Almost two years ago, a 527 organization called SpeechNow.org, asked for a court ruling that would have blocked the Federal Election Commission (FEC) from enforcing limits on contributions to the group. On Jan. 27, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard oral arguments in the case. The court must consider whether the group should be subject to an annual limit on donations from individuals and comply with disclosure requirements.

SpeechNow.org wants to collect unlimited contributions to help elect candidates who support free political speech. They argue that prohibiting contributions of more than $5,000 per year is an unconstitutional violation of free speech and association rights. After the group was initially formed in 2007, the FEC said it would have to register as a political committee, which requires contribution limits and prohibits corporate contributions.

News reports indicate that FEC attorney David Kolker faced skeptical questioning from appeals court judges as he sought to defend the contribution limits. The judges supposedly seemed sympathetic to SpeechNow.org's argument. The Associated Press reports that one of the judges told the lawyer representing the FEC; "You don't seem to value the First Amendment very highly."

According to BNA Money and Politics ($$), Kolker noted that the Citizens United ruling does not change limits on contributions to political parties. "Similar restrictions on non-party groups also should remain, the FEC lawyer said, because such groups can act as 'shadow parties' and be used to circumvent limits on contributions to candidates."

The judges suggested that since, "the Citizens United case established that independent expenditures do not corrupt candidates and thus cannot be limited under the First Amendment. It is not a long leap, the judges suggested, to assume that groups making only independent expenditures, like SpeechNow.org, cannot have their funding sources limited."

However, as the Supreme Court upheld disclosure requirements, judges in this case also seemed doubtful of SpeechNow.org's disclosure arguments. They are challenging the requirement that they would have to disclose as if the were a political action committee.

SpeechNow.org highlighted the recent EMILY’s List decision, which struck down regulations limiting donations to nonprofit political action committees that are used for campaign activity. The case also questioned the constitutionality of limits on contributions to independent political committees even though they were not challenged in the lawsuit.

The folks over at Government Executive.com have the scoop on the Commission on Wartime Contracting's (CWC) recent move to open two field offices in Southwest Asia. The Iraq office, which is currently staffed by one expert and awaiting a second, is located in central Baghdad. Two experts staff the Afghanistan office, located at Bagram Air Field, which is roughly 25 miles outside the capital of Kabul.

The article quotes Robert Dickson, the commission's executive director, as stating that the staffers hired for these overseas posts "have decades of experience in construction management, military contracting, development projects, policy analysis, program management, and other work that ties directly to our research areas."

The piece also quotes Dickson as saying that these new offices will allow the commission to "maintain liaison with agencies and commands in theater, fill data requests from stateside staff, directly observe events on the ground, and assist with commissioners' research visits to the region."

It's hard to say to what degree these offices will affect the commission's future work, but my hope is that it will allow the CWC to dig a little deeper into the messes that are our contingency contracting environments in the two theaters of war.

Image by Flickr user The U.S. Army used under a Creative Commons license.

During President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, he said he came to Washington "to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; to give our people the government they deserve. [. . .] That's why we've excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs, or seats on federal boards and commissions." However, as a group of nonprofits have recently noted, in the process of attempting to limit the influence of special interests, the administration has successfully "[excluded] the voices of citizen- and community-based organizations."

A coalition of thirteen nonprofit organizations, including OMB Watch, sent President Obama a letter requesting changes in the executive order issued last year restricting lobbyists from jobs in the administration. The letter details the current ban as well-intended, but imperfect. While the order excludes registered lobbyists that work for nonprofits for example, "the vast majority of 'special interest' insiders like corporate executives and their public relations and legal advisors" continue to exercise the same influence as before.

The Washington Post highlights an example; "Caroline Smith Dewaal, the director of food safety at Center for Science in the Public Interest, a lawyer and nationally known food safety expert who has spent 20 years working on policy and trade issues. But Dewaal's nomination came to a halt in August because she was a registered lobbyist, which violated the administration's policy against hiring lobbyists."

The letter stated, "Using it [the Lobbying Disclosure Act] to restrict public service has the perverse result of decreasing transparency and driving real influence peddlers into the shadows and out of the sunlight. By using the LDA, the Ethics Order is broadly under-inclusive for its purposes." Further, the Citizens United v. FEC decision, "has increased the urgency of such actions."

"The solution should focus on issues like campaign finance reform and the disproportionate influence that large financial interests have over our nation's politics and public policies."

Despite, the unintended consequences of the policies instituted last year, Obama should be applauded for discussing during the State of the Union his plan to expand lobbyist transparency. Yet, the focus should not remain solely on federally registered lobbyists.

Obama announced, "It's time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or with Congress." He also put forth a proposal to limit how much lobbyists can contribute to candidates for federal office. "It's time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office." Such changes must be crafted so that many can not simply steer clear of federal disclosure requirements.

Update (02/17/10): "Last-Minute Changes Will Improve Air Pollution Monitoring, EPA Says."

It’s looking more and more like the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) overruled the EPA in a decision to place more air pollution monitors near major roadways.

On Monday, EPA finalized a rule which limits nitrogen dioxide exposure and sets up a monitoring network along heavily-polluted roads. The trigger for placement of a monitor is the population of a metro area. If the area has a population of 500,000 or more, it gets a monitor.

But originally, EPA indicated the threshold would be a population of 350,000. The change means 41 fewer monitors will be placed around the country. [I was wrong, see the update above.]

Based on documents in EPA’s rulemaking docket, we know that the change was made during the OIRA review of the draft of the NO2 final rule. We also know that at least one high-level EPA official was pushing for the lower threshold.

In an email dated Jan. 19, an EPA employee wrote, “We are willing to put forward an alternative threshold for the first tier of the near-road monitoring network for you to discuss with your management at your 2:30 meeting,” and then suggested the 500,000 population threshold.

What prompted this 11th hour policy change? Who knows. Semantically, “we are willing” suggests a certain level of coercion, but that’s mere speculation on my part.

The more interesting exchange came the next day when Lisa Heinzerling, EPA’s Associate Administrator for policy and an adviser to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, sent a follow-up email to OMB. It simply stated, in its entirety, “EPA does not support the alternative threshold described in the email below.” The email was in direct response to the EPA's employee's proposal, though the email itself was addressed to OIRA.

Despite Heinzerling’s clear protest, the threshold was raised. Sometime between Jan. 20 and Jan. 22, the day OIRA concluded its review of the NO2 rule, somebody changed his or her mind, or somebody was overruled.

We’re still investigating this, but if EPA was indeed overruled, it would be a clear-cut instance of political interference in an inherently scientific decision. Regulators need reliable data to enforce EPA’s new NO2 standard which, for the first time, targets short-term exposure to the pollutant. NO2 begins to wreak its havoc even in short bursts, causing respiratory illnesses “particularly in at-risk populations such as children, the elderly, and asthmatics,” EPA says. EPA describes the urban and near-roadway environments that will be closely monitored as “high-risk.” Given that information, EPA needs to go about its business monitoring pollution and rigorously enforcing the new standard. Instead, because of possible White House interference, the agency will have to operate with one hand tied behind its back.