Last week FRC President Tony Perkins (representing lobbying arm FRC Action, of which he is also the president) and public policy group Let Freedom Ring President Colin Hanna co-hosted a webcast on the U.S. debt crisis. Invited to participate were Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), along with other conservative policy leaders.

“Congress has been using the country’s credit cards like an irresponsible teenager for decades,” read a press release previewing the June 23 Web conference. “But now a band of House and Senate conservatives are fighting to turn back the clock on America’s debt.”

During the 65-minute webcast, DeMint drew the morality analogy even closer.

“We’ve got to stop this spending addiction in Washington,” DeMint said. “And it really is like working with an alcoholic. First of all, they won’t admit they have a problem. And then when they do, they say, ‘We’ll quit tomorrow, but let’s have one more drink today.’”

To which Perkins, a former police officer for the Baton Rouge Police Department in Louisiana (from which he was suspended and then resigned in 1992, according to The Nation), responded, “When I was a police officer, I found one thing that really worked on those drunks that came home at night was a frying pan.”

But 20 days earlier, Perkins sent supporters an e-mail alert, asking for help closing its $1 million budget gap by June 30. He excused the organization’s financial struggle for all the work it has done during recent legislative sessions. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Family Research Council Action’s (FRC’s lobbying arm) total lobbying expenditures in 2010 was $110,000; according to the Federal Election Commission, FRC Action Political Action Committee has spent $43,143 in individual contributions for the 2011-’12 election cycle through May 31.

In his alert Perkins wrote:

Ever since last November’s watershed election, which swept a record number of pro-family conservatives into office, FRC has more friends in Congress than ever before. And the more friends we have on Capitol Hill, the greater our ability to advance your pro-family views. This demand for our expertise is a blessing, but it has outstretched our revenue. As we enter the summer months when giving historically declines, FRC faces a $1 million gap between what we’ve budgeted for our work here in Washington, DC and what we’ve received in donations. I have already made cuts to reduce our costs, and our staff is working tirelessly.

Unless supporters donate, Perkins said, FRC “will be forced to do less for the conservative cause.” Every donation up to $250,000 will be matched by a “generous family,” Perkins said. The family was not named.

FRC did not immediately return requests for comment.

The priorities mentioned during last week’s webcast: Cut the deficit, cap the spending and balance the budget. A coalition of more than 80 organizations recently formed acampaign to convince U.S. Senate and House members and future candidates to pledge to oppose any debt limit increase unless the budget has been cut, capped and balanced. Thus far, the pledge has been signed by 12 senators, 20 representatives and 28 candidates.

Throughout the hour, the United States’ fiscal situation was repeatedly compared to Greece’s, but Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) took the analogy further to draw comparisons to slavery.

“Turn your TV on, and look at what’s been happening in Greece,” Walsh said. “We are at the cusp of that. This is a huge moral issue. How dare we enslave future generations? How dare we do that?”

And later on: “I could give a darn about my reelection. I’m on a mission here to stop my kids, your kids, our grand-kids from becoming indentured servants.”

During the web conference, there was no mention of FRC’s own fiscal situation. And in the June 3 e-mail, in which Perkins was soliciting donations, nothing was mentioned of America’s fiscal situation.

“This is no time to be trimming our sails,” wrote Perkins in the alert. “We have more pro-family conservatives in Congress than ever before. Daily, they look to FRC for the facts they need to stand up for families. I have fresh hope that if we keep working and keep praying, we can change the course of this nation.”

The “key areas” FRC is working on include “shaping historic court cases regarding ObamaCare and religious liberty” and “building a powerful network of informed and motivated pastors across the nation.” But “liberals are fighting back-hard,” Perkins said.

If they sense any weakness, they’ll move in and take back the gains we’ve made. And they’ll thwart our efforts at every turn, pushing their pet causes from taxpayer funding of abortion to normalization of homosexuality to intimidating and punishing Christians who voice their objections. Frankly, some donors are on the sidelines because Republicans control the U.S. House of Representatives. Yet the Obama administration simply bypasses the legislative branch and abuses executive power to reshape major policies affecting every family and business.

