Carolyn Maloney: “This amendment would require public disclosure of information submitted under section 847 of this act. This amendment is…”

“This amendment would require public disclosure of information submitted under section 847 of this act. This amendment is about bringing more accountability and sunshine to the $379 billion average annual defense contracting business by making a revolving door database, which already exists, publicly available. It would allow the public access to important ethics information about some DOD employees who leave to go through the resolving door to jobs in the defense contracting industry, often with companies with whom they have been negotiating billions of dollars in contracts. Current and former public servants should not be able to use their positions for private gain, and powerful defense contractors should not be able to rig the system. But, unfortunately, this relationship is not uncommon. One way contractors gain influence in the government is to hire away civil servants and political appointees with access to inside people and information from their government positions. In some cases, highly skilled and well-connected former senior government officials enter the private sector as executives or officers or lobbyists or on the boards of directors of government contractors, a practice known as the revolving door. It is also widely acknowledged that there are inherent conflicts of interest in the revolving door, potential ethical problems that can lead to the wasteful spending of taxpayers' dollars and worse.…”