Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 9, 1995 TAG: 9507100010
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But are they too flush?
Recent news reports have chronicled the astonishingly open role lobbyists are playing in writing legislation under consideration by the Republican Congress:
The New York Times has reported that lobbyists from the chemical and paper industries, among others, worked side by side with House sponsors of a bill to revise the Clean Water Act, while senior Environmental Protection Agency officials were shut out. Not surprisingly, the legislation contained provisions the industry groups had long sought.
Sen. Slade Gorton of Washington has taken under his protective wing a bill that would scrap most of the Endangered Species Act's requirements to save plants and animals headed for extinction. The draft of the bill, the Times has reported, was written by D.C. lawyers representing timber, mining, ranching and utility interests.
Gorton doesn't want jobs to be endangered by species protection - but the corporate hands making their mark on this bill failed to include those of the fishing industry, which relies on environmental laws in its efforts to save the salmon, for example.
The Washington Post has detailed how Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas gathered business and industry lobbyists into an ad hoc group called Project Relief, which drafted legislation for a moratorium on government regulations.
Democratic lawmakers also have worked with lobbyists in drafting legislation. Some advocacy groups outraged at the current partnerships between public officials and private interests have, in the past, wielded considerable bill-drafting influence of their own. Indeed, the perception - all too often accurate - that congressional Democrats were too tied to insider private interests contributed to their fall to minority status in the November elections.
Thus the out-of-synch curiosity: A new GOP majority thunders onto Capitol Hill with a supposedly populist mandate to change government, then turns over the revolution to lawyer-lobbyists, the ultimate Washington insiders.
Now we have the first "public hearing" of what is called the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform, organized by Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich. It looks like a government panel, but it isn't.
It is a privately financed, tax-exempt organization that is charged with developing a flatter, "fairer," simpler tax code. Its chairman, Jack Kemp, says Dole and Gingrich didn't want to use government money to pay for its work.
What, they didn't want to be unduly influenced by the public interest?
Moreover, the private contributors who'll fund the group don't have to be identified to the public, though they do have more than passing personal interests in what the nation's tax code looks like. A list of donors probably will be released voluntarily, the panel's vice chairman says - after the group's work is finished.
Lawmakers are free, of course, to accept or reject proposed legislation from this group or any other. They, as elected officials, are accountable for the results. Still, the GOP should proceed with caution. A distinct odor arises when private interests take control of public policy. Congress itself should not be open to "privatization."
by CNB