The National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) has filed its first lobbying disclosure forms, registering $5,000 in lobbying expenses since it officially began operations in January. While that number is just a fraction of what pro-marijuana groups like Americans for Safe Access ($410,000 since 2006) and the Marijuana Policy Project ($995,000 since 2002) have spent, NCIA is a far younger group. More significantly, it is the only group in existence dedicated strictly to lobbying for the medical marijuana industry.

As The American Independent has previously reported, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) intends to soon unveil a bill that will prevent banks from denying access to medical marijuana dispensaries. Currently, U.S. Treasury Department initiatives to have banks report dispensary financials and cut off service outright have led many medical marijuana dispensaries in states where they are legal to lose banking privileges.

Meanwhile, according to The Hill, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) is working with the NCIA on a bill that would resolve the clause in the U.S. Tax Code that has allowed the IRS to aggressively audit dozens of medical marijuana dispensaries across the U.S. Section 280-E of the tax code prevents businesses involved in the trafficking of controlled substances from deducting expenses. Critics of the IRS’s actions have argued that the provision was designed for cocaine kingpins and was never intended to apply to state-legal medical marijuana. The NCIA expects Stark to introduce the bill in the next few weeks.

Marijuana advocates like NORML director Allen St. Pierre have been pessimistic about the chances of even ostensibly innocuous bills like Polis’ banking provision and tax code alteration. While marijuana law reform and protection of state medical marijuana providers have enjoyed some degree of bipartisan support in Congress, truly widespread backing in the House and Senate has so far been elusive.

Last week, British prescription drug manufacturer GW Pharmaceuticals announced a licensing agreement with drug giant Novartis, maker of Ritalin and Excedrin, to begin selling GW’s drug Sativex in markets across Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Middle East. The medication is already available in Britain, where it’s produced and marketed by Bayer, and in Canada and Spain. It’s on the market in those countries as a liquid that patients spray under the tongue and is prescribed primarily for sufferers of multiple sclerosis and cancer.

Sativex: Liquefied marijuana

If the name “Sativex” rings a distant bell, that’s because it’s derived from Cannabis sativa, the scientific name for the plant from which both hemp and marijuana are harvested. It’s an appropriate name because, unlike other cannabinoids produced for recreational and medicinal use (and plagued by side effects not present in natural cannabinoids), Sativex is not a synthetic concoction, but essentially liquefied marijuana. It’s an extract of whole-plant cannabis that includes the psychoactive agent THC as well as cannabidiol (CBD), the chemical thought to be responsible for some of the anti-nausea and cancer-cell-killing effects of medical marijuana.

While the official word from GW is that the THC and CBD balance each other out to provide marijuana’s medicinal effects without an accompanying high, cannabis expert and professor emeritus of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School Dr. Lester Grinspoon has said just upping the dosage would provide the same effects as recreational marijuana.

Early in Sativex’s development, GW hired Dr. Andrea Barthwell as a consultant to sing the drug’s praises, although she’s no longer in the employ of GM. Barthwell was a deputy drug czar under George W. Bush and is the former president of the American Society for Addiction Medicine (ASAM). In a recent ASAM press release, Barthwell denounced medical marijuana but — significantly — only because it was unregulated by the federal government.

“The safety and advisability of any prescriptive medicine should depend on years of careful scientific scrutiny, not whims at the ballot box by individuals who lack the qualifications to make such decisions. Allowing cannabis to circumvent FDA approval sets a dangerous precedent and puts us on a slippery slope,” Barthwell says in the release.

“There’s certainly an inconsistency in the fact that she speaks publicly about the negative impact of marijuana even though she’s been paid by a company that sells it,” says Steve Fox, chief lobbyist for the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA). “It would be one thing if she were representing the American Society Against Bronchitis and said, ‘I am so concerned that people are smoking a substance that’s not good for their bronchial tubes.’ But she’s speaking for the ASAM.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Congress’s top recipient of campaign funds from the pharmaceutical industry, has come out against state medical marijuana laws, despite being an advocate of states’ rights on issues like allowing offshore drilling. The likes of Barthwell and Burr have drawn the ire of supporters for the reform of marijuana laws who believe that they represent the pharmaceutical industry’s goal for medical marijuana: demonize it, prosecute it, shut it down, then grab the market.

