Waiting for Guidance on Stimulus Lobbying Restrictions

After the White House announced [1] on Friday evening changes to rules on communications between registered lobbyists and officials about stimulus projects, several questions remain until any further guidance is released. First, the ban on oral communications regarding specific stimulus matters will be extended to include everyone, not only federally registered lobbyists. However, the restriction would be limited to the period "after competitive grant applications are submitted and before awards are made." The blog post was unclear whether the policy changes will be immediate.

As BNA [2] Money and Politics ($$) reports, "However, since most of the money in the stimulus bill funds spending on categories like block grants, rather than specific projects subject to competitive bidding, experts outside the White House said the previous restrictions on lobbyists' oral contacts could be sharply scaled back."

Communications with registered lobbyists will still have to be disclosed. Any contact with a lobbyist by a government official must be documented by the official and disclosed on the agency website. Yet, communications posted so far [3] have been minimal, and it is hard to see how much more will be disclosed under these new changes. Since the goal is to curtail the influence of special interests on spending decisions, why not disclose all communications, made with everyone during the time before an application is submitted and after awards are made.

According to RollCall [4] ($$), some groups are now suggesting that new rules to apply beyond the Recovery Act. For more, read this latest Watcher. [5]