The White House has formalized its guidance for lobbying the executive branch on stimulus money, with the result being that many others - not just lobbyists - must adhere to a limited ban on oral communication.
The formalized rules, announced in a White House memo, now apply to a relatively narrow time frame, but they still require federal officials to document all meetings and phone calls about stimulus projects with registered lobbyists.
The announcement pleased ethics experts, who have awaited clarification on restrictions that had first banned lobbyists outright from any oral communication, by telephone or in person, with executive branch officials about stimulus money. A White House blog entry later indicated that the rules would be relaxed and the recent memo makes that blog entry official.
The memo from the Office of Management and Budget narrows the ban on oral communication to "after competitive grant applications are submitted and before awards are made." It also applies the ban during that period to many others, not just registered lobbyists.
"The one downside is that we now have a situation where no one at a company - registered lobbyists or anyone else - can discuss the merits of an application with federal officials after an application has been submitted," said Public Affairs Council President Doug Pinkham. "But at least they're not discriminating as much against registered lobbyists."
Pinkham also noted that the Office of Management and Budget has posted a helpful list of "frequently asked questions" that make it clear that executive branch officials should not avoid contact with federally registered lobbyists about stimulus money.
"The purpose of the (regulations) is to provide transparency to certain communications with federally registered lobbyists... not to bar such communications," the OMB document reads. "You should proceed with all communications in accordance with the protocol."
The memo, ethics lawyer Ken Gross told Roll Call, "will speak louder than a blog and be better understood, and it will be communicated among people in the administration that they can now deal with lobbyists except during a narrow time period."
Gross said many agency officials were playing it safe by refusing to meet with lobbyists even when it was allowed.
"We were receiving regular reports from various lobbyists of all stripes who were not getting their phone calls returned or were excluded from meetings contrary to the blog (posting)," Gross told Roll Call.
The 11-page document is available on the OMB website.
Read Pinkham's letter here.
