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AP: Group: FAA bosses urged workers to vote Democrat

September 5, 2012 by

Group: FAA bosses urged workers to vote Democrat

 

By: Manuel Valdes, Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) — A government transparency group is urging an investigation into Federal Aviation Administration managers who allegedly urged workers in Seattle to vote Democrat in the upcoming elections.

The Washington, D.C.-based group Cause of Action sent a letter Wednesday to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s inspector general saying that in May at a mandatory staff meeting in Seattle, two senior FAA managers told employees that if Republicans win the presidential and congressional elections, the agency would face budget cuts. They allegedly said that if Democrats win, their budget would remain largely unchanged.

One of the managers is alleged to have said that “Republican politicians wished to cut the budget of the FAA, while Democratic politicians intended to keep the FAA budget at the same or similar levels as in recent years. Any cuts in the FAA budget would lead to furloughs, job losses, and pay reductions among FAA employees,” the Cause of Action complaint said.

Employees at the meeting complained that the statements felt like a threat.

Cause of Action argues that the managers violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits certain federal employees from engaging in partisan politics at the workplace.

A FAA comment was not immediately available.

“These career employees were led to believe their jobs were at risk if their political support did not line up with the agenda of the Administration,” said Daniel Epstein, executive director of the group.

Cause of Action describes itself as an “organization that uses public advocacy and legal reform strategies to ensure greater transparency in government and protect taxpayer interests and economic freedom.”

 

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Cause of Action Exposes Potential Hatch Act Violation at the FAA

September 5, 2012 by

   Cause of Action Exposes Potential Hatch Act Violation at the FAA

 Subordinates told “how to vote if they wanted to keep their job”

WASHINGTON – Cause of Action (CoA) released documents today revealing a potential Hatch Act violation at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) involving John J. Hickey, deputy associate administrator for aviation safety at the FAA, and Raymond Towles, deputy director of flight standards field operations. At a May 23, 2012 staff meeting, Hickey told subordinates that “if the Republicans win office [their] jobs may be effected [sic]…if the Democrats win office then [their] jobs would not be effected [sic].” Additionally, Hickey and Towles held mandatory meetings with employees at other regional FAA offices, where similar comments may have been repeated.

 

Whistleblowers came forward after the May 23 meeting at the Seattle Flight Standards Division Office (Seattle FSDO), alerting a Deputy Regional Counsel in the FAA’s Northwest Mountain Region Office who is now conducting an investigation into both Hickey and Towles for telling employees “how to vote if they wanted to keep their job,” sources tell Cause of Action.

 

In light of these allegations, Cause of Action sent a request for investigation to Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Transportation Calvin L. Scovel III, urging “a swift investigation, not only into whether the comments made by Mr. Hickey and Mr. Towles at the Seattle FSDO violated the Hatch Act, but also whether their comments violated any other federal laws, as well as if they engaged in any other activities in violation of the Hatch Act or other applicable law.”

 

“The egregious abuse of power for political gain is exactly what Cause of Action aims to expose,” said Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action. “These career employees were led to believe their jobs were at risk if their political support did not line up with the agenda of the Administration. The Hatch Act is designed to prevent such politicization and we are demanding that IG Scovel investigate any potential violations of federal law and make appropriate referrals to the Justice Department.”

 

The Hatch Act prohibits Executive agency employees from engaging in political activity intended to affect the result of an election.  As CoA’s letter to IG Scovel explains, “Previously, the Office of Special Counsel has indicated that such a standard also prohibits covered Executive agency officials from suggesting to subordinate employees that they undertake any partisan political activity.  Mr. Hickey and Mr. Towles’s alleged statements to FAA employees, in their roles as senior FAA management, amounts to illegal political activity under the Hatch Act.”

 

At the time of this release, CoA has not received a response from the OIG concerning the request for investigation.   According to sources familiar with the matter, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has begun an investigation.

 

The letter to DOT OIG can be found here.

Internal emails from the FAA can be found here.

 

About Cause of Action:

Cause of Action is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that uses investigative, legal, and communications tools to educate the public on how government accountability and transparency protects taxpayer interests and economic opportunity. For more information, visit www.causeofaction.org.

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Federal Times: Dan Epstein: Ethics office audit of GSA fell far short

August 13, 2012 by

Epstein: Ethics office audit of GSA fell far short

 

By Dan Epstein

When reports surfaced that the General Services Administration had spent almost $1 million on a Las Vegas conference, Congress and the media demanded accountability. This blatant misuse of taxpayer funds is egregious enough on its own, but Cause of Action’s recent investigation shows that the spending spree could have been prevented and should have been stopped by those with authority to monitor the agency.

