SPRINT LOBBYIST STARTS OWN FIRM: Bill Barloon, who oversaw the federal and state legislative affairs teams for Sprint, has left the company following its merger with T-Mobile and started his own lobbying firm, BARLOON.CO . Barloon has registered to lobby for the National Music Publishers Association on issues affecting music publishers and songwriters. "With a background in technology and regulatory matters, he will be a key strategist in our fight to reduce the unfair restrictions put on songwriters," said David Israelite , CEO and president of the NMPA, in a statement. "We are excited to utilize his first-hand knowledge of the battlegrounds we face on the multiple fronts — from Congress to DOJ — in a time when music publishers and songwriters face more challenges than ever before." BIDEN ROLLS OUT SENIOR STAFF: President-elect Joe Biden announced a round of White House hires today, tapping the upper echelon of his campaign to fill roles in the West Wing. Biden announced that his campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, will become deputy chief of staff. She previously managed former Rep. Beto O'Rourke's presidential campaign, was a founding partner at the communications and data targeting firm Precision Strategies, and served as deputy campaign manager for former President Barack Obama's reelect. Biden's White House counsel will be Dana Remus, who served as general counsel to the Biden-Harris campaign and as a deputy assistant and deputy counsel for ethics to Obama. — Steve Ricchetti, a longtime Biden aide and chairman of his presidential campaign whose lobbying history made him the target of a campaign by progressives to be passed over as Biden's chief of staff, will be a counselor to the incoming president. Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) will be a senior adviser to Biden and director of the Office of Public Engagement. — "Richmond, a national co-chair to Joe Biden's presidential campaign, will focus on outreach with grassroots organizations, public interest groups and advocacy groups, including the NAACP. He's also expected to serve as a liaison with the business community and climate change activists," POLITICO's Natasha Korecki and Alex Thompson reported Monday night. — The hires have already prompted backlash from progressive groups who slammed the "corporate-friendly" selections as "unacceptable." More on the appointments from Natasha here. MORE TRANSITION WATCH: Roger Ferguson, the longtime head of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America and a potential Biden appointee, is stepping down from the money manager after a dozen years, The Wall Street Journal reports. Ferguson was a vice chair at the Federal Reserve from 1997 to 2006 and was among those on the shortlist to replace former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke in 2013, a role that eventually went to Janet Yellen, who herself is rumored to be under consideration for Treasury secretary. — Mercury's Clay Middleton has joined the Biden transition team as a legislative adviser focusing on the House. Middleton was previously senior vice president for the firm's D.C. and South Carolina offices and is a former aide to House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.). WHO WILL BE IN BIDEN'S TECH TRUST? "Big Tech reformers and Big Tech allies are gearing up for a spirited fight in the coming months over the types of people who will staff the Biden administration," Recode's Teddy Schleifer reports . "Those personnel decisions will offer some of the first revelations into how exactly the president-elect will regulate the tech industry and its titans, a high-stakes question about the American economy that he mostly avoided answering during his campaign." — Schleifer writes that "activists have grown concerned about a report that Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and a vocal defender of technology giants, was 'being talked about' to lead a new tech task force out of the White House. (The report did not say who was doing this talking.) On Monday, a dozen progressive groups wrote to the Biden transition effort to plead that Schmidt not be appointed to this task force. The letter — shared first with Recode — amounted to a warning shot not just about one particular tech billionaire but about the influence of the tech industry on politics more broadly." NEW COALITION TO PUSH FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A group of utilities, electric vehicle makers and mineral producers announced today they have teamed up to push for 100 percent electric vehicle sales within the next decade, POLITICO's Anthony Adragna reports. "The group, dubbed the Zero Emission Transportation Association, will press for policies to help the growing sector, such as point-of-sale consumer incentives to buy electric vehicles, investments in federal infrastructure and strengthened emissions performance standards for vehicles. The new coalition argues that support for electric vehicles will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, with benefits dispersed across every congressional district in sectors as varied as manufacturing, critical mineral production and utilities." — The push has brought together utilities like Pacific Gas and Electric, Duke Energy, Vistra, Southern Company and Con Edison, as well as producers of charging infrastructure like ChargePoint, EVgo and Volta, mineral producers Albemarle, Ioneer and Piedmont Lithium, and Tesla, Lordstown Motors Co. and Uber. Anthony notes "none of the major legacy automakers are involved." Though Republican lawmakers have tended to resist support for the industry, the coalition's executive director Joe Britton "argues that the political sentiment is changing because of the enormous employment potential as well as opportunity to boost domestic manufacturing." BLACK LIVES MATTER TO FLEX ITS POLITICAL MUSCLE: "This is the year Black Lives Matter grew from a grassroots, ad-hoc agitator to a potential political powerhouse. And with Joe Biden as president-elect, its leaders are seeking to expand their influence beyond the streets — and into the corridors of Washington," our Maya King reports. — "The summer of protests against racial injustice and police violence brought millions to the streets under the banner of Black Lives Matter. It also gave the international movement significant corporate and political muscle, which leaders used to launch a nationwide voter mobilization effort, registering and turning out millions of first-time voters. Armed with an infusion of cash, they launched a political action committee in October — a move that signals their readiness to deal in the mainstream political arena." MEANWHILE, IN HAWAII: "The pandemic may have 'canceled' 2020, but it did not derail an annual gathering of lobbyists and lawmakers on the shores of Maui that brought people from across the country to a luxury resort this week," POLITICO'S Katy Murphy reports. — "Roughly 100 people from four states converged at the Fairmont Kea Lani for a four-day legislative conference organized by the Independent Voter Project, said the group's chair and executive director, Dan Howle . The 18th annual event was a third of its regular size, Howle said, but it still drew nearly 20 lawmakers from California, Texas and Washington state. The theme? How to reopen states' economies amid the public health crisis." — "The event comes amid a worrisome surge in infections across the country and new travel restrictions on the West Coast, and as many schools and businesses remain closed," with Gov. Gavin Newsom ordering more widespread closures just Monday. It also comes as Newsom himself was under fire and apologized for attending a 12-person birthday party for a prominent lobbyist earlier this month. | 
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