Trump's weakened ethics rules let a lobbyist help run an agency he lobbied

Ethics experts say ex-lobbyist Geoff Burr's hiring by the Labor Department is a troubling example

Geoff Burr spent much of the last decade as the chief lobbyist for a powerful construction industry trade group. Burr sought to influence a host of regulations of the Department of Labor, opposing wage standards for federal construction contracts and working against an effort to limit workers' exposure to dangerous silica dust.

In the Obama administration, someone like Burr would have been barred by ethics rules from taking a job at an agency that he had lobbied.

In the Trump administration, Burr now has