[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 72 (Thursday, April 27, 2017)]
[House]
[Page H2902]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    INTRODUCING DRAIN THE SWAMP ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, so 100 days. Candidate Trump made much 
about, you know, the pernicious influence of peddlers in Washington, 
D.C., the revolving door between high-level government political 
appointees and lobby firms. He called D.C. a swamp again and again and 
again, and he promised to drain it. So how is he doing?
  He was going to have a 5-year ban, if you worked for him in an eye-
level position, 5-year ban from becoming a lobbyist. Of course, there 
was already an existing provision, ethics provision that forbids 
lobbyists from joining agencies that lobbied in the prior 2 years. So 
let's check in.
  Number 1, Chad Wolf, lower right. He has been named chief of staff 
for the Transportation Security Administration. For the last 2 years, 
he has lobbied the TSA to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a 
new carry-on luggage screening device. Now, as chief of staff, he is in 
the position to decide whether or not that agency will purchase the 
device as it is being tested and evaluated for use.
  Now, how could that be? Well, President Trump eliminated that ethics 
provision that you couldn't lobby, join an agency which you have been 
lobbying for 2 years; so hence, number 1, Chad Wolf.
  Number 2, Michael Catanzaro. He is the top White House energy 
adviser. He worked last year as a lobbyist for energy companies, oil, 
gas, and coal, and was lobbying to stop or overturn the Obama attempts 
to deal with climate change, including the Clean Power Plan and various 
other things, but he is now the top White House adviser.
  Okay. Well, we are not doing so good so far. Well, how about the 5-
year prohibition? That is pretty stiff. None of these guys are going to 
leave their lucrative lobby jobs and come and work as a public servant 
at those low salaries if they can't go back to lobbying, right, so that 
has got to be cleaning up the swamp. Whoops. Oh, no, not so much.
  Marcus Peacock, senior White House budget adviser, he is leaving the 
Trump administration to join the Business Roundtable, 77 days after he 
started working for President Trump. He is going to lead the policy 
group on key issues relating to the Trump agenda, including taxes, 
infrastructure, regulatory reform, and he signed the pledge saying that 
for 5 years he would not lobby this administration, but he got a 
waiver, just a little waiver. So much for the 5-year restriction.
  Anybody who wants to leave the Trump administration just goes and 
gets a waiver, and they go right back to lobbying for him. So the 
revolving door is spinning faster and faster.
  But how about the President saying no one should benefit from this 
kind of public service. Well, Elijah Cummings and I have raised 
concerns about the lease of the Trump Hotel here, which says 
specifically that no government official shall benefit. No elected 
official of the United States of America shall benefit from this lease. 
But President Trump says that that is not a problem, and the new 
temporary appointee of head of the GSA says it is not a problem. He is 
not benefiting. The money is going into trust, and the trust can only 
use the money to improve the properties or pay down the debt. So, 
therefore, he doesn't benefit. Huh?
  But then we had a really kind of strange incident this week where the 
State Department posted ads for Mar-a-Lago on an official government 
website, ostensibly because they just wanted to show people the winter 
White House. Of course, they, you know, were showing the rooms and all 
that. I don't think they had the rates posted. You still had to call. 
They took it down after people complained about it.
  So we are not doing so good on the drain the swamp stuff. But I want 
to help the President here. I introduced a bill at the beginning of 
this Congress, the DRAIN the SWAMP Act. Maybe he doesn't know these 
things are going on. Maybe he doesn't know this guy Peacock got a 
waiver. Maybe he doesn't know that these people were lobbying these 
agencies, and he really does want to drain the swamp.
  So I am hoping he will endorse a bill I have introduced, the DRAIN 
the SWAMP Act, which--instead of having a signed agreement, which can 
be waived by some random bureaucrat at the White House in secret--would 
actually put into statute a 5-year ban on returning to lobbying after 
you have been a high-level political appointee in this or any future 
administration.
  Now, that would really drain the swamp. So the question is: Is the 
President just going to pretend the swamp doesn't exist anymore, or 
would he like to put some teeth in a law that would actually help us 
drain the swamp and stop this pernicious revolving door and influence 
peddling that he was so offended by as a candidate but seems to be 
turning a blind eye to as President of the United States?

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