Gaming the system

Another breach shows need for state ethics reform

The state Ethics Commission has ordered a former Game Commission official, William Capouillez, to pay $75,000 for conflicts of interest related to outside employment, highlighting once more the need for comprehensive ethics reform in Harrisburg. Gov. Tom Wolf has proposed a package of reforms, and some bills to tighten ethics rules are pending in the Legislature. If there is no movement on an ethics overhaul by the end of the legislative session this year, our state leaders will have failed us once more.

As director of the Game Commission’s Bureau of Wildlife Habitat Management from December 2006 through mid-May last year, Mr. Capouillez worked on or had oversight of leases with energy companies wanting to undertake fracking operations on gamelands. He ran afoul of ethics rules because his side business, Geological Assessment & Leasing, was representing private landowners in lease negotiations with some of the same companies simultaneously interested in the gamelands.

Mr. Capouillez started his business in 1996, when he was a Game Commission hydrogeologist, stating that he intended to do geology consulting and advise clients of mineral development opportunities, according to an Ethics Commission report. He and his bosses acknowledged the potential for conflicts of interest but he was allowed to moonlight anyway. Discussions of possible conflicts arose over the years, but the Game Commission did not rescind permission for his outside work until 2014. In its findings, the Ethics Commission said Mr. Capouillex never disclosed that he would be dealing with some energy companies simulaneously as a public official and private business owner.

The Game Commission deserves a large part of the blame for allowing an employee to engage in outside business that offered the potential for conflict and for failing to properly monitor his activities. That is why tougher rules are needed for employees as well as for legislators, many of whom also have outside business interests.

The Ethics Commission said the $75,000 payment in this case represents a “fraction” of what Mr. Capouillez’s private firm reportedly earned over the years, but it cited a five-year statute of limitations on ethics violations as the reason for not imposing a harsher penalty. If the Legislature ever gets around to ethics reform, it might want to remember that point. Unfortunately, there is no time limit for legislative dawdling.