Public Citizen Calls for Investigation of Titan’s Lobbying Records
July 26, 2004
Public Citizen Calls for Investigation of Titan’s Lobbying Records
Since 2000, Titan Subsidiaries Underreported Lobbying Expenses by More Than $1.2 Million
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Public Citizen today called for an investigation into the lobbying records of a defense contractor, the Titan Corporation, for underreporting its lobbying expenses in excess of $1.24 million from 2000 through 2003. In a letter sent to the secretary of the U.S. Senate and the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, Public Citizen asserted that Titan violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act because the company and its subsidiaries failed to report accurate lobbying expenses for nearly four years.
Section 5 (B) (4) of the Lobbying Disclosure Act requires organizations to report not only in-house lobbying expenses but also the expenses the organization incurs when it retains outside entities to represent it before the executive and legislative branches. However, since the last half of 2000, when Titan first registered under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, the company apparently has consistently failed to include in its lobbying reports the payments it has made to outside lobbying firms that represented it on a variety of issues, including defense, mail safety, transportation, homeland security, aviation, government contracting and e-government initiatives.
For instance, in its 2001 mid-year lobbying report, Titan stated that it spent $40,000 on in-house lobbying and nothing on outside lobbying. But Public Citizen knows of four lobbying firms that filed mid-year reports stating that they received income from Titan for lobbying services. The firms billed Titan $180,000, records show, meaning that Titan underreported $180,000 of lobbying expenditures in that report.
“We first became concerned with Titan’s filings when we were examining its lobbying expenses on food irradiation,” said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program and author of the letter. “However, when we dug deeper, it became apparent that Titan was not fully disclosing all of its lobbying expenses, and we’d like to know why.”
The activities of some of Titan’s employees have been implicated in the alleged Iraqi prisoner abuse. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice also have launched investigations of Titan for alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
To read the letter Public Citizen wrote, click here.
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