Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 8, 2007; A01
The railroad industry is hiring relatives of Capitol Hill lawmakers and staff members as it faces tighter federal safety legislation, employing a tactic untouched by the Democrats' new ethics proposals: lobbying by congressional family members.
The new Democratic Congress is working on the first overhaul of railroad-safety laws in 13 years. Long attuned to Republican control, railroad companies are now working to keep their GOP allies but also hiring Democratic lobbyists.
Days after Jennifer Esposito became majority staff director of the House transportation panel's subcommittee on railroads, her father, Sante Esposito, and brother Michael Esposito signed up as railway lobbyists. Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.) has just taken a seat on the subcommittee, and in the coming weeks, the railroad industry trade association said, his father and predecessor in Congress, William O. Lipinski (D-Ill.), will register as a railroad lobbyist, too.
The new lobbyists join Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), a former congressman and chairman of the transportation committee who lobbies for railroads and whose son, Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), also has just joined the railroads subcommittee.
The lobbyists said they would not directly advocate for clients through family members. The hirings are legal, experts on lobbying law said, but point to a topic left unaddressed in the new ethics proposals before Congress. While the Senate has voted to ban lobbying by some lawmakers' spouses, neither chamber has moved to limit lobbying by other family members.
"Like every other industry, we felt it was important to have representatives from both the Democratic and Republican side," said Peggy Nasir, spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads, which hired Shuster, Lipinski, and Sante and Michael Esposito. "We are meeting all the standards we need to meet for lobbying."
The stakes are high for the railroads. Last week, Congress began debate on a reauthorization of the Federal Railroad Safety Program, which has not been updated since 1994. With government figures showing an increase in railroad accidents and fatalities over the past decade, watchdog agencies, accident victims and many Democratic lawmakers want improved track and crossing inspections, better accident investigations, and heavy fines for companies that break the rules.
It is against this backdrop that the railroads association turned to Sante Esposito.
The Esposito family has a long history with the House transportation committee. Sante Esposito served for nearly two decades as its Democratic chief counsel. Michael and Jennifer Esposito were committee interns and Jennifer joined the railroads subcommittee as staff director in 2004, when Democrats were in the minority.
Sante and Michael Esposito are partners in Federal Advocates Inc. in Sterling, Va., which advertises its transport policy influence on its Web site. Sante Esposito, it says, "enjoys long-standing working relationships with numerous decision-makers in the Congress and Executive Branch."
Sante Esposito said that he told the railroads association, "I can advise you on the best strategy for dealing with the new majority in Congress," and he added that "it was clear right from the beginning that I was not to lobby my daughter."
"I don't think relatives should lobby relatives, but I don't think relatives of members or staff should be precluded from lobbying the Congress."
Jennifer Esposito said that her family's work will not keep her from representing the interests of her boss and the transportation committee's chairman, Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), who favors stronger safety laws. She said she considers the railroad companies her "adversaries."
When they were hired, she said, she consulted her supervisors and House ethics advisers who she said told her to create a "wall" to prevent them from lobbying her. Her father, she decided, "can't lobby me, he can't meet with me, I can't discuss any issues with him."
Lobbying experts said such precautions are not required by law. "The rules do not prohibit hiring a family member such as this to lobby on an issue," Kenneth Gross, an ethics lawyer at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, said about the Espositos. "It's up to the judgment of the individual."
Nevertheless, public-interest groups say such family relationships beg for oversight.
Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said: "Congressional staffers should be recused from dealing with matters their immediate family members lobby on."
Such recusals rarely happen, watchdog groups say.
Before he left Congress, William Lipinski championed the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency program (CREATE), a railroad improvement project for the nation's biggest freight-rail hub. The $1.5 billion project is funded by taxpayers, and $212 million of it by the nation's six big railroads. When CREATE began in mid-2003, Lipinski complained that the railroads were not picking up more of the tab.
"These improvements are worth more to the railroads than $212 million," he said at the time.
In 2004, Lipinski left Congress and joined the Association of American Railroads as a CREATE consultant. Daniel Lipinski won his father's seat, and last year his office issued a news release announcing a new funding agreement for CREATE, but the railroads' share of its cost has stayed the same.
After the November midterm elections, Daniel Lipinski was named to the transportation committee and its railroads subcommittee. And this month, William Lipinski will register as a lobbyist for the railroads but said he will not "lobby my son in regards to any of my clients."
Asked how father and son avoid the appearance of impropriety while working on the same railway project, Daniel Lipinski said: "CREATE is a very important project, not just for the Chicago area. . . . The more people working on this, the better."
In a 2001 special election, Bill Shuster won the congressional seat and the transportation committee slot vacated by his father that year. Shuster is now the new ranking Republican on the railroads subcommittee.
His father "doesn't need to lobby a junior member of Congress," Shuster said, adding that "he's got an extremely close relationship with the chairman" of the transportation panel, Oberstar.
He added: "How are you going to stop somebody who spent 28 years of their life being an expert on something from going to the private sector? It's discrimination."
Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), chairman of the railroads subcommittee, hopes to ready a rail-safety bill before June. Since 1994, train use has risen 17 percent, according to government figures, while accidents have increased by one-third. There are 421 federal inspectors checking tracks and equipment nationwide, leaving safety monitoring largely to the industry.
Nasir of the Association of American Railroads said that train accident rates have decreased sharply since 1980. She said that when complete figures are compiled, they probably will show last year to be the industry's safest.
The regulations, association chief Edward R. Hamberger told the subcommittee last week, cost railroads money and hamper innovation.
The industry prefers "performance standards," that "would rely on the superior knowledge of railroads," he testified. Except in special cases, federal regulators "would no longer specify how a railroad would achieve its safety goals," as they do now.
Jennifer Esposito disagrees with that proposal. "Train accidents are going up, and it's something that we feel needs to be addressed," she said. "I don't think that just because they hired my father, somehow there will be some conversation that will change my boss's mind."
Her father and brother, she said, "are working for my adversaries."
Staff writer Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.
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