(Neither Barthwell nor Burr was available to comment for this story at the time of publish.)

Certainly, such a fight would benefit from proclamations like Barthwell’s distinction between government-approved drugs derived from cannabis and unregulated cannabis itself, as well as the National Cancer Institute’s recognition (later qualified) of the medical benefits of marijuana. That could be exactly what GW is banking on as it works with companies to expand the availability of Sativex around the world. And the one major market left untapped by either Novartis or Bayer (GW’s partners in making and selling Sativex) is the United States. That’s where Otsuka Pharmaceutical comes in.

Otsuka, America’s potential Sativex supplier

Otsuka is an international prescription drug company based out of Japan. In 2007, GW and Otsuka announced that the latter company would be taking on clinical trials for Sativex in the U.S. In November of last year, Otsuka wrapped up its Phase II trials testing the drug’s efficacy and safety and met with the FDA to discuss the next step in getting the drug recognized by the federal agency. Phase III was then set to begin, though Otsuka’s website for the Phase III trials indicates that they’re still being set up.

Otsuka declined to comment to The American Independent on how close Sativex is to FDA approval or how far along the Phase III trials are, but Phase III is typically the final step in a drug’s path to pharmacies. Even getting to Phase III means the FDA has signed off on earlier test results and needs to see them confirmed in a large-scale study before advancing the drug. For its part, the FDA does not comment on ongoing clinical trials.

Pharmaceutical insiders would claim that Sativex is simply a regulated, tested cannabinoid that is demonstrably safe in ways that black-market and state-legal whole-plant medical marijuana isn’t. And yet by its very definition (PDF), Sativex is marijuana, albeit with a lower THC count in the recommended dose than is present in the raw plant.

Can pharmaceutical clout bring FDA approval?

So how are pharmaceutical companies looking to succeed where medical marijuana dispensaries are failing in getting marijuana recognized by the FDA without any federal agencies breathing down their necks? One answer could be in the clout the industry holds in Washington.

The pharmaceutical industry is far and away the biggest spender on federal lobbying. Between 1998 and 2010, Big Pharma spent more than $2 billion sending lobbyists to the capital to fight for industry-friendly legislation and regulations. This is over half a billion more than the amount spent in the same period by pharmaceuticals’ closest competitor, the insurance industry, and nearly twice what oil and gas companies spent. The medical marijuana lobby, less than six months old and consisting almost entirely of Steve Fox (backed by NCIA director Aaron Smith and a handful of dispensary owners and enthusiasts), could never compete.

All this puts the surging federal clampdown on medical marijuana in a new light. As nationwide support for medical marijuana reaches record levels, it may just be the pharmaceutical industry that rides that wave of support to huge profits.

Exxon Mobil spent $2.52 million in the second quarter lobbying Congress and the White House on offshore drilling, the Associated Press reports.

Much of its lobbying was focused on proposals related to offshore drilling and the U.S. moratorium on deepwater exploration. Some of those proposals would lift liability caps for oil spills, boost safety requirements and ban companies with poor safety records from receiving new permits.

For context, this quarter’s numbers are “a drop from the $4.27 million that the company spent in the same three-month period last year and the $3.39 million it spent in the first quarter of this year,” the AP says.

Of course, during that same period last year, the House was working to pass its climate bill and key senators were working to draft their version of the bill. At the same time, the Obama administration was trying to figure out whether to expand drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. (It later decided to do so.)

According to Open Secrets, the oil and gas industry spent more than $175 million in 2009 on lobbying, more than any time in the last 10 years. In 2010 so far, the industry has spent just under $75 million.

It will be interesting to see how much lobbying numbers jumped in quarter three, once more serious debate began on offshore drilling proposals.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), one of two Republicans targeted to cross the aisle for the DISCLOSE Act. (Pete Marovich/ZUMApress.com)

Update: Today, the Senate voted on the DISCLOSE Act — which would have required organizations involved in political campaigning to disclose the identity of large donors and would have barred foreign corporations, large government contractors, and TARP recipients from making political expenditures.

[Congress1] Public interest groups and Democratic Senate staffs had pressured Maine Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, the most centrist members of the GOP, to support the bill. But neither ended up crossing the aisle.