The Office of Government Ethics, designed to oversee ethics programs for all executive branch agencies, evaluated GSA when it was planning the 2010 Western Regional Conference. OGE’s June 2010 investigation ended with a letter praising GSA for its ethics policies and practices and described the agency’s ethics program as “employing a number of what OGE [considered] model practices.” Now, knowing what we do about the GSA’s spending at the time, those statements, even the entire investigation, are laughable, if not absurd.

Not only did OGE overlook GSA’s shopping spree, but it failed to address known risk factors that, if corrected, could have prevented the scandal. Those factors included the fact that there was no designated agency ethics officer at GSA for nearly four years. Also, there was evidence that an alternate DAEO was spending “less than 25 percent of her time on ethics-related duties.”

If the officers charged with monitoring ethics compliance are nonexistent or spending their time on other endeavors, why did OGE not intervene? Did OGE inform GSA Inspector General Brian Miller immediately? And, as House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa pointed out, why didn’t Miller inform Congress about the misfeasance earlier?

Lastly, of what value is OGE in overseeing agency ethics? Inefficiency in oversight by OGE is a classic example of how government bureaucracy fails to solve problems.

In response to our investigation, OGE told The Washington Post: “Laws and regulations regarding appropriations, travel, personnel and government contracts are administered by a variety of agencies and are outside OGE’s purview. OGE is not an investigatory agency but routinely works closely with inspectors general.” If OGE works closely with IGs, why didn’t OGE notify Miller on Nov. 2, 2010, about the problems with GSA instead of stating things were aboveboard?

Moreover, the notion that OGE doesn’t have investigatory authority over federal ethics is misleading, as OGE is statutorily mandated to conduct ethics audits. Indeed, given President Obama’s ethics pledge — his first act of office — perhaps pleading ignorance is the only appropriate response for an Office of Government Ethics in the time of the allegedly most transparent government in history.

OGE’s failure to deny our findings, and instead dodge responsibility, was expected by Cause of Action, especially after another Obama-era entity, the Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency, similarly pleaded no-contest to responsibility for inspecting how the government responds to waste. Given the chorus of do-nothing bureaucrats, Cause of Action was pressured to send a letter to the president asking him to have the Office of Management and Budget consider whether OGE’s sole authority over the standards of ethical conduct should be transferred to the IGs, who have the resources and independence to address waste, fraud and mismanagement.

IGs have the infrastructure and personal knowledge of their respective agencies to properly audit violations of the Standards of Official Conduct, but they lack authority to enforce these standards. By transferring this authority from OGE, which is wasting taxpayer dollars performing perfunctory investigations, and shifting responsibility and oversight to the IGs, needless bureaucracy is cut away for one system, one set of expectations and one set of enforcement.

Dan Epstein is executive director of Cause of Action, a nonpartisan government accountability organization in Washington.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

OGE Response Proves Need For Restructuring Of Ethics Oversight

August 9, 2012 by

 

On August 6th, Cause of Action released a memorandum on our recent investigation into the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and their failure to properly review the ethics program of the General Services Administration (GSA).  Our investigation found that the OGE approved the ethics program of the GSA just three days after the now infamous Vegas conference that cost taxpayers $822,751.  We also noted that there were risk factors brought to the attention of OGE officers about GSA prior to this 2010 ethics report.

The OGE response to our findings was a claim that they are somehow not responsible for overseeing the GSA misconduct.  Specifically, an OGE representative claimed, “Laws and regulations regarding appropriations, travel, personnel, and government contracts are administered by a variety of agencies and are outside OGE’s purview.  OGE is not an investigatory agency, but routinely works closely with Inspectors General”.

The OGE didn’t contest the validity of our fact-finding or analysis, but merely claimed they are somehow not responsible for detecting these particular violations. The fact that OGE doesn’t dispute our conclusions and seems to shift responsibility to the Inspector General provides support for our request that President Obama and the Office of Budget Management consider transferring ethics oversight duties to the agency inspectors general.

As the chart below notes, OGE is responsible for a wide variety of ethics-related matters. Clearly an audit of the GSA Ethics program should have taken into account the warnings that the OGE previously received.  Furthermore, if the OGE is unable to truly discover these violations and are instead dependent on the Inspectors General, then would it not make sense to shift ethics oversight duties to the same Inspectors General that have the necessary investigative abilities? This is precisely what we asked in our letter to President Obama last Thursday.

Government agencies must be held accountable for their waste, fraud and mismanagement. It makes no sense to have a mechanism in place that allows for an agency to be given a clean bill of health for its ethics program just days after a huge ethics violation.  Taxpayers deserve a more efficient system that will prevent this type of disaster in the future.

 

Chart

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Cause of Action Exposes OGE’s Failure to Act in GSA Spending Scandal

August 6, 2012 by

  Cause of Action Exposes OGE’s Failure to Act in GSA Spending Scandal

Watchdog Organization Calls on White House to Evaluate Careless Investigation and Lack of Oversight

WASHINGTON – Cause of Action released an investigative memorandum today detailing how the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) failed to detect ethics abuses by the General Services Administration (GSA), now infamous for the 2010 Western Regional Conference in Las Vegas that cost taxpayers $822,751.

