Dan Burton: “first of all, I think the Waxman amendment is well intentioned, and I know he has given this a lot of thought.…”

“first of all, I think the Waxman amendment is well intentioned, and I know he has given this a lot of thought. Unfortunately, it has two problems, in my opinion. First, it goes too far; and, second, it addresses a problem that does not appear to be very serious. This bill requires private sector employees who go to Federal agencies to comply with every single ethics rule that Federal employees have to follow, and then some. This bill has financial disclosure requirements and postemployment restrictions and conflict-of-interest protections. This bill may have more ethical safeguards than any bill that has ever passed this Congress. What the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) is concerned about is that private sector employees may go to a Federal agency, learn some trade secret of a competitor, and go back to their company and share that information, or government information. Well, guess what? This bill has a lifetime ban on disclosing that kind of information, with criminal penalties if it is violated. It has a lifetime ban, not 7 years, like the statute of limitations on several other law violations. If someone taking part in this program discloses secret information 20 or 30 years after they see it, they could go to jail. I am a little concerned that we may have gone too far already. We may have placed so many restrictions on this program that we may scare people away from participating in it, and that would be a real shame.”