From Senate job to nuclear lobbyist — twice

Mike Stuckey Senior news editor • Profile • E-mail

In a move that appears to flout the U.S. Senate’s Ethics Manual, a former Senate staff member has repeatedly passed through Capitol Hill’s so-called “revolving door,” moving between public jobs intended to help oversee and regulate U.S. nuclear firms and lobbying posts in which he pushes the industry’s interests.

As Congress eyes legislation aimed at reining in lobbying excesses in the wake of the Jack Abramoff and Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham scandals, critics say the case of Alex Flint is a prime example of what's wrong with current lobbying rules and unlikely to be truly fixed by current reform efforts.

Most recently, Flint left his job as majority staff director for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where he was a key player in legislation that provided billions in subsidies to the nuclear industry, to become the chief lobbyist for the industry’s largest trade group, the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Flint was hired for the Senate post in 2003 after spending several years as a lobbyist representing a number of large firms with deep interests in the nuclear power field, as well as the NEI. Flint’s boss on the committee was Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., an unabashed booster of the nuclear power industry who has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from employees of the companies that Flint represents.

As a lobbyist, Flint was himself a frequent donor to Domenici’s campaigns before being rehired by the senator. And many of Flint’s qualifications to lobby for the nuclear industry in the first place were acquired through earlier jobs working for Domenici as a staff assistant, legislative aide and clerk of an energy subcommittee chaired by the senator.

Nobody alleges that Flint did anything illegal. Neither the law nor Senate rules prohibited Flint from leaving the Energy Committee post after three years in which he helped develop policy and shepherd legislation on nuclear issues and going directly to work as NEI’s senior vice president for governmental affairs.

'Stepping stone to riches'
And one Washington watchdog says Flint’s career path is hardly surprising in today’s environment, where congressional staff jobs are viewed by many as a “stepping stone to riches.”

Photo: Woodrow Wilson Int'l Center for Scholars Alex Flint is currently the vice president of governmental affairs for the Nuclear Energy Institute

Critics like Gary Kalman of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which opposes expansion of nuclear power generation, say Flint's case is especially troubling in light of the fact that the Senate panel had recently finished work on legislation that included billions of dollars in research, construction and operating subsidies, and billions more in tax breaks for the well-heeled nuclear energy industry.  In its press release heralding Flint’s arrival, the NEI trumpeted the fact that “Flint was a key adviser to Sen. Domenici during Senate consideration and passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.”

(A major player in the U.S. nuclear energy industry, and an NEI member, is General Electric Corp. GE owns NBC, a partner with Microsoft in the joint venture MSNBC.com).

Also of great concern to Kalman and others is this: Nothing in the current law prohibited Flint from remaining in his post for more than two months after announcing he would go to work for NEI.

In that time, Kalman pointed out, Flint “continued to serve a committee that is absolutely every day dealing with nuclear power.” Flint can say, as he did, that he recused himself from nuclear issues, but “it strains credibility,” Kalman said.

For instance, “Mr. Flint served as the spokesperson during the release of the committee’s white paper on global warming, which discusses how to regulate the energy industry," he said. "The policy questions raised in the white paper have implications for the nuclear power industry.”

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