeting with White House officials is crucial to gauging the power of groups and organizations trying to influence the final outcome.

The same is true with all major issues that the White House has put forward: cap and trade, financial regulation and health care. The New York Times reported that industry officials and lobbyists are seeking to work with the administration, in an effort to have their voices heard, rather than throw bombs from the outside. All of these organizations are seeking to influence White House decisions and ultimately to lobby Congress to set the final outcome, yet there is no mechanism for disclosure of their interactions with government officials.

If President Obama wants to meet his campaign promises of fighting lobbyists and increasing the transparency of the influence sector, he should consider applying the same disclosure rules (not the meeting restrictions) that cover stimulus lobbying to all lobbyists and executives. Or, at the very least, release a list of health care lobbyists and executives visiting the White House, per CREW’s request.

Now the Post story has a few caveats that indicate that this lobbying campaign is probably larger than their reporting shows. For one:

The analysis identified more than 350 former government aides, each representing an average of four firms or trade groups. That tally does not include lobbyists who did not report their earlier government experience, such as PhRMA President W.J. “Billy” Tauzin, a former Republican congressman from Louisiana. Federal law does not require providing such detail.

Lobbying disclosure reports contain a field for listing prior government work, but this field is often left empty by lobbyists with government experience. If someone like Billy Tauzin, who is the poster boy for everything wrong with the revolving door, does not list his previous work as a leading lawmaker, what hope do we have for the many lesser former government workers to list their previous government work. I’d assume that the number of former government employees working in this campaign far exceeds 350.

One other aspect of the story highlights something which we’ve discussed here, lobbying contacts. The real problem with the revolving door is the unusual amount of access that former government officials, particularly members of Congress, have to current government officials. And that includes the ability to meet, call, or email with staffers or lawmakers to push their client’s agenda. Of course, Congress does not require any disclosure of lobbying contacts, thus obscuring the role that these 350+ lobbyists are having in the process of crafting a health care reform bill that will affect everyone in the country.

If you want to see other reporting on the network of former government staffers turned health care lobbyists, we’ve been looking at the Senate Finance Committee — “the central broker in the [health care] debate,” according to the Post — and the connections each lawmaker has with health care lobbyists. You can see our visualization of Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus’ connections or our visualization of all Senate Finance Committee Democrats and their connections. I’ll be posting about the Senate Finance Committee Republicans this week.

Both Daschle and Dole work for a major Washington, DC lobbying firm, Alston & Bird. Many of Alston & Bird’s major clients are from the health care sector including the American Hospital Association, HealthSouth Corp, and pharmaceutical companies Abbott Laboratories, Bayer, Celgene, and Mylan Laboratories. In total, Alston & Bird is currently representing 31 clients from the health care sector. Of the $2,730,000 reported income received from clients, nearly 50% of that, $1,070,000, comes from these 31 health care clients.

This looks like another benefit of the revolving door. You can release a legislative proposal from outside of Congress and the first thing anyone thinks of is your previous job and not your current one.

The following 31 companies and organizations are listed as health care sector clients of Alston & Bird: