With Daniel Lippman CLAY WILL LOBBY FOR SOUTH KOREAN BUSINESS GROUP: Former Congressman Lacy Clay , who represented St. Louis in the House for two decades before his primary defeat in 2020, has registered as a foreign agent for the first time, documents filed with the Justice Department show. The Missouri Democrat, who joined the law and lobbying firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman last year, will work on the firm's account for the Corporate Association of the Gaesong Industrial Complex, a coalition of member companies operating at a jointly run factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong. — The complex provided more than 100 South Korean companies with inexpensive labor while allowing North Korea to earn foreign money, in an effort to promote economic cooperation between the two countries. It was shut down in 2016 because of Pyongyang's missile provocations and has remained closed. The coalition of businesses launched a push this summer to reopen the complex in a bid to normalize relations on the peninsula, an effort complicated by U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons program. — At the Aspen Security Forum last year, South Korean lawmaker Song Young-gil made the case for reopening the factory park, saying the complex "has a very essential role in easing tensions between the two Koreas and is a very, very efficient way to change North Korea." He pitched the idea of opening a McDonald's in the park as a means to convey that the U.S. wouldn't invade North Korea, while arguing that the complex's continued closure might push Pyongyang closer to China, Korea joongAng Daily reported. — Pillsbury signed its roughly yearlong, $675,000 contract with the association in July to "provide information to CAGIC and advocate on its behalf to" the U.S. government as a subcontractor to the South Korean consultancy HC & Sons . Clay's addition to the account comes days after his one-year ban on registering as a foreign agent ended, and he joins a fellow former congressman, Greg Laughlin, in lobbying for the association. Good afternoon and welcome to PI. Send lobbying tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko. |
CARDIN DISHES ON SMALL BUSINESS BILL: After months of lobbying for a lifeline for the pandemic-struck restaurant, fitness and live entertainment industries, Senate Small Business Chairman Ben Cardin (D-Md.) on Wednesday described to reporters the outlines of a $40 billion bipartisan Senate bill coming together, per Roll Call's Lindsey McPherson and David Lerman. — Cardin "told reporters that senators are considering an aid package for struggling businesses that could more than double the amount of pandemic aid funneled to restaurants, bars and others in the food service industry." — "'It's pretty urgent to get done,' Cardin told reporters. 'The problem is floor time and how do you get to it, and also making sure we have adequate bipartisan support.'" He "declined to give many details about the discussions," including which legislative vehicle could be used for the package, "but said $40 billion is the ballpark figure lawmakers have discussed for new restaurant aid. He said the new package would include aid to other businesses, including live entertainment venues and gyms. 'We are looking beyond just restaurants,' he said, while declining to offer a price tag for the entire package." — Cardin's ballpark number is far lower than gyms and restaurants have asked lawmakers for — the GYMS Act championed by gyms would create a $30 billion grant fund, while the lawmakers who crafted SBA's Restaurant Revitalization Fund said the agency received requests for $75 billion in grants from the $28.6 billion program. — "As it relates to gyms," CrossFit head of government relations Brett Ewer told PI on Wednesday, "any bit helps. Like, obviously, the more the better, because [members'] gyms are still in need. But any bit helps. We've always said relief and aid is scalable, but, you know, let's do what we can now to save people that are just white knuckling through this." UKRAINE COUNTER-LOBBYING STATE DEPARTMENT ON CRUZ NORD STREAM BILL: Yorktown Solutions' Daniel Vajdich, who represents Ukraine's gas lobby, has been rallying support on the Hill ahead of today's Senate vote to reimpose sanctions on Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline, NatSec Daily reported Wednesday. — In response to a five-page document circulated by the State Department urging senators to block the bill, which was introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Vajdich "sent around a 'non paper' countering the administration's arguments. Vajdich wrote that the document, emailed to nearly every Senate Democratic office and about half of Senate Republican ones, was 'assembled by Ukraine's energy federation and consistent with the positions of the Government of Ukraine, as expressed by President [Volodymyr] Zelensky, Prime Minister [Denys] Shmygal, and Speaker of Parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk.'" — Vajdich's firm recently extended its $960,000-a-year contract with the Ukrainian Federation of Employers of the Oil and Gas Industry, of which state-run Naftogaz is a member. He told NSD that the administration's fact sheet "is light on facts and includes numerous pieces of misleading information, giving Senate Democrats an inaccurate impression about what the administration and German government have and haven't done on Nord Stream 2." A person close to the Zelenskyy administration told NSD that "I can assure you the non paper that Naftogaz has sent reflects the view of the Ukrainian gov." HOW CAIR UNCOVERED ITS MOLES: "It started with a cryptic August 2019 email with no name and the subject line: Info you may want.' It took more than a year for the emailer to reappear with something more specific: There is a mole inside your organization," report The Washington Post's Michelle Boorstein and Hannah Allam. — "For many U.S. Muslim organizations, surveillance by government and other informants became a regular feature of life in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's biggest Muslim civil rights group, said the most invasive scrutiny had waned over the past decade. 'We thought it might just be a crackpot,' Edward Ahmed Mitchell, a CAIR spokesman, said of the emails." — "Instead, the emails ultimately led CAIR executives to recordings and transcripts that documented what CAIR says is the most extensive known spying on a U.S. Muslim organization in recent memory. Two Muslim activists, CAIR says, had been handing over inside information for years to the D.C.-based Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), which extremism trackers consider an anti-Muslim hate group." TECH AND BUSINESS COALITION LAUNCHES PUSH FOR FEDERAL PRIVACY LAW: Some of the tech industry's largest trade groups, in concert with business lobbies like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, unveiled a new push today aimed at ditching a nationwide patchwork of privacy laws that the groups argue have a chilling effect on "every sector of the U.S. economy." — Instead, the groups are pushing for Congress to enact a federal privacy law that would supersede the state regulations. "A growing patchwork of state laws are emerging which threaten innovation and create consumer and business confusion," the groups wrote in a letter to lawmakers today. "We are united for privacy to urge you to pass bipartisan and durable national data protection legislation." — The effort is being spearheaded by TechNet, whose members include Apple, Amazon, AT&T, Box, Cisco, Uber, DoorDash, Google, General Motors, PayPal, Salesforce and more, and the letter was signed by 81 regional chambers of commerce, the Consumer Technology Association, the Market Industry Association, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the Electronic Transactions Association, the Software and Information Industry Association, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the CA Life Sciences Association, NetChoice, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, the American Escrow Association , the Information Technology Industry Council, the National Business Coalition on E-Commerce and Privacy, the American Financial Services Association, the Association of National Advertisers and the Business Roundtable. CORRECTION: Wednesday's Influence misstated the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's immigration proposal. The Chamber is calling for doubling the level of legal immigration to the U.S. PI regrets the error. |
— The Edison Electric Institute named Brian Wolff chief strategy officer in addition to his current role as executive vice president of public policy and external affairs. — Heidi Hertz is joining Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies as a principal in the Richmond office. She was previously deputy secretary of Agriculture in Virginia. — Peter Tabor has joined Holland & Knight as a senior policy adviser in the public policy and regulation group. He previously served as vice president of regulatory and international affairs of the Pet Food Institute. — Katie Harbath has joined the International Republican Institute as director of technology and democracy for IRI's Center for Global Impact. She is the founder of Anchor Change and was previously public policy director in charge of elections at Facebook. — Justine Turner is now vice president of political and advocacy at iHeartMedia, focused on Democrats and progressives. She's a DLCC, Elizabeth Warren presidential campaign and Senate Majority PAC alum. — Weston Loyd is now an account director with Brunswick Group. He is an Edelman and Trump White House alum. — Joe Kasper has been promoted to managing director at Ervin Graves Strategy Group . He was previously a principal at the firm. — Jay Cho is joining VMware as director of federal government relations, leading commercial advocacy efforts around multi-cloud, 5G and cybersecurity. He is returning to lobbying after a stint in Verizon's corporate strategy department. — Ellen Lord, DoD's former undersecretary for acquisition who is a director at Voyager Space and senior adviser at the Chertoff Group, has joined the board of directors of GEOST, which builds sensors for satellites. — Karl Anderson will be president at the Supporters of Agricultural Research Foundation. Anderson previously spent 10 years as director of government relations for the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America. — Keara Tenzel will be director of advocacy at the Center for Technology and Civic Life. She was most recently program director at Impactual. — Kathy Grannis Allen has joined Amazon's D.C. office to work across the devices PR team. She most recently was director of media relations at SalientMG , and is an NRF alum. — Garrett Hawkins is now a director at Marathon Strategies. He most recently was media relations manager at Investment Company Institute, and is a Tom Graves alum. … — Shauna Hamilton is joining Squared Communications as a senior director in Boston. She is principal owner at Dig Deep Investigative Group. — Michael Onghai has joined the American Blockchain PAC's board of advisers. He is the former CEO of Looksmart and a seed investor in Coinbase, among others. |
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