 

The memorandum, The Office of Government Ethics Failed to Prevent Scandal at the General Services Administration, discloses years of mismanagement at OGE and waste at GSA that went unchecked until now.

 

“The enormous waste of taxpayer dollars by GSA over the last several years could have been prevented had GSA IG David Miller had the authority to investigate ethics abuses instead of the OGE maintaining that authority and simply ignoring its duties,” said Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action (CoA). “Warning signs presented to OGE officials were ignored, and an OGE investigation bafflingly found GSA to be in compliance with ethics rules in 2010 during the time GSA employees were engaged in conflicts of interest and wasteful spending that violate both the letter and spirit of the Standards of Official Conduct.”

 

In addition to highlighting the failures of the OGE investigation, the memorandum also highlights several key gaps in the administration of the ethics program at the GSA.

 

“Quite obviously the GSA was running amuck with taxpayer dollars, and yet no one at the GSA seemed concerned. Perhaps this is because the person who should have been sounding the alarm—the Designated Agency Ethics Officer—didn’t exist; in fact, that position within the GSA sat vacant for at least four years,” said Epstein.

 

The memorandum is based upon the findings from CoA’s April 19, 2012, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to OGE asking for “all documents referring or relating to any Office of Government Ethics investigation into or determination made regarding the GSA’s compliance with the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch between January 1, 2009 and the present.”

 

Some of the key findings include:

  • In November 2010, one month after the Western Regional Conference, OGE reported to GSA Inspector General Brian Miller, that “GSA’s ethics program appears to be effectively administered and in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies”.  In fact, OGE considered GSA to have “model practices” in place.

 

  • OGE had both specific and prior knowledge that significant ethics risks existed at the GSA. GSA failed to fill a Designated Agency Ethics Officer (DAEO) position from 2007 to at least 2010. According to The Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, all agencies are required to have a DAEO to supply ethics advice to employees. GSA has eleven regional offices with no full-time ethics officials.

 

  • According to documents produced by OGE, GSA’s ethics program is principally administered by eleven regional ethics offices. Yet OGE reviewed only five of GSA’s eleven regional offices for compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies.

 

  • OGE lacks the oversight and accountability of an Inspector General. Any mismanagement or fraud within the Office of Government Ethics is subject to review only by OGE itself. OGE missed allegations of waste, fraud and mismanagement by GSA that occurred before and during OGE’s investigation of GSA. GSA’s ethics abuses were investigated and later documented by its own IG, not the OGE.

 

“In response to our findings we are sending a letter to the White House calling for the President to consider the cost to taxpayers involved in keeping the OGE as opposed to strengthening the roles of sitting Inspectors General,” continued Epstein.

The letter, addressed to President Obama, reads in part, “Given your commitment to ethics and transparency in government, we recommend that you have the Office of Management and Budget consider whether the OGE should be abolished and its authority transferred to the Inspectors General, who, as is the case with GSA IG Brian Miller, have the authority to address issues of waste, fraud, and mismanagement in the Federal Government.”

 

The full memorandum and letter to White House can be viewed here.

 

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Fox News: Taxpayer watchdog calls on IRS to probe re-branded Texas ACORN branch

July 19, 2012 by

Read the full story here/ Fox News

“Cause of Action, a nonprofit taxpayer watchdog, charged in a letter to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration that the tax-exempt Texas Organizing Project (TOP), formed from the ashes of scandal-ridden ACORN, is using money funneled to it by a closely associated group called the Texas Organizing Project Education Fund for political activity.

The fund gave nearly 80 percent of its revenues — approximately $640,000 — to the advocacy group in 2010, leading Cause of Action officials to believe its reason for being is to raise charitable donations to send to TOP, which is permitted to fund political activity. TOP has used its website to solicit support for Mary Ann Perez, a Democrat running for state representative.

“Fiscal sponsorship [has allowed TOP and TOP ED] to use a loophole in the tax code to engage in improper political activities under the radar of the IRS,” Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, said to FoxNews.com. “Cause of Action is asking the IRS to investigate these groups for potential abuses of their tax-exempt status, and to hold them accountable for any violations they find.”

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Inside Health Policy: OIG Claims ACA Prevention Fund Grantees May Be Violating Anti-Lobbying Statutes

July 11, 2012 by

insidehealthpolicy.com

 

OIG: ACA Prevention Fund Grantees May Be Violating Anti-Lobbying Statutes

By Amy Lotven

Updated Story

HHS’ Office of Inspector General is asking CDC to ensure that the grantees of a community prevention program funded with health reform law money are not violating anti-lobbying statutes, saying that grantees’ quarterly reports suggest some funding may have been used for “inappropriate lobbying activities.” OIG also raises concerns that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may have encouraged the behavior by posting confusing guidance on its website for the Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) grantees, echoing GOP congressional concerns that grant money may have been inappropriately used for lobbying on school beverage and public smoking issues.

