MORE NEW BUSINESS: Anheuser-Busch Companies has hired Amy Jensen Cunniffe of SplitOak Strategies to lobby on issues relating to the differentiation between beer and cannabis, according to disclosure filings. Although the brewer retains around a half dozen outside lobbying firms, only one, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, has previously lobbied on cannabis issues for the so-called king of beers, apart from the company's in-house lobbyists, disclosure filings show. Anheuser-Busch is not the first alcohol company to lobby on marijuana issues. — Constellation Brands, the company behind alcohol brands like Corona, Modelo, SVEDKA and Robert Mondavi, recently added a new vice president to its government relations team to serve as its lead on cannabis policy issues. Alcohol and tobacco brands have increasingly become players in helping shape marijuana policy, and Constellation owns a nearly 39 percent stake in major Canadian cannabis firm Canopy Growth. — The U.S. subsidiary of Dutch chipmaker ASML reported hiring its second new outside firm this summer — a team of eight lobbyists from Ogilvy Government Relations that includes former top aides to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). Ogilvy will lobby on behalf of the semiconductor giant on "issues related to the global chip shortage impact on the semiconductor industry," trade and bills like the CHIPS Act and a China competition package. — The company also recently disclosed that it had hired PutalaStrategies' Chris Putala, a former aide to President Joe Biden, to lobby on similar issues. And earlier this summer ASML registered a team of in-house lobbyists for its U.S. subsidiary for the first time. — Restaurant Brands International, the parent company of Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes, has picked up a new outside lobbying firm too. RBI hired Tom Quinn, José Fuentes and Neil Ohlhausen of LSN Partners to lobby on corporate tax issues and labor issues, according to disclosure filings. INSURANCE, DENTAL LOBBIES PUSH TO PARE BACK MEDICARE EXPANSION: "Congressional Democrats' push to add dental, vision and hearing coverage to Medicare is running into resistance from powerful health industry lobbies," POLITICO's Alice Miranda Ollstein reports. It's "an early sign of the battles facing lawmakers when they return to debate a $3.5 trillion social spending package." — Progressives' desired reforms "threaten the bottom line of insurers who administer private Medicare plans and sell supplemental coverage for dental, vision and hearing services. Groups like the American Dental Association, worried their members will be paid less in traditional Medicare than in private Medicare plans, are also pushing to limit the new benefits to the poorest Americans." — And so "House and Senate committees now assembling the package are weighing options like a longer phase-in of benefits, skimpier coverage with more cost-sharing or even means-testing that would restrict new benefits to only the poorest beneficiaries." — An insurance industry source tells Alice lawmakers' "deliberations are 'freaking out' companies who worry that seniors will drop their private plans en masse and migrate to traditional Medicare once the new benefits are in place. But the source said the industry is mindful of the optics of publicly opposing coverage of eyeglasses, dental care and hearing aids, and is largely lobbying behind the scenes." On the other side, "AARP is also lobbying for as generous a benefit as possible, warning of a political backlash should it take too many years to kick in or cover too few services." TIME'S UP FOR TINA TCHEN: "Tina Tchen, the president and CEO of Time's Up, told her staff Thursday that she will resign, less than a day after she admitted that her organization's private consultations with then-New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo during his sexual harassment scandal were more extensive than previously known," Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey report in The Washington Post. — "A former Chicago corporate lawyer who became first lady Michelle Obama 's chief of staff, Tchen has led the advocacy group focused on fighting workplace sexual misconduct since 2019. She co-founded the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund with the attorney Roberta Kaplan, who resigned this month after New York Attorney General Letitia James uncovered some of her consultations with Cuomo advisers about the governor's response to his first sexual harassment accuser, Lindsey Boylan . Tchen also co-founded with Kaplan a private consulting company, HABIT Advisors, which focused on advising companies about how to handle sexual harassment. The website for that firm was taken offline in recent weeks." — Tchen's resignation came a day after the Post reported that "Kaplan spoke with [top Cuomo aide Melissa] DeRosa about Cuomo's first response to Boylan's allegations, and relayed those conversations to Tchen. Tchen also launched a separate effort at the time to get Cuomo to launch a review of his workplace culture. She also decided against releasing a planned statement supporting Boylan after objections from the organization." ANOTHER DOMINO FALLS: "The National Women's Law Center announced on Friday that the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund would end its contract with public relations firm SKDK — a move that puts more distance between the Legal Defense Fund and Time's Up," The New York Times' Jodi Kantor, Arya Sundaram and Melena Ryzik report. "SKDK currently manages the defense fund's program that matches harassment and assault survivors with public relations professionals. The law center will soon take over that responsibility. In a statement, the law center said it made the decision 'to ensure that the independence of our work is clear to the survivors we serve.' The decision follows revelations about the Time's Up board member and SKDK managing director Hilary Rosen's involvement in the group's response to the first Cuomo allegations." | 
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