Lobbyists come in all shapes and sizes, both physically and figuratively. When someone says lobbyist, most people's inclination is to think of influence peddlers utilising either money or connections to push some dubious sectional interest. Although people like that exist in Washington in droves, they are by far not the only people to inhabit that designation. As a fairly junior staff member, the lobbyists I dealt with were of a different variety; the technical expert. I shall use the development of a rule by the United States Department of Energy to demonstrate how as much as money and access are important in politics, the possession of information can also give great power.
For those unfamiliar with the federal rule-making process, it is an arcane labyrinth that very well may have a minotaur in the centre. From the conception of a possible rule, it can take anywhere from six months to a decade for it to come into force. There is a long sequence of stakeholder engagement, followed by public hearings, followed by a draft rule being put out for comment. Then there are more hearings and perhaps redrafts. However, despite the clumsy bureaucracy of it all, what really slows down the process is when the sectional interests get involved.
Now, for the record, I should state that in this particular matter, I was representing a sectional interest. The rule in question involved the standardisation of energy output ratings for a particular class of large-scale solar panels. At its heart, it was a debate about how to measure something, although to this day I could not tell you what exactly.
Now how did I get involved in this, you might ask? Heaven knows I asked myself that question every day for about a year. Well, as it turns out, the headquarters of a particular manufacturer of this type of solar panel is based in Austin, and more particularly in the Congressman's district. When a major employer in your district calls your office asking for help with a federal government process, Congressmen are highly inclined to do so.
It came down to that if the output was measured in one way it would be advantageous for their products and if it were done in another way they would be less competitive. That is the first lesson of this tale: politics often has nothing to do with substance. The solar cells would output the same amount of power regardless, it just mattered what they could write on their sales material.
As a person from a legal and political science background, the subtleties of this particular difference were lost on me. Regardless, the boffins at the Department of Energy and the engineers from all the competing companies and NGOs all seemed to get very excited about it. As far as I could tell they were arguing about what letters to put in formulas, but I guess the letters matter.
The upshot of this was that while Russell was being taken out to dinner by executives from this company to explain how important their business was for the Austin economy, I was sitting in hearings or on the phone with an engineer for hours taking furious notes on a draft rule. I had travelled to San Mateo, California, Wilmington, Delaware, and Norcross, Georgia (all home to major large-scale solar companies) for various stakeholder engagement activities. I had spent literally weeks with the officers from the Department of Energy, to the point that I had memorised their work extensions.
Finally, the process entered the most critical stage, the hardtack negotiations of the final wording of the draft rule that would be implemented on a trial basis. There would still be another round of hearings and a possibility for the rule to be changed at a later date, but the truth is that it is extremely rare for a rule to be amended between the trial and final implementation. In the end, if you can control the final draft, you have set the rule.
The company sent out two employees to Washington for the final stretch, their congressional liaison officer from Austin for process management and a research engineer from their manufacturing plant in Huron, South Dakota for the technical know-how. The congressional liaison, Tiffany, I knew quite well. She was a friendly mid-thirties blond lady who looked like she was right out of Texas central casting. We had met several times and had developed a good working relationship.
The engineer who was scheduled to come out was called Dennis. I had only met him once -- a large round man with thick glasses -- but I had spent more time on the phone with him than I think anyone else in my life and we had developed a high degree of trust. Therefore, it was a shock when a panicked Dennis called me at home on the morning he was scheduled to fly to Washington to tell me his mother had had a fall and was in the hospital and that he was going to have to send his new second in command out in his place. I had to assure him he was not letting me down, although I was secretly also panicking, and that he needed to stay with his mother. When I hung up I swore loudly at the phone, then called Tiffany who had a similar reaction in a much more lady-like way.
So, there I was; sitting in a meeting room in the Department of Energy the next day with Tiffany and half a dozen other industry people feeling distinctly nervous. Tiffany said the replacement engineer was in the foyer and got up to meet them. Sitting there by myself I realised I had been so panicked I had not even asked for their name.
I must have looked like a stunned fish when the person who dropped into the seat beside me and extended their hand in greeting was not another middle-aged balding man with a paunch dressed in a golf shirt, but a mid-twenties and very slight Asian woman in a tailored Amani suit. I took her hand and shook it as she said in a thick Boston accent "Hi there. I'm Susan. Pleased to meet you."
The Department of Energy Assistant Secretary responsible for the policy area called the discussion to order and the debate began. Normally it is my or Tiffany's job to try to control the agenda, while the engineer is there to make technical arguments. However, it quickly became clear that Susan was capable of doing both of these roles by herself without any help from me. At one point, she got stuck into the Department itself for a breach of its own stated consultation process which impressed me much more than her obviously formidable grasp of the substantive matter.
Regardless, as these things often do, it quickly devolved into positionalism. Everybody knew the strengths and weaknesses of everyone else's products. All the areas of possible agreement had been reached long ago, and all that was left were the areas of real difference based on the self-interest of everyone involved. As it approached five in the afternoon, the very harassed-looking Assistant Secretary called a halt and said that we would pick it up the next day.
I wish I could say there was progress made the following day, but after another seven hours of going around on the same ground without finding a solution, I pulled the plug. All the best technical know-how and money and whatever else you can throw at a problem is great, but sometimes it takes a bit of hard power to get something done. I called the Congressman, who called the Whitehouse Director of Policy, who called the Secretary of Energy. The whole thing was over in the blink of an eye. We were having the same debate for the third time about some formula for estimating the actual energy output of a solar cell in real-world climatic conditions when the Assistant Secretary just announced "Okay ladies and gentlemen, I think we have enough to make our decision" and twenty minutes later we were standing on the National Mall.
Out of earshot of the other parties, Susan swung around to face Tiffany and me and asked "So did we win?"
I looked at Tiffany, then shrugged and said "Yeah I guess. But I don't think any of us had much to do with it."
Susan's face cracked into a wide grin and she demanded "So what happened? One moment you're on the phone and then next they just end the negotiations."
I started to explain what had gone down as Tiffany hailed a cab. Susan grabbed my shoulder and pushed me inside, then said "Come have dinner with us. I want to hear more about the palace intrigue of Washington."
