Transport chief seeks advice from inside trade

Governor Deval Patrick's transportation secretary has quietly set up an informal panel to help him set priorities for funding future projects. Members include several private-sector consultants whose companies or clients could benefit financially from the policies they recommend.

Presented recently with a sobering report about the state's future transportation needs , Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen has turned to both public and private-sector specialists for help in devising funding plans to maintain and build the state's network of bridges, highways, transit systems, sea ports, and airports.

Cohen rejected a request from the Globe this week for a list of the participants he has invited or the agenda for the group's first meeting, scheduled for today at the State Transportation Building.

But the newspaper learned details of the meeting and the agenda from copies of e-mails that were sent by Cohen's office to those who had accepted the invitation to join the panel.

Those e-mails show that the 10-member panel is made up of four government officials, an official from an association representing businesses affected by the Big Dig, and five people from the private sector.

Those five include two people from national civil engineering firms that contract with Cohen's office and transportation agencies, as well as with state authorities; a transportation specialist on the staff of a Washington-based law and lobbying firm that says it represents Big Dig contractors in legal disputes with the state; Dan Irving, a former investment banker with UBS who is now consulting on privatizing transportation infrastructure; and a Boston lawyer, James Aloisi, long an influential figure in state transportation circles whose practice focuses on transportation law and financing.

Yesterday Cohen, after several days of declining to provide information about the panel, strongly defended soliciting input from an informal group that includes private companies and lawyers that have financial interests in public transportation funding.

He said the participants will have no say in developing policies about how to address $20 billion in transportation needs over the next 20 years, though the e-mails from his office say the panel will "begin to examine the way we prioritize funding for maintenance and new projects."

"This is a group that has no policy responsibility," Cohen said. "It has no formal standing whatsoever. It will never know where we are coming from." He said he was not aware of the wording in the e-mails.

Cohen said his legal counsel has made sure the state's ethics laws are not being violated by the composition or discussions of the panel. "This is a one-way flow of information from them to me," he said. "I am well aware that some represent businesses that do business with the Commonwealth. . . . [The task force] will never function in a way that would create conflict of interest or give them inside information."

Government watchdog groups say that public agencies that enlist heavy corporate interests when developing policy can be influenced by those interests, to the advisers' financial benefit. Often, they said, independent and objective voices -- such as specialists from the academic world and nonprofit public interest groups, which are more attuned to the general public interest -- do not have equal input.

Pamela Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause of Massa chusetts, said the issue is how much influence Cohen's task force will have on policy .

"If it is purely advisory, then the concerns about conflict of interest are mitigated," she said. But "the basic principles of good government require [that] independent boards and policy- making task forces be without significant representation by the affected industry.

"At issue is the ability for the public to have confidence in the policies or recommendations they promote," Wilmot said. "Those policies are supposed to be for the sole benefit of the public, not to investors, colleagues, and friends."

David G. Tuerck -- executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute, a conservative think tank -- said the financial interests of members of a task force often drive the panel's agenda. "They're teeing up a massive tax increase without a care, because they are going to benefit no matter what," he said. "You can always expect from a group like that, that they will carve out a wish list."

One executive invited to be on the task force -- Bob Brustlin, chief executive of Vanesse Hangen Brustlin, a transportation planning and engineering firm based in Watertown -- said he accepted Cohen's invitation to join the panel because he can bring expertise to the discussion. He strongly disputed that there is a potential conflict in his participation.

"You need a balance of voices, but if you ignore people who know about the subject and not allow them to participate at some level, you will potentially lose the information that will bear on the problem," Brustlin said. "I'm sure Secretary Cohen will appeal to all sorts of people. But our intention of being there is simply to help and provide expertise."

Drawing private interests and corporations into policy-making roles in government came under heavy fire in Washington after reports that Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force secretly met with big oil companies in 2001. The task force was developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law. Environmentalists complained they had been shut out of the discussions.

According to the e-mails from Cohen's office about today's meeting, the panel members will get a briefing from Cohen's staff and from officials with Patrick's Office of Administration and Finance. They "will provide an overview of how the Commonwealth currently funds our . . . [transportation] network," according to the e-mail.

"We will also begin to examine the way we prioritize funding for maintenance and new projects," says the e-mail, sent by Cohen's chief aide, Conrad Crawford.

The panel members from the public sector are : James Rooney, executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority; Katherine Craven, executive director of the Massachusetts School Building Authority; Betsy Taylor, finance director at the Massachusetts Port Authority; and Jay Gonzales, the governor's assistant secretary of administration and finance. Another panelist , Rick Dimino, is president of A Better City, an organization formed to address business concerns during the construction of the Big Dig.

The second engineering firm represented on the panel is HNTB, a corporation based in Kansas City, Mo., that specializes in transportation engineering and planning. Both it and Brustlin's firm have done extensive work in Massa chusetts. HNTB, who is represented on the panel by Beth Larkin from its Boston office, designed and served as engineer for the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge.

Another member Cohen chose is John B. Miller, a transportation consultant hired last year by Patton Boggs, a Washington law firm that operates the largest lobbying practice in the Capitol, with $35 million in revenues. The firm recently created a special division to help construction companies and developers compete for public projects.

The chief of Patton Boggs is Robert S. Brams, who lists among his credentials on the firm's website that he represents a "contractor and engineer in disputes involving contract performance and pricing issues" in the Big Dig project.