A recent investigation by ProPublica and The New York Times reveals that, at key regulatory federal agencies, members of the deregulation teams, have deep industry ties and are reviewing regulations their previous employers sought to weaken or kill. As ProPublica notes, “Appointees include lawyers who represented businesses in cases against government regulators, staff members of political groups raising so-called dark money and employees of industry-funded organizations opposed to environmental rules. At least four were registered to lobby the agencies they now work for and at least two may be positioned to profit if certain regulations are undone..  As ProPublica points out, however, “a full vetting of industry connections has been difficult because some agencies have declined to provide information about the appointees — in many cases, not even their names.”  It is not just to the media who have been stonewalled…

Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) is among a group of Congress members who wrote to Mick Mulvaney (OMB Director) and Neomi Rao (Administrator of OIRA) in August expressing grave concerns about the secrecy of the Regulatory Reform Task Forces, calling on the administration to release the names of all deregulation team members as well as documents relating to their potential conflicts of interest, and requesting information about the nature of their meetings. They have received no response to date.

The result of the information revealed by ProPublica and the New York Times, combined with the non-response from OMB, has led Cicilline and a group of other House Democrats to introduce a bill — the Determining if Regulatory Actions are in the Interest of the Nation or the Swamp (DRAIN the Swamp) Act — to require federal officials —before they implement significant changes in U.S. regulations—to disclose any potential conflicts of interest and project how much they would personally benefit from any particular regulatory changes. They would also be required to identify any conflicts of interest for President Trump or senior members of his administration when changing major rules. The bill is co-sponsored by leading House Democrats, including Reps. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Raul M. Grijalva (D-AZ), Gerald Connolly (D-VA), and Lloyd Doggett (D-TX). As of this posting, it does not yet have a bill number.  To date, it has no Republican co-sponsors.