By Jonathan Allen and Alex Knott, CQ Staff

John Podesta, a co-chairman of President-elect Barack Obama ’s White House transition team, sketched the outlines of the transition effort Tuesday, including a series of self-imposed ethics regulations that restrict the activities of aides who have been, or will become, lobbyists.

The cost of the transition organization, which could employ as many as 450 people, is expected to be about $12 million, with a little bit more than $5 million in federal funds already appropriated for the purpose and the rest from private donations, Podesta told reporters at the Obama camp’s East Coast headquarters in northwest Washington, D.C.

The transition team has another office in Obama’s hometown of Chicago.

Donors to the transition will be limited to $5,000 apiece, although that is more than the $4,600 cap for contributions to a candidate for federal office during an election cycle.

Podesta officially unveiled a list of ethics regulations to govern the transition organization that he described as “the strictest, and most far reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history.”

The rules ban federally registered lobbyists from donating to, and raising money for, the transition, according to Podesta, a former lobbyist who started the heavyweight lobbying firm now called the Podesta Group with his brother Tony Podesta, and now heads the liberal think tank Center for American Progress.

They also prevent lobbyists who work for the transition from lobbying while they do so and aim to slow the revolving door between government and paid advocacy by banning people who have lobbied within the past year from working on policy issues they have lobbied on as part of the transition team.

Those who work in the transition will be banned from lobbying the administration on the issues they dealt with as transition team members for one year, according to a statement released by the transition team press office.

Finally, Podesta said, a gift ban has been put in place, though the details of those restrictions were not discussed.

During the campaign, Obama declined to accept money from political action committees or registered federal lobbyists, and his anti-lobbyist rhetoric sometimes irritated those who make their living in that field — even Democrats who were supportive of Obama’s candidacy.

Some said the restrictions Obama plans to place on lobbyists who take administration jobs — including a two-year moratorium on working on issues they lobbied on before being hired — could inhibit his ability to attract qualified professionals for important government posts..

Podesta addressed that during his meeting with reporters.

“I’ve heard the complaint, which is that we are leaving all this outside expertise outside, because we are leaving everybody who knows everything out in the cold,” he said. “So be it. That’s a commitment that the American public expects and that the president-elect made and it is one that we intend to enforce.”