President Trump is populating the White House and federal agencies with former lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who in many cases are helping to craft new policies for the same industries in which they recently earned a paycheck.The potential conflicts are arising across the executive branch, according to an analysis of recently released financial disclosures, lobbying records and interviews with current and former ethics officials by The New York Times in collaboration with ProPublica.
The Times highlighted “at least two” instances in which the administration appointed lobbyists to government posts in violation of the administration’s own ethics rules. There may be others, the article added, “but evaluating if and when such violations have occurred has become almost impossible because the Trump administration is secretly issuing waivers to the rules.”
I’m not altogether sure what the point of having ethics rules is if the White House is handing out waivers — in secret — allowing officials to ignore those rules whenever Team Trump sees fit.One example from the piece seemed especially brazen.
One such case involves Michael Catanzaro, who serves as the top White House energy adviser. Until late last year, he was working as a lobbyist for major industry clients such as Devon Energy of Oklahoma, an oil and gas company, and Talen Energy of Pennsylvania, a coal-burning electric utility, as they fought Obama-era environmental regulations, including the landmark Clean Power Plan. Now, he is handling some of the same matters on behalf of the federal government. […]Mr. Catanzaro was registered for Talen Energy on the Clean Power Plan in 2015, yet he has worked in recent months as a senior member of the White House’s National Economic Council trying to roll back that rule, adopted by the Obama administration.Mr. Catanzaro’s former clients, such as Talen and Devon Energy, have an enormous amount at stake in the regulations the White House is preparing to reverse — with his help. Talen, for example, helps operate the Colstrip power plant in Montana, the second-largest coal-burning plant west of the Mississippi. Federal officials have estimated that the plant could face a $1.2 billion bill as it makes updates to meet the new environmental standards, assuming it is not just closed.Three industry lobbyists interviewed by The Times said that they recently had confidential conversations with Mr. Catanzaro about some of the same regulatory matters on which he was lobbying the federal government. And Mr. Catanzaro gave a briefing to reporters in March at the White House in which he discussed energy topics at length, including the details related to the executive order Mr. Trump signed on March 28 to weaken the Clean Power Plan.
If Devon Energy sounds familiar, it’s because Scott Pruitt also had an overly cozy relationship with the company — before Trump and Senate Republicans made him the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.The Times’ article added that in several cases, “officials in the Trump administration now hold the exact jobs they targeted as lobbyists or lawyers in the past two years.”As for just how many ethics waivers the White House has approved, no one seems to have any idea. Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub told the Times, “There’s no transparency, and I have no idea how many waivers have been issued.”Adding insult to injury, Team Trump continues to boast as if it’s actually limited the power of special interests in D.C. In February, the White House issued a press statement in which it said Trump is “draining the swamp” and taking actions “to ensure that all members of his Administration are working for the American people.”Last week, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed Trump has “implemented historic ethics reforms.” As recently as Friday, in a statement announcing the White House’s plans to keep its visitor logs secret, Team Trump insisted it is “instituting historic restrictions on lobbying to close the revolving door.”As it too often the case with this administration, the truth is the exact opposite of what Team Trump claims.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."