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Executive Order 13490: Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel

President: Barack Obama

Required Obama appointees to sign an ethics pledge restricting gifts, revolving-door activity and work connected to former employers and clients.

Status: Revoked.

Is Executive Order 13490 still in effect? No. Revoked and superseded by EO 13770 in 2017; later administrations issued separate ethics pledges.

What does Executive Order 13490 do?

EO 13490 imposed an administration-specific ethics pledge on full-time political appointees. It included gift, lobbying, former-employer and post-employment commitments, assigned interpretation to the Office of Government Ethics and authorized waivers in the public interest. It was revoked when the next administration adopted its own pledge.

Administration position: The pledge went beyond some statutory ethics rules, but waivers and enforcement remained executive-branch processes rather than new criminal offenses.
SignedJanuary 21, 2009
Covered groupFull-time non-career appointees
RevokedEO 13770 on January 28, 2017

Before and after

Before the order

Appointees were subject to ethics statutes and regulations without this administration-wide pledge.

After the order

Covered appointees signed additional contractual commitments administered through OGE and agency ethics officials.

Who had to do what

Agency / officeActionTiming / position
AppointeesSign and comply with the pledgeEnded
OGE DirectorInterpret and administer the pledgeEnded for new appointees
Agency headsEnsure compliance and report waiversHistorical

What happened next

EO 13490 established the pledge.

EO 13770 superseded and revoked it.

EO 13989 created a different Biden pledge.

EO 14148 revoked EO 13989.