From Senate job to nuclear lobbyist — twice

[brooklynite]

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.

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Most recently, (Alex) 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.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11845981/