RAIL INSPECTORS' CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST VIOLATIONS ALLEGED

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 14, 1992                   TAG: 9201140021
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
RAIL INSPECTORS' CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST VIOLATIONS ALLEGED
The Federal Railroad Administration was accused Monday of violating conflict-of-interest laws over the last decade by allowing safety workers to inspect railroads which once employed them.
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader and other witnesses told a House Government Operations panel that 56 of the agency's 369 inspectors continue to hold re-employment rights with railroads for which they formerly worked and which they currently inspect. He said some inspectors have not quit their railroad jobs but are on leaves of absence.
Agency officials acknowledged that the situation represents a potential or actual conflict of interest, and said that it would be corrected over time. Meanwhile, they said, it has not compromised safety and, if anything, resulted in tougher inspections.
Responding to a series of sharply pointed questions from Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Grady C. Cothen Jr., the agency's associate administrator for safety, said inspectors are likely to be tougher and less lenient on railroads they once served as employees.
"They all may be Mother Teresas, that isn't the point," Boxer said, adding that federal law clearly states that "an employee shall not have a direct or indirect financial interest that conflicts, or appears to conflict, with his government duties."
Boxer noted that in 1981, the FRA found that 70 of its inspectors with re-employment rights were inspecting the railroads with which they held such rights. But there has been virtually no follow-up since most of those workers appealed their conflict-of-interest notification, she said.
Cothen said it would be expensive and difficult to immediately transfer these inspectors to posts in which their former jobs would not pose a conflict of interest with their present railroad safety careers.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB