Citing 31 U.S.C. 1352, the federal statute that bars contractors and grantees to use federal funds to lobby the government, and requires them to disclose any lobbying they've done in connection with winning a contract or grant (that's the elusive SF-LLL we've been tracking), Sen. Tom Coburn has written to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates requesting, among other things, SF-LLLs (good luck, Senator!). The full letter is attached; here's an excerpt...

As you know, federal law (31 U.S.C. 1352) requires recipients of federal funding to complete a form, know as SF-LLL, to ...

So I've been going through FedBizOpps, looking for solicitation notices that specifically mention the elusive lobbying disclosure SF-LLL, and coming across some interesting bits of federal business. This solicitation from the State Department, for example, suggests why Anu has yet to receive any correspondence logs from the agency:

The Freedom of Information Document Management System (FREEDOMS) serves as the lynchpin for the [State] Department's Information Access Program. As such, it tracks and manages the workload of all requests made under any of the information access laws or executive orders mentioned above. FREEDOMS was originally purpose built and implemented ...

My conversation with Department of Trasnsportation contracting officer Bob Robel (see the Moblity Technologies, Inc. post immediately below) also yielded some interesting information on standard form LLL, which contractors are supposed to file "for each payment or agreement to make payment to any lobbying entity for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee of any agency, a Member of Congress, an officer or employee of Congress, or an employee of a Member of Congress in connection with a covered federal action." (Covered federal action here refers to a federal contract or grant.)

Anu and I have been trying ...

The Coast Guard responded to one of the first Freedom of Information Act requests I made (described here) for an SF-LLL--the disclosures that contractors have to file when they lobby the government in connection with a contract. I asked for any SF-LLLs filed in connection with Deepwater, the multi-year contract to design a new generation of ships and systems for the Coast Guard. Integrated Coast Guard Systems, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Northop Grumman, won the contract. Both companies lobbied Congress and the Coast Guard over the program (see page 19 of this form or page 7 of ...

There's almost a Lewis Carroll-like quality to the following passage in the Federal Register, (54 FR 52307-8, for those keeping score at home), in which the Office of Management and Budget published its interim rule for complying with the Byrd amendment, which barred government contractors and grantees from using federal funds to lobby (it became effective Dec. 23, 1989):

Costs made specifically unallowable by the requirements in the guidance are not made allowable under any of the provisions of these Circulars. Conversely, costs that are specifically unallowable under the provisions of these Circulars are not made allowable under the ...

The timeline for form SF-LLL that I foolishly promised the other day has grown to an alarming length. I'm posting the pre-SF-LLL history now--the events that led Congress to pass and the President to sign a bill requiring those seeking federal contracts or grants to file a disclosure form whenever they pay a lobbyist ito influence members of Congress or the executive branch in obtaining those contracts or grants. So here's a very brief accounting of the relevant events from 1989:

June 1989: Context is important. In 1989, a scandal unfolded that involved former Reagan Administration officials successfully ...

Today, I'm pulling together a timeline -- a sort of biography of form SF-LLL that also suggests a number of questions. In the meantime, through the magic of Nexis, thought I'd pass along this bit from a Sept. 18, 1989, Washington Post editorial on the passage of the Byrd Amendment, the rule that required the form to be filed:

There is no better preventive measure against politically motivated favoritism than disclosure. Grant-making agencies and legislators are far less likely to be pressured by the politically connected if the details of that pressure are going to turn up in the ...

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