Will anyone, any where, be surprised by this story?
The executive director of Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force, whose closed-door meetings with industry executives enraged environmentalists and prompted a Supreme Court showdown this week, became an energy lobbyist just months after leaving the White House, records show.
Andrew Lundquist, a native Alaskan who worked on Capitol Hill for both his state’s senators, shepherded the development of the administration’s energy policy as executive director of the National Energy Policy Development Group, a Cabinet-level task force chosen by President Bush and headed by Cheney.
When the task force completed its work, Lundquist stayed on at the White House as Cheney’s energy policy director, leading the vice president’s effort to turn the task force’s work into law.
Then, a day after leaving government service, he opened a consulting business. Nine months later, Lundquist was a registered lobbyist for companies that stood to benefit from the energy policy he helped craft, according to 2003 lobby disclosure records reviewed by the Globe.
There are actually a few interesting angles to this. Lundquist is not just another Bush official-turned-corporate-lobbyist, though he is certainly that. There are still several questions surrounding his role with Cheney’s energy task force and the time between his work with Cheney and his role as an industry lobbyist.
While working with (read: for) Cheney, Lundquist was paid by the Department of Energy, which is covered by the Freedom of Information Act, unlike the White House. With that in mind, the Natural Resources Defense Council, which wanted to know more about who Cheney was meeting with in shaping the administration’s energy policy, tried to obtain Lundquist’s records about the task force. Not surprisingly, the White House immediately intervened.
When a court ordered the records released, the administration again refused, putting Lundquist in the middle of the administration’s battle over the secrecy of its energy dealings.
That case is still working its way through the system. But there’s still another interesting question about Lundquist’s transition from the public to private sphere.
Government ethics law prohibits a former senior government employee from lobbying his former department or agency for one year.
”The purpose of this one-year ‘cooling-off’ period is to allow for a period of adjustment to new roles for the former senior employee and the agency he served, and to diminish any appearance that government decisions might be affected by the improper use by an individual of his former senior position,” explained a February 2000 memorandum by the Office of Government Ethics.
Lundquist’s position qualified him as a ”senior” government employee, according to documents reviewed by the Globe, but the lobby reports do not make clear whether he contacted his most recent former offices — the White House and the Energy Department — within the one-year prohibition.
Lundquist registered as a lobbyist as of Jan. 1, 2003, nine months after leaving the White House. In the filings, he named both the Executive Office of the President and the Energy Department as targets of his lobbying, along with the Senate, House, and Environmental Protection Agency.
The disclosure forms cover lobbying activity over six-month periods. So it is not clear when exactly Lundquist lobbied the Executive Office of the President and the Energy Department between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2003. He would have violated the law only if he approached them during the first three months of that period.
While that may be unclear, many see, at a minimum, the appearance of impropriety.
Lundquist’s quickly shifting roles, combined with the secrecy of a process that environmental and public interest groups could not penetrate, leaves many government ethics specialists concerned.
”Certainly, it’s not in the spirit of the law, and it certainly looks like a serious conflict of interest and a classic case of revolving door,” James A. Thurber, director of American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, said of Lundquist’s role. ”It has the perception that he’s taking advantage of his public service for personal benefit and for the benefit of his clients. And, of course, that’s what this law is about. It’s about keeping people from taking advantage, immediately taking advantage of their public service, for private gain. That’s what I mean by the spirit of the law.”