The notoriety of Citizens United has ensured that relatively small campaign finance bills like the DISCLOSE Act are getting substantial attention from Senators — and even the president. But it also means the much-needed reforms have become puppets in political theater, making it all the more difficult for both sides to negotiate a rational fix to a system of political disclosure that is clearly broken.

Reformers believe right is on their side. Yesterday morning, local affiliates of U.S. PIRG — the federation of state public interest research groups — hosted an event in Bangor to demonstrate local support for passage. PIRG organizers, the Maine League of Voters and a number of small businesses gathered and argued for the legislation. For months, business groups have lobbied Snowe and Collins, and demonstrated Maine residents’ support for more rigorous disclosure for political spending.

Transparency and good governance groups’ newfound, obsessive focus on Snowe and Collins extends beyond the Senators’ moderate stance on other issues and their relatively endangered status as New England Republicans, however, explains Lisa Gilbert, democracy advocate at U.S. PIRG.

“Both were very involved in the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, working closely with Feingold — particularly Senator Snowe,” notes Gilbert. “It’s not a stretch to say they’d be involved in legislation like this.”

Moreover, Maine is a state that’s famous for its strict campaign finance laws and its citizens who tend to like them. “I think it is fair to say that Maine is often ahead of the game when it comes to clean money and ethics issues,” Gilbert adds. “It’s one of the only states that has a system of public financing in place and it has a history of being independent and pushing for transparency in government so it can make the right decision. That’s generally been reflected in state policy and reflected in their choice of Senators.”

But in Washington yesterday, debate centered on the idea of disclosure more broadly — and vocally. Democrats accused Republicans of reneging on their previous commitment to the cause while Republicans claimed Democrats were using it as cover to distort the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) conducted a portion of his floor speech as a trivia game, asking listeners to guess the senator who made the following comment.

“What we ought to have is disclosure. I think groups should have the right to run those ads but they ought to be disclosed and they ought to be accurate, end of quote. Who said that?” Durbin asked his fellow senators. “The Senator from Kentucky who has just come to the floor — the minority leader — in the context of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill in 2002.”

He went on to call out Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) for their previous support for the idea of disclosure as well.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), for his part, focused entirely on accusing Democrats of meddling before the election. The Minority Leader coined a new name for the bill — “an incumbency protection act for Democrats in Congress” — and argued that, “now, after spending the last year and a half enacting policies Americans don’t like, they want to prevent their opponents from criticizing what they’ve done…. They’re trying to rig the system to their advantage.”

Claims from Republicans like McConnell that the DISCLOSE Act is an attempt to sway the midterm elections to Democrats’ advantage were given a dose of reality by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) later in the day.

“We are willing to change the effective date to January 2011 so that it won’t apply to this November’s election,” Schumer said. “Even if we didn’t take this step, the reality is, we are late enough in the election cycle that the law could not realistically take effect in time for this fall. But to show we are willing to work with Republicans, we would offer this as an amendment if we can get onto the bill.”

But even though more than a month has lapsed since the last Senate vote on the DISCLOSE Act, the bill Democrats are trying to move today will look identical to the one that failed to overcome a GOP filibuster in July — indicating that actual progress in negotiations has stalled.

“Through this last period of time, we’ve been reaching out and offering to negotiate changes to the legislation to meet any objection that Republicans may have,” claims Gilbert, “and [Schumer’s office] has made it really clear that they’re willing to focus on disclosure and have it take effect next year, but no Republican Senator has stepped forward in a meaningful way to negotiate.”

The strategy, according to leading environmentalist Bill McKibben, is to ignore politicians and focus on their constituents. McKibben is also calling on environmentalists to abandon their emphasis on energy independence and to focus instead on the science showing the peril global warming poses.

In an interview with the National Journal today, McKibben, said environmentalists were “outgunned” by industry in their effort to pass climate legislation and predicts that “significant legislation” on climate change won’t pass for two years.

According to McKibben:

And my guess is that if we can build the movement that really highlights the danger that we’re in and the moral urgency of this situation, then maybe we can change the politics. Clearly the numbers don’t add up the way they are now politically. And that’s a good thing to know. The groups inside the Beltway that led this fight — there is a real credit not only for fighting but helping us figure out what the possibilities are and aren’t. Simply trying to repeat the same thing again, I think, would be a big mistake — using the same series of arguments that the real issues are green jobs and energy independence and that the way around it is this sort of complicated trading scheme.