CDC agrees with IG of the need to clarify this issue with its grantees and is moving aggressively to do so,” a CDC spokesperson tells Inside Health Policy in an email. “The agency has already refined and reinforced its guidance with grantees in light of recent legislation from Congress, conducted new project officer training, and has undertaken a broad education of CDC leadership and program staff on the issue.”

A GOP congressional aide tells Inside Health Policy that several staffers had raised concerns about the grant funding, and says that additional congressional oversight and other activities should be expected. The report calls into question not only the $120 million in CPPW grants, but larger amounts of funding that have been distributed, the aide says. The aide also says that the report highlights government management issues that should be of concern to both parties.
The OIG says in a June 29 letter to CDC Director Thomas Frieden that the review was initiated after OIG received allegations from congressional staff concerning potentially inappropriate use of funds by the certain grantees, and specifically that grantees may be violating anti-lobbying statutes. OIG subsequently reviewed the quarterly reports from the grantees and met with officials from CDC, the CPPW program and the Office of the General Counsel. “We are concerned that some statements in those reports may reflect inappropriate lobbying activities using CPPW grant funds,” OIG writes. “Our review also indicated that this may have originated from a lack of clear guidance — or even conflicting information — from CDC to CPPW grantees concerning the anti-lobbying restrictions.”

The OIG’s letter also comes in the wake of a May 2 letter from Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting information on the activities reported by various CPPW grantees that indicated funding was being used for policymaking even though the use of federal funding to lobby at the state or federal level has been prohibited since 2002.

For example, the letter notes that the California Department of Public Health, which received a $2.2 million grant, reported that funds would be used to advance policy making. She also raised concerns about funding that went toward analyzing state legislative proposals that would levy taxes and remove certain beverages from middle and elementary schools.

The letter also noted that King County, Washington reported as a description of its activities the fact that County Board of Health “adopted changes to code on smoking in public places and places of employment that closed loopholes in the existing code, and passed a resolution encouraging no-smoking policies in multi-family housing…”

Collins in her letter stressed that since she is a “ strong supporter of wellness and prevention effort…I am eager to ensure that these important programs are operating within the law and that any misuses of funds are quickly addressed.” “The actual or perceived misuse of wellness and prevention funding has the potential of eroding support for these programs,” she wrote.

Collins also found it especially troubling that CDC’s official guidance to grantees appears to include an expectation that the funds should be used for prevention and wellness strategies that result in changes state and local policies and law. “If true, without express authorization by Congress, CDC would be guiding its grantees to potentially violate federal law, exposing them to hefty civil penalties for each violation,” she writes.
The OIG also found that CDC’s information — as well as non-CDC resource material posted on the CDC website — “appear to authorize, or even encourage, grantees to use grant funds for impermissible lobbying.” Furthermore, OIG says, “grantee activity reports posted online make troubling assertion that, on their face, raise the possibility that these anti-lobbying provisions were violated.”

OIG notes, however, that it is possible that the grantees were describing activities accomplished before the grants were awarded, or that were achieved by other entities or with other, non-federal funds. However, OIG, adds, the fact that the grantees are reporting favorably about the lobbying is of concern, and may indicate a faulty understanding of the funding prohibitions.

OIG calls for CDC do the following: review its guidance and other materials posted on its Web site; clarify any misleading statements about lobbying activities; train CDC employers; and provide updated and more detailed guidance to grantees on how to avoid violating anti-lobbying provisions. OIG says guidance should also inform grantees about new lobbying restrictions included in the FY 2012 HHS Appropriations bill.

The group non-partisan group Cause of Action has also cited concerns about the potentially anti-lobbying violations by the CPPW grantees. On March 16, COA wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to “launch a comprehensive investigation” into the use of taxpayer money to influence public officials in favor of “anti-soda” or “anti-tobacco” policies.

In an emailed response to Inside Health Policy, Cause of Action says: “While it is a positive step for the OIG to review and clarify CDC materials, the real issue here is that it has taken Congressional attention for the OIG to do their job. If the CDC had been properly overseeing its grant awards and the use of taxpayer dollars by their grantees, there would be no need for Congress to intervene.

“In terms of accountability, is it too little too late for the funds that have already been used for lobbying purposes? Moving forward, we expect the OIG to monitor the implementation of the proposals in its June 29 letter and bring proper oversight to HHS, as taxpayers deserve a government that ensures proper use of their money,” COA adds. — Amy Lotven (alotven@iwpnews.com)

Editor’s note: This updated version includes comment from the CDC.

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