News : More formula providers lobby up

Monday, August 15, 2022

More formula providers lobby up

Aug 15, 2022

With help from Megan R. Wilson and Daniel Lippman

WHO'S LOBBYING ON THE FORMULA SHORTAGE NOW: The infant formula shortage that sparked fury in Washington earlier this year fueled a mini lobbying boom on K Street, according to an analysis of disclosures on the issue. Most recently, Perrigo Company — one of the last major manufacturers of infant formula that didn't retain any federal lobbyists — has sought to rectify that, a newly filed disclosure shows.

— The company, which makes generic health and nutrition products, last month retained Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer to lobby on "federal policy matters related to various healthcare issues, including the manufacturing of infant formula," per the disclosure, which lists more than a dozen lobbyists at the firm expected to work on the account.

— Nestlé USA, whose brands include Gerber, also brought on a new outside firm to lobby on formula issues last month, according to a disclosure filed at the end of last week. Rampy Northrup's Stephen Northrup, the former health policy director on the Senate HELP Committee, and Stacey Rampy, the former legislative director to Rep. Anna Eshoo, are the first new outside lobbying hires for Nestlé USA since 2016.

— Perrigo and Nestlé are the latest industry players who have ramped up lobbying on the crisis, as the Biden administration moved to intervene using executive authority and lawmakers quickly passed legislation to ease various hurdles for importing formula. As PI reported in May, the industry had previously spent relatively little lobbying the federal government.

— That's already begun to change. Another major formula provider, Enfamil maker Mead Johnson , registered its first in-house lobbyist month while industry trade group Infant Nutrition Council of America brought on former Sen. Blanche Lincoln and her firm Lincoln Policy Group to lobby on the shortage.

— Even outside of the major formula manufacturers, lobbying on issues related to the shortage soared this year, disclosures show. From April through June, two dozen entities reported lobbying on various issues related to "infant formula." That's up from two entities in the first three months of the year. No entities reported lobbying on issues related to "baby formula" or the formula shortage in Q1, though the shortage was already underway by the beginning of the year before a major Abbott Nutrition plant was shut down in February that only compounded supply chain failures.

— Those who lobbied around the crisis this year include trade groups like the American Academy Of Pediatrics, National Milk Producers Federation, National WIC Association, International Dairy Foods Association and National Grocers Association. Retailers such as Amazon, Target, Walmart and grocery delivery app Instacart also reported lobbying on the shortage, along with Kraft Heinz and Danone North America.

— The shortage also drew to K Street a number of startups looking to break into the infant nutrition space, such as formula maker ByHeart, lab-grown milk producer Biomilq and human milk science company Prolacta Bioscience ; breastfeeding and donor milk resource groups, ideological groups such as Heritage Action for America, Students for Life Action, MomsRising and Concerned Women For America Legislative Action Committee.

Good afternoon and welcome to PI. It may be recess, but we're still around — let us know what's going on out there: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.

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MORE NEW BUSINESS: Tobacco giant Altria has hired HHQ Ventures to work on tobacco regulations — with Kevin Yoder , the Republican congressman-turned-lobbyist working on the company's behalf. Disclosure forms are vague, only saying that he'll be working on the implementation of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, an Obama-era law that gave FDA the authority to regulate the manufacturing, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products.

— Altria has a large stake in e-cigarette company Juul . In June, the FDA ordered Juul to pull its products from the market, but the decision has been temporarily suspended, pending additional regulatory review.

NEXT ON CONGRESS' PLATE: With Democrats' reconciliation bill out of the way, K Street is already puzzling out how the next few months could look, with several big deadlines coming up and lawmakers looking to knock more off the legislative to-do list before the midterms and lame-duck session.

— Perhaps "the biggest remaining wildcard" this year is the fate of bipartisan bills to clamp down on tech companies, the comms firm Kekst CNC wrote in a memo to clients today. While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has publicly maintained action on at least one of the stalled antitrust bills is imminent, it remains to be seen if the votes are there, per Kekst' Brian Bartlett and Jeremy Fielding. "A vote on the more narrowly drafted Open App Markets Act could be a Plan B path, while the American Data Privacy and Protection Act still appears to face an uphill battle," they wrote.

— The firm views separate action to cap the cost of insulin as unlikely, and sees a stopgap spending bill and potentially the NDAA moving in September, while a deal to raise or suspend the debt ceiling could come together in the lame duck. A Senate vote to codify same-sex marriage protections could also happen in September unless it appears there's a deal to be made that drags negotiations out until the lame duck, while Kekst predicts if there's any vote on reforms to the Electoral Count Act it'll take place during the lame duck.