…

I think, for the moment, not worrying constantly about what is going on in Washington may be key. We need to build this movement all over the place as fast we can and as big as we can. And if we do that, Washington will have a way, in a sense, of taking care of itself.

McKibben founded 350.org, an organization that calls for lowering global carbon dioxide levels below 350 parts per million, the number that many scientists say is necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change.

The United States has millions of miles of oil and gas pipelines. (Creative Commons)

This story is the third in a series on federal oversight of the nation’s 2.3 million miles of oil and natural gas pipelines. You can read the first story here and the second story here.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal agency that oversees the country’s 2.3 million miles of oil and natural gas pipelines, has adopted as part of its regulations all or parts of at least 29 standards written by the oil and natural gas industry.

[Environment1] The revelation, which comes to light as part of an investigation into pipeline safety by The Washington Independent, raises significant questions about the relationship between PHMSA and the industry that it regulates. It also feeds into comparisons between the agency and the now-defunct Minerals Management Service, which was in charge of permitting and licensing offshore drilling projects in the run-up to the April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil spill.

PHMSA has come under increased scrutiny in the aftermath of a July 26 pipeline break near Battle Creek, Mich., that bled nearly 1 million gallons of oil into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. While an investigation into the cause of the spill is ongoing, environmentalists and advocacy groups have been quick to criticize PHMSA, arguing that the agency doesn’t require adequate inspections of the nation’s pipeline system and it has a too-cozy relationship with industry.

For her part, PHMSA Administrator Cynthia Quarterman, who took over the agency in Nov. 2009, has promised to reform the agency. But Quarterman herself has close ties to the oil industry, working as legal counsel for Enbridge Energy, the very company that owns the pipeline that burst in Michigan.

Now, TWI has learned, PHMSA has adopted a series of industry standards by reference in its Pipeline Safety Regulations. At least 29 standards were written by two powerful industry trade groups: the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Gas Association (AGA). API, which represents both the oil and natural gas industries and is a powerful lobbying force in Washington, authored 27 of the standards. AGA, which represents 195 natural gas companies around the country, has authored two standards, according to a list provided by PHMSA.

“There’s kind of a basic conflict of interest there if you’re letting industry develop part of things and then you adopt them as regulations,” said Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a non-profit group that advocates for fuel transportation safety.

The industry standards touch on a number of issues key to ensuring pipeline safety, including pipeline welding, monitoring for liquid pipelines, evaluating the strength of corroded pipelines and testing pipeline pressure.

But even though these standards have been adopted as federal regulations, they continue to be the property of the oil and gas industry. As a result, public access to these standards is severely restricted. If a member of the public wants to see one of the standards, they must travel to the PHMSA headquarters in Washington or purchase the standard from API or AGA. Industry groups see the standards as proprietary information and therefore will not allow PHMSA to publish them on its web site.

“What makes this worse is that those standards are still the property of industry,” Weimer said.

Weimer has focused much of his scrutiny on a 2003 API standard that has been adopted by PHMSA. The standard outlines a process for oil and natural gas companies to alert nearby residents to the presence of a pipeline in their area. Weimer argues that API has no business writing such a standard. The standard should be written by an outside group with experience communicating important information to people, he said.

“The American Petroleum Institute is clearly a group that lobbies on behalf of industry, and sometimes they are developing standards that they really don’t have expertise in. API doesn’t have some deep understanding of how you communicate with the public about a pipeline,” Weimer said.

API’s public awareness standard, a read-only version of which has been published online by API after prodding from Weimer and others, says, “A more informed public along pipeline routes should supplement an operator’s pipeline safety measures and should contribute to reduce the likelihood and potential impact of pipeline emergencies and releases.” But the standard also stresses that “pipelines are a relatively safe mode of transportation, that pipeline operators undertake a variety of measures to prevent pipeline accidents, and that pipeline operators anticipate and plan for management of accidents if they occur.”

While pipeline accidents are rare, they can be deadly. According to PHMSA records, there were 265 “significant incidents” in the U.S. pipeline system last year, resulting in 14 deaths, 63 injuries and more than $152 million in property damage.

