Ex-BLMer's new job queried

Steve Henke, then a director of one of the largest field offices for the federal Bureau of Land Management, was applying for a job last year heading an oil and gas trade group when he sent a writing sample to his prospective employer from his government computer. Mr. Henke wrote that the oil and gas association "must be aware of and involved in planning efforts at the federal, state and local levels to positively influence decisions that potentially affect our members' access to resources." The contents of that e-mail, recently obtained by a watchdog group through the Freedom of Information Act, are raising concerns about the decision by government ethics officials to allow Mr. Henke to leave his job as an oil and gas regulator to become director of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association. Citing Mr. Henke's "stroll through the revolving door," the nonpartisan Project On Government Oversight (POGO) said the government's decision not to mandate any post-employment ethics restrictions also raised broader concerns about ethics enforcement in the government agency. In a brief telephone interview, Mr. Henke said he sought advice from ethics officials when taking the job and he said there was nothing amiss in the agency's rulings on how his transition from government service was handled. "The agency has already ruled on this," he said, adding that he had not seen POGO's letter and was unaware that the group had obtained his e-mail through an open-records request. "They keep trying to make a case out of this and connect the dots where there aren't dots to be connected."...more