Florence Haseltine — President, Assembly of Scientists

The new STOCK Act meant to prevent insider trading among lawmakers will drive scientists away from the federal government, according to the Assembly of Scientists, representing NIH researchers. The detailed these concerns in a letter to lawmakers and is asking senators to repeal a section of the law that requires the government to post top career feds' financial information online.

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Steve Ryan — Partner, McDermott, Will and Emory

Inspectors General have the job of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse at their agencies. But now, one IG is under fire for a possible conflict of interest. Interior's Mary Kendall sat in on meetings to discuss offshore oil drilling policy. Then she was called to investigate whether the White House edited the resulting report to distort professional staff opinion. For today's Legal Loop, we wondered, how often are IG's themselves investigated? And how far should they be be involved in policy discussions?

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Brian Friel — Analyst, Bloomberg Government

Multiple award contracts give federal agencies lots of options when it comes to buying the services they need. But for contractors, too many vehicles can present tough choices. Like, which ones to bid on and which ones to pass. Contractors have many MACs they can bid on this year. But that number will shrink in coming years as agencies consolidate their vehicles to make things more efficient.

New MACs face White House price checks

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Lisa Shames — Director of Natural Resources and Environment, Government Accountability Office

For eight years starting in 2003, the Agriculture Department doled out more than $46 billion in direct payments to farmers. A quarter of those payments went to farmers who did NOT grow crops. Thousands more got paid for fallow fields. Now a new GAO report says direct payments do not align with good principles, like integrity, efficiency and effectiveness. It also says the program lacks oversight.

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Joyce Connery — Former Director of Nuclear Energy Policy, National Security Council

Securing nuclear materials is all in a day's work for our next guest. Joyce Connery has used her considerable people skills to help reduce vast amounts of plutonium and weapons-grade uranium. Two years ago, she brought fifty world leaders together for a summit. She got them to make concrete promises. Today, they have fulfilled about 90 percent of those commitments. For her work as the National Security Council's director of nuclear energy policy, Connery is a finalist for the Service to America medals.

Meet all of the 2012 Sammies finalists.

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