IEC Journal

Pentagon Acceptance of Free Trips

An Associated Press story discusses ethical implications of Pentagon officials accepting gifts of travel from from foreign countries, trade groups and companies with an interest in shaping policies or doing business with the U.S. military. The Center for Public Integrity broke the story and set up a database to facilitate tracking such travel in a joint project with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Thanks to Paul Bergstrand for the tip.

Proactive on Transit Subsidy?

Do all employees in your agency understand the rules concerning the commuter subsidy paid to federal employees?  This question is all the more important because the American American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided a large increase in benefits through Jan. 1, 2011. Including this topic in your ethics training could prove useful. The Department of Transportation's TranServe website has information on transit subsidy rules.

Subisdizing Attendance At Awards Ceremonies

When can the government subsidize attendance at an awards ceremony? Air Force lawyer Mark Stone provides a number of Department of Defense and Air Force references in his e-mail newsletter, as well as the following other authorities:

• 70 Comp. Gen. 440, B-241987, April 25, 1991 (spouse travel to attend an award ceremony)

• 69 Comp. Gen. 38, B-233607, Oct. 26, 1989 (spouse travel to attend an award ceremony)

• 55 Comp. Gen. 1332 (1976) (travel to accept an award from a non-Federal organization)

• 5 USC 4503 (awards by Federal agencies to Federal employees)

• GAO guide, Principles of Federal Appropriations Law, Third Edition, Jan. 2004, Volume I, page 4-167. [The March 2009 update to the guide does not have guidance on this issue.]

Contact Mr. Stone to be added to his mailing list (address disguised to throw off automated address-gathering software used by spammers): mark_dot_ stone--AT--wpafb _dot_af_dot_mil.

The Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) ethics website (registration required) has more ethics information:

http://afmcethics.wpafb.af.mil

Key May Due Date Reminders

May 15 is the filing deadline for certain SF 278s that are sent to OGE for final review and certification. DAEOgram DO-08-018 has details. Extensions are possible.

May 27 is the deadline to submit comments on the FAR Council's proposal on addressing service contractor employees' personal conflicts of interest in light of the concerns raised by OGE, the findings of a GAO report, the recommendations of the Services Acquisition Reform Act panel, two recent FAR cases (2006-07 and 2007-06), and some agency approaches to the issue. under 31 U.S.C. § 1353. DAEOgram DO-08-017 has more information.

Get Comfy in Coach

Brian Friel of Government Executive offers his views on OMB's Jan. 8 memo restricting federal premium travel.  Our previous post has links to the memo and related documents. Friel's bottom line:

A year earlier, GAO noted that the State Department, as well as other agencies, treats first-class travel as a morale-boosting perk. "The tone set by top State Department executives indicate that it treats premium-class as an employee benefit regardless of cost and federal law and regulation," GAO reported in September 2006. GAO's latest report called that approach into question across government.

Now, the jig is up. Human resources officials could come up with lots of reasons that executives and managers benefit from traveling in the front of the plane. But it doesn't matter. In this case, Congress and the White House don't want government to be more like business.

Premium Travel Policies

A lawyer with a small federal agency had a question about implementing OMB's new policy on premium travel:

We're in the process of evaluating our current practices.  I'm working to define "rest period," and advising on the development of clearer guidance for when agency mission criteria and intent call for premium class travel.  I'm curious to know how other agencies are handling this.  If you have any leads on how other agencies are approaching these issues, I'd appreciate learning about it.

If you have implemented a policy on this at your agency that you can share, send it to us via the Contact Us link on the left.  We'd love to distribute it. One of the reasons for this site is to increase the efficiency of ethics administration. It makes no sense for scores or hundreds of federal agency lawyers to duplicate each other's work.

More On New Travel Rule

Since the impermanent links at the GSA web site are hard to use, we have uploaded the text of the Consolidated Appropriations Bill, 2008 (1.5 MB PDF file) as a convenience to our readers.

Two readers had insightful follow-up comments on our previous post about the bill:

Michael Wolf noted:

In your posting "Restriction on Certain Section 1353 Travel Reimbursements" (January 10, 2008), you state that the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 "imposes significant restrictions on the acceptance of 31 USC 1353 travel reimbursements by regulatory agencies. Section 620 of Division D of the Act provides that ‘no … regulatory agency or commission funded by this Act may accept payment or reimbursement from a non-Federal entity for travel … [from] a person or entity subject to regulation by such agency or commission…’"

The application of this restriction is narrower than it may appear at first glance. It does not apply to regulatory agencies government-wide.

Section 3 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 states:

Sec. 3. REFERENCES

Except as expressly provided otherwise, any reference to "this Act" contained in any division of this

Act shall be treated as referring only to the provisions of that division.

Therefore, the restrictions on the acceptance of travel payments under 31 USC 1353 in Section 620 of Division D apply only to those agencies and commissions that are funded by Division D, "funded by this Act" (unlike, for example, the anti-lobbying provision in section 720 of Division D which has government-wide application because it says "this or any other act." )

Another knowledgeable commenter agreed and went on to note that the lack of a definition of "regulatory agency" could lead to some confusion in interpreting the statute.

New OMB Rules on Premium Air Travel

OMB has issued new guidance on federal traveler use of premium airline services, in response to September's GAO critical report. Government Executive has details. The key parts of the proposal, to be implemented "immediately":

• Require that premium class travel requests for all agency personnel, including senior-level executives be approved by an individual at least at the same level as the traveler, or by an office designated to approve premium class travel;
• Develop and issue internal guidance that explains when mission criteria and intent call for premium class accommodations;
• Define what constitutes a rest period;
• Require annual certifications of a disability, unless such disability is lifelong;
• Restrict premium class travel for both temporary duty and permanent change of station travel (relocations) when the employee is not required to report to duty the following day; and,
• Prohibit blanket travel authorizations for premium class travel, unless the traveler has a certification of disability.

Restriction on Certain Section 1353 Travel Reimbursements

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, Public Law 110-161 (H.R. 2764) signed by the President on December 26, 2007, imposes a significant restriction on the acceptance of 31 USC 1353 travel reimbursements by regulatory agencies. Section 620 of Division D of the Act provides that “no ... regulatory agency or commission funded by this Act may accept payment or reimbursement from a non-Federal entity for travel ... [from] a person or entity subject to regulation by such agency or commission ... unless such person or entity is an organization exempt from taxation pursuant to section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.”  Affected agencies should consult the full language of the Act and the corresponding explanatory statement submitted by the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Accepting Promotional Benefits

Standards of Conduct Counselors so often find themselves in the role of heavy, delivering bad news. How would you like to deliver some good news for a change?

On returning from Lenny Loewentritt's excellent briefing on travel at yesterday's IEC meeting (slides available here), I tried a little experiment. About 40% of the employees in my agency that I queried were not aware that federal employees can now accept promotional items like frequent flier miles, upgrades, access to airline clubs or facilities. Many employees remember the old rule that barred acceptance of such benefits, and are not aware that it was changed in 2002 by Section 1116 of Pub. L. 107-107, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2002.

If your agency is like mine, a little employee awareness-raising may be in order.