With Daniel Lippman BALLARD FORMS A CANNABIS PRACTICE: Ballard Partners is standing up a new national cannabis practice group, becoming the industry's latest powerful ally just as the prospects for federal action on marijuana have never appeared brighter — though advocates are still facing many a headwind. Courtney Coppola, a former aide to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who ran the state's medical marijuana program, and Eugene O'Flaherty, a former Massachusetts legislator and Boston official who helped write the city's legalization regulations, will co-chair the new practice. — Ballard partners Dan McFaul, Wansley Walters, Stephanie Grutman, Justin Sayfie, Brady Benford and Adam Goodman will also join the new practice group to help clients navigate what Coppola described as "conflicting and evolving policies at the federal state and local level." — Ballard already represents several major cannabis clients including Trulieve, the nation's largest cannabis retailer, Ayr Wellness, and DBL Ventures. "Under Courtney and Gene's leadership, our Cannabis Practice Group will provide invaluable counsel and assistance to clients throughout the country," founding partner Brian Ballard said in a statement. JOSÉ ANDRÉS' NONPROFIT ADDS A LOBBYIST: World Central Kitchen, the nonprofit founded by restauranteur José Andrés to provide meals following natural disasters, has hired Monument Advocacy to represent the organization in Washington, the group's first lobbyist. — T.A. Hawks , a former Senate Agriculture Committee staff director and head of the firm's food and ag practice, will be lobbying on the upcoming farm bill, "but also looking at issues around disaster response and access to food in those situations," Hawks told PI. "We're excited to be working with WCK, who does so much good around the globe for victims of natural disasters." Good afternoon and welcome to PI. Apologies to those of you whose Influence send yesterday appeared as a jumble of code, which was the result of some lingering glitches from an upgrade of POLITICO's internal content management system that will ultimately result in a better product for you all. Send lobbying tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.
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COALITION WARNS CR COULD DELAY FUNDS FOR INFRASTRUCTURE BILL: A coalition of more than 60 trade groups who pushed fervently for Congress to pass last fall's bipartisan infrastructure bill wrote to congressional leaders on Monday to warn that progress in getting money for the bill out the door could be hampered if appropriators can't come to an agreement on a full-year funding bill soon and instead have to pass another stopgap measure. — "Without a full-year appropriations bill, we anticipate that states, local governments, and public transit agencies will not be able to access the IIJA's roughly 20 percent funding increase for highway formula programs and more than 30 percent increase for public transit formula programs, along with any new transportation initiatives that Congress provided for in the IIJA," the groups wrote to leadership in both chambers as well as to the House and Senate Appropriations committees and their THUD subcommittees, referring to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. — "Instead, under the current CR that extends three months past the signing of the IIJA, the obligation limitation that dictates spending levels for many federal transportation programs remains well below what is included in the infrastructure legislation," they noted, adding that "a delay of almost six months since the beginning of FY 2022 in providing the much-touted funding increases from the IIJA is wholly unacceptable." — The letter asks that if appropriators aren't able to hash out an omnibus spending package by Feb. 18, when the current continuing resolution lapses, lawmakers include "an anomaly to provide full obligation limitation levels in any future CR in order to fully honor the IIJA's funding levels for all transportation-related programs." — The letter was signed by the U.S. Chamber of Congress, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the American Council of Engineering Companies, the National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association, the American Trucking Associations, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, the Steel Manufacturers Association, the National Association of Counties , the National Association of County Engineers, the Laborers' International Union of North America and more. HOW A NEW NEWS OUTLET IS LINKED TO UAE'S LOBBYING FIRM: "The launch of the website Grid earlier this month represented the latest bet that the market for explainer journalism still exists in the digital space. But unlike others in the field, Grid has a unique origin story, one that involves early ties to a global consulting firm best known for its crisis communications management and lobbying work on behalf of foreign governments, most notably the United Arab Emirates," POLITICO's Max Tani and Daniel Lippman report. — "Months before Grid brought on board any writers or staff, the new digital media organization hired APCO Worldwide," the D.C.