SINEMA'S PRIVATE EQUITY TIES: "Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party's longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors, received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan," The Associated Press' Brian Slodysko reports.

— "Sinema has long aligned herself with the interests of private equity, hedge funds and venture capital, helping her net at least $1.5 million in campaign contributions since she was elected to the House a decade ago. But the $983,000 she has collected since last summer more than doubled what the industry donated to her during all of her preceding years in Congress combined, according to an Associated Press review of campaign finance disclosures."

— The donations make Sinema one of the industry's top beneficiaries on the Hill and "trace back to last summer. That's when she first made clear that she wouldn't support a carried interest tax increase, as well as other corporate and business tax hikes included in an earlier iteration of Biden's agenda."

— "During a two-week period in September alone, Sinema collected $47,100 in contributions from 16 high-ranking officials from the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe , records show. Employees and executives of KKR, another private equity behemoth, contributed $44,100 to Sinema during a two-month span in late 2021."

SENATE MAJORITY PAC DINGED FOR MOORE ADS: "A federal jury awarded Republican Roy Moore $8.2 million in damages Friday after finding a Democratic-aligned super PAC defamed him in a TV ad recounting sexual misconduct accusations during his failed 2017 U.S. Senate bid in Alabama," the AP's Kim Chandler reports.

— Jurors found that the Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC "made false and defamatory statements against Moore in one ad that attempted to highlight the accusations against Moore. The verdict, returned by a jury after a brief trial in Anniston, Alabama, was a victory for Moore, who has lost other defamation lawsuits, including one against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen."

— The lawsuit focused on one TV spot that was part of a $4 million ad blitz by the Senate Majority PAC-financed group Highway 31 that "recounted accusations against Moore. Moore's attorneys argued the ad, through the juxtaposition of statements, falsely claimed he solicited sex from young girls at a shopping mall, including another 14-year-old who was working as a Santa's helper, and that resulted in him being banned from the mall." An attorney for Senate Majority PAC told AP that the group believes the ruling will be overturned on appeal.

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Jobs Report

— Former Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch has joined Latham & Watkins as of counsel. He most recently was leader-in-residence at Columbia Law and Business schools' Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership, and before that spent six years with Facebook.

— Amy Runyon-Harms is joining Inseparable as senior vice president of operations and strategy. She previously was executive director at ProgressNow Colorado and is a Planned Parenthood alum.

— Benjamin Anderson has been named the director of maternal and child health initiatives at Families USA. Before that, he worked as the director of economic mobility and health policy for the Children's Defense Fund in New York.

— Vanessa Santos is launching a new firm called Red Renegade Public Relations. She previously served as director of media relations at Javelin for nearly 10 years.

— Siran Faulders has joined Cozen O'Connor's state attorneys general group. She most recently was at Troutman Pepper.

— Jonathan Bond has rejoined Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher as a partner. He previously served as an assistant to the solicitor general in the Office of the Solicitor General.

New Joint Fundraisers

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Victory Fund (Marie for Congress, Washington State Democratic Central Committee)
NRCC Nevada Victory (Robertson for Congress, Committee to Elect Sam Peters, Becker for Congress, Nevada Republican Central Committee, NRCC)
OH-13 Future Fund (Madison for Congress, MGG PAC, Ohio Republican Party State Central & Executive Committee, NRCC)
Van Hollen Ryan Victory Fund (Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Rep. Tim Ryan)

New PACs

Adopt a Democrat (Hybrid PAC)
Fight for Our Rights PAC (Hybrid PAC)
THE LINCOLN AFFECT (Super PAC)

New Lobbying Registrations

Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP: Perrigo Company Plc
Ballard Partners, LLC: Simon Wiesenthal Center, Inc.
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP: American Unity Fund (Pandemic Prevention)
Cornerstone Government Affairs, Inc.: William Rainey Harper College
Covington & Burling LLP: Aerolineas Ejecutivas S.A. De C.V.
Downs Government Affairs: Olmsted County, Mn
Eventbrite, Inc.: Eventbrite, Inc.
Fs Vector LLC: Dbrs, Inc.
Hobart Hallaway & Quayle Ventures, LLC: Altria Client Services LLC
K&L Gates, LLP: Clark Street Assoc. On Behalf Of Proton Energy Systems, Inc. D/B/A Nel Hydrogen
Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, Inc.: Diageo Americas, Inc.
Project Canary: Project Canary
Rampy Northrup LLC: Nestle USa, Inc.
Water Strategies, LLC: Hobas Pipe, USa, Inc.