Incidents involving natural gas resulted in 10 deaths and 59 injuries — most commonly caused by equipment failure and corrosion. But, a previous TWI story found, PHMSA does not have the mandate, or the staff, to oversee the millions of miles of pipelines crossing the country. Federal law mandates that PHMSA require only seven percent of the country’s natural gas pipelines and just 44 percent of the country’s liquid pipelines to be inspected.

PHMSA, responding to questions about the standards in a written statement, said it is bound by law to incorporate by reference acceptable standards into its regulations. The agency cited the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995, which directs federal agencies to adopt standards set by “voluntary consensus standard bodies” when possible, rather than writing their own standards.

The Office of Management and Budget defines voluntary consensus standards as “technical standards developed or adopted by voluntary consensus standards bodies, both domestic and international,” PHMSA said, noting that “every U.S. government technical regulatory agency uses consensus standards.”

The public has access to the standards at the Department of Transportation’s headquarters in Washington or at the Government Printing Office, PHMSA noted. “PHMSA is actively working with standards organizations to urge them to provide better access to standards they have authored,” the statement said.

While federal law requires federal agencies to consider adopting standards, Weimer said PHMSA should take more precautions with the standards it adopts. PHMSA had adopted a total of 69 standards. Beyond the 29 written by the oil and natural gas industry, the others were written by more technical groups like the American Society of Mechanical Engineers or the National Fire Protection Association.

“Some of these standards are developed by groups like National Association of Corrosion Engineers. So, some of these groups really do have lots of expertise in the area and it makes sense,” Weimer said. But groups like API, Weimer argued, should not be developing standards because they have too much of an interest in the outcome of regulations.

Peter Lidiak, pipeline director at API, said PHMSA is not doing anything wrong in adotping industry standards as regulations. “They’re doing what they are supposed to be doing. We wouldn’t put out a standard if we didn’t think it was an appropriate set of guidelines for the industry to follow,” he said, adding, “We do often suggest to them that they might look at a standard that we have put in place rather than writing all new regulations if they address the same thing.”

On the issue of public access to the standards, Lidiak stresses that the standards are proprietary information, but notes that industry groups provide copies to PHMSA for public inspection. “If somebody wanted a bound copy, they’d have to pay to see them. But we provide a copy of all of our pipeline related standards to PHMSA,” Lidiak said. “And I will grant you, it’s not convenient for somebody living in Kansas City to come to PHMSA’s office.”

Lidiak also stressed that PHMSA reviews all industry standards before adopting them and can choose to adopt them in part if necessary. PHMSA also allows public comment on the standards, he said. A spokesperson for AGA did not return a request for comment.

Ultimately though, Weimer isn’t satisfied with the the standards and the lack of public access to them. “We believe in transparency. The more information that’s available to the public, the better,” he said.

Lawmakers sent a version of the letter to Reid last month; this one includes five more signatures. The lawmakers call for the passage of the “strongest possible” RES and discourage Reid from allowing other “non-renewable energy sources,” like nuclear or coal coupled with technology to reduce its emissions, to count in such a standard. Republicans have long called for a so-called “diverse energy standard,” which would take into account nuclear and “clean coal.”

Reid has consistently said he does not have the votes necessary to pass an RES, but that isn’t going to stop the renewable energy industry from lobbying for inclusion of the standard. Yesterday, a key industry source told me it’s “very likely” that the industry will renew its RES push.

Speaking at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, Bromwich said, “I’ll say right now that I’ll impose a lifetime ban on contacts with the agency, and I hope that sets an example for other people in the agency and other people throughout government,” the Post reports.

Here are the key numbers:

The Post analysis found that BP and other companies involved in the gulf disaster employ as lobbyists more than three dozen former lawmakers, congressional staffers and bureaucrats. BP alone has hired at least 31 internal and external lobbyists with government experience, records show.

The American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s leading trade group, employs 48 lobbyists with previous federal experience, the analysis shows. They include former senator J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), who helped deregulate the natural gas industry, and former congressmen Jim McCrery (R-La.) and Charlie Stenholm (D-Tex.), both of whom strongly backed oil interests while in Congress.