Another ethics policy alert

As we mentioned yesterday, the Washington Post reported that former FEMA Director James Lee Witt is rumored to be in line to return to the post he held during the Clinton administration. Mark Merritt, president of Witt's consulting/lobbying firm, may join FEMA as Witt's deputy.

The candidacies of Witt and Merritt raise similar issues to those surrounding the expected nomination of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services. As we wrote in the case of Daschle (an advisor for Alston + Bird's health care legislative & public policy team), Obama has set out an ethics policy that forbids appointees from "work[ing] on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years."

Witt's firm, James Lee Witt Associates, describes itself as "a crisis and emergency management consulting firm" that brings "together policy architects and technical experts in public safety, with leaders from all levels of government and private sector partners to forge solutions to emergency management challenges."

Witt Associates is also a lobbying firm that has represented [search on Registrant names "Witt" and "Global Options"] more than 20 clients since 2003. Not all of the lobbying work was related to disaster relief or involved contacting FEMA, but much of it appears right on point to the sorts of things a FEMA director oversees.

For example, in the first half of 2007, Witt and four of his employees lobbied FEMA on behalf of the city of Sacramento on "all matters pertaining to flood zone remapping."