-based marketing and consulting firm that is a registered lobbyist to help with its launch. The global marketing and consulting firm, which is headquartered in D.C. "but is a registered lobbyist for various clients based in the UAE, confirmed to POLITICO that it 'provided consulting services for Grid during the first half of 2021.'" — "A spokesperson said it has no continuing role with the digital news organization, which launched earlier this month. And Laura McGann, Grid's top editor, said in a statement that APCO did not win a competitive bidding process for a PR contract for the site. The contract, instead, has gone to DKC News, which does public relations work for Grid. But Grid maintains links to APCO, which represents a number of major UAE clients, including the company's state-owned oil company." VENN PROMOTES 4: Venn Strategies has promoted three lobbyists in the firm's critical infrastructure practice, as well as a former intern for now-Vice President Kamala Harris. Ben Steinberg will be executive vice president and co-chair of the Critical Infrastructure Practice, and Doug MacGillivray has been promoted to vice president within that practice. Emma Bishop has been promoted to assistant vice president, where she is a member of the firm's critical infrastructure practice, and Macrae Sharp, who interned in Harris' Senate office, has been promoted to associate and will register to lobby for the first time. KNOWING KEN GROSS: Roll Call's Kate Ackley has a profile out today of Ken Gross, the Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom political law guru who retired this month after more than three decades advising clients on campaign finance, ethics and lobbying laws. — After counseling clients "on major shifts in campaign finance, election and lobbying laws, including the end to corporate soft-money donations to party committees with the McCain-Feingold law in 2002, and a new law five years later to respond to the Jack Abramoff scandals … Clients called on him again in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol," Ackley writes. "Numerous corporations paused their PAC giving, though such donations have largely resumed. Gross said the viability of corporate PACs was tested 'as much as it's ever been tested' after Jan. 6, and a few shut down, such as the PAC of Charles Schwab Corp." — "'But not very many others did, and I was happy about that because it seems to me, it's an overreaction,' Gross said. 'And to take yourself out of the game doesn't really work that way. Political contributions and support of candidates is like a balloon, and if you're going to shut the PAC down, what happens is it emerges in some other fashion.'" IF YOU MISSED IT MONDAY: "The nation's top financial regulators will soon embark on a controversial, first-of-its-kind mission: forcing banks and other industry players to prepare for potential threats to the U.S. financial system from climate change. But they're facing a maze of obstacles, including blowback from Republicans, before they've taken their first steps," POLITICO's Victoria Guida reports. — "All the leading agencies will be headed by progressive regulators who will seek to push the administration's agenda forward even as President Joe Biden has failed to get broader climate-related legislation through Congress. Among other moves, regulators are likely to press banks to prepare for the fallout from a warming planet by stepping up scrutiny of fossil fuel financing." — "They will make the lenders undergo regular tests to measure how their investments could be threatened by flooding, wildfires and other growing risks. And they could rewrite the rules against the discriminatory practice known as redlining to push lenders to put money into disadvantaged communities most vulnerable to climate change." — "Another possible initiative would be to make banks retain more loss-absorbing capital for investments with a larger carbon footprint — an idea that the lenders have already pushed back on. 'Requiring banks to hold more capital when lending to carbon-intensive firms misuses the risk-based capital regulatory framework, ignores the challenges in estimating climate-related financial risks, or overlooks that those risks tend to be relatively small,' the Bank Policy Institute, which represents big lenders, wrote in a blog post last year. It warned that if banks found it too costly to lend to fossil fuel companies, that would 'simply cause lending to migrate to shadow banks' such as hedge funds."
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— Jenna Hopkins has joined the Anti-Defamation League's government relations team as director of technology policy. She was most recently a staffer for House Homeland Security Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), detailed to the House Jan. 6 committee. — FTI Consulting is adding Janet Hale as a senior managing director, Troy Kubes as a managing director, and Deborah Love and David Stickney as directors. Hale most recently was in the Regulatory Compliance and Risk Management practice of Treliant and previously spent 15 years as a consumer compliance and operational risk executive at KeyBank; Kubes was most recently vice president and deputy chief compliance officer at Equifax; and Love and Sitckney previously were at the CFPB. — Tina Sfondeles is now vice president of public and media relations for Mac Strategies Group in Chicago. She most recently was a White House reporter and co-author of West Wing Playbook at POLITICO. — Amy Bender has joined wireless industry trade group CTIA. She was most recently vice president and legislative counsel with the tech trade group NCTA and is an FCC alum. — Devin DeBacker will return to the department as chief of the Foreign Investment Review Section of the National Security Division at DOJ. He was most recently previously deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel. — Dallas Lawrence, previously head of communications at Roku, has joined Samba TV to lead communications. — Jesse O'Connell is joining the Center for American Progress as senior vice president for education policy. O'Connell, who served as strategy director for federal policy at Lumina Foundation , will be responsible for developing the organization's education policy agenda. — Carrie Warick-Smith will be vice president of public policy at the Association of Community College Trustees. She most recently was director of policy and advocacy at the National College Attainment Network. — Duy Pham is now a consultant at Frontline Solutions. He previously was a senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy.
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