Patrick’s Notebook

By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — At a time when Congress has moved to ban most lobbyist-funded travel, executive branch officials are routinely accepting trips from companies and trade associations with a stake in their agencies’ decisions, according to a USA TODAY review of public records.

In a recent 12-month period:

• A Department of Transportation aviation analyst went to a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, at a cost of $1,900 courtesy of the National Business Aviation Association, which lobbies the department on private jet rules.

• Two Defense Department homeland defense officials attended a conference in Limerick, Ireland, that was sponsored by Rivada Networks, a defense contractor that picked up the $4,200 tab.

• The Consumer Electronics Association, a lobbying group, paid more than $34,000 to host 24 officials from various agencies at the five-star Wynn hotel at its Las Vegas trade show in January, spokesman Jason Oxman said.

Those trips and more than 100 others taken from April 2006 to March 2007 would be out of bounds for members of Congress under the recently passed ethics bill, because they lasted more than one day and were paid for by companies or groups that employ lobbyists. The travel restrictions in the ethics bill, which awaits President Bush’s signature, don’t apply to the other branches of government.

For executive branch officials, federal rules say corporate-funded trips are permitted as long as they don’t “cause a reasonable person … to question the integrity of agency programs or operations.”

Each of the trips examined by USA TODAY was deemed to have met that standard, agency spokesmen said.

“Corporations and trade associations want to pay for these trips for a reason, and that is to have face time with the regulators and government officials,” said Bill Hogan, director of investigative projects for the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan watchdog group. “That often runs contrary to the public interest.”

Some agencies have more stringent policies than others. The Food and Drug Administration, for example, generally does not accept gifts of travel from entities it regulates, such as drug companies, spokeswoman Sandy Walsh said, because doing so could be perceived as compromising the agency’s independence.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would not “go anywhere near” accepting trips from companies doing business with the commission, said Eileen Harrington, deputy director bureau of consumer protection.

Several agencies, including the Marine Corps and the Tennessee Valley Authority, have allowed free trips from vendors.

USA TODAY reviewed more than 600 agency reports on file with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Most of the trips involved officials invited to speak at or attend conferences, often in warm-weather climes, and most were underwritten by universities, non-profit associations or foreign governments.

More than 200 trips during the 12-month period, however, were paid for by corporations or trade groups that are regulated by, or do business with, the department or agency.

Harrington said annual attendance by FTC officials at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas helps regulators understand the latest technologies, and that it would be too expensive to pay for out of government funds. The Consumer Electronics Association has lobbied the FTC on issues such as how to measure television picture tube resolution, but the agency sees no conflict of interest in accepting the travel, she said.

“The public expects us to get the very most value for every dollar that we spend,” she said. “To the extent that we’re able to stretch our travel budget by accepting reimbursement from non-federal sources, we’re going do that.”

In 2002, the inspector general at the National Science Foundation criticized that group’s practice of accepting free travel from recipients of foundation grants, saying it was contrary to federal policy and “raises concerns about the appearance of a conflict of interest.” The agency disagreed but promised to stop.

The foundation now accepts such travel only in a handful of exceptional cases, spokesman Lisa-Joy Zgorski said. There were nine such trips in the most recent six-month reporting period, records show.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-08-22-travel-lobbyists_N.htm