ANNALS OF DARK MONEY: “An Ohio jury is about to decide whether politicians enlisted by an energy company to seek a $1.3 billion state bailout of its two failing nuclear plants pushed the bounds of campaign spending too far,” The Wall Street Journal’s Julie Bykowicz writes. — “Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. secretly spent more than $60 million beginning in 2018 to help then-Republican state Rep. Larry Householder win the Ohio House speakership and secure the bailout. Federal prosecutors called the arrangement an illegal pay-to-play bribery scheme.” — “Much of the company’s donations flowed through an organization called Generation Now and other nonprofit groups organized under 501(c)(4) of the tax code that aren’t required to disclose their donors.” Attorneys for Householder and a co-defendant “say the donations were ordinary political spending, permitted under court rulings that have allowed companies and other donors to spend heavily on politics.” — But “prosecutors and ethics advocates say the Ohio case illustrates the perils of undisclosed spending through nonprofits,” who are among those that have benefitted from a series of Supreme Court rulings surrounding paid political speech. “Without the federal investigation — which included wiretaps, office raids, document seizures and cooperating witnesses — Ohioans would never have known the role FirstEnergy played in obtaining its own bailout,” critics say. API ADDS 3 LOBBYISTS: The American Petroleum Institute has added three new staffers to its lobbying team. Chris Boness and Emily Wong are joining the government affairs shop as directors of federal relations, and Jordan Christman has joined as a federal relations manager from another part of the oil and gas trade group. — Boness previously focused on critical infrastructure cybersecurity for API’s policy team and is a Senate Homeland Security alum and Wong was most recently director of legislative affairs at the American Public Gas Association. Christman was also previously on API’s policy team and will focus on tax issues on the lobbying team. API has promoted Jack Cramton to senior director of federal affairs as well. HOT JOB: The Justice Department is looking to add one or more “experienced” trial attorneys to its FARA Unit, according to a job posting Monday flagged by former FARA chief Brandon Van Grack. The posting puts an emphasis on experience with civil litigation — the latest signal that the tiny unit’s FARA clampdown isn’t being derailed by last year’s dismissal of the first civil FARA lawsuit brought by DOJ in decades. According to Van Grack, who is now a partner at Morrison Foerster, this is the “first ever posting for multiple” FARA attorneys. THANK U, NEXT-GEN: Early in the pandemic, some of the smaller biotech companies working to create the next wave of Covid-19 vaccines hired K Street lobbyists to try and get federal government cash. Now, most of them have abandoned their Washington footprint, Megan R. Wilson reports. — Next-generation vaccines refer broadly to pan-coronavirus vaccines that address a variety of the virus instead of specific variants, those that offer innovative ways to deliver a vaccine — such as a nasal spray, pill or patch — or the development of different platforms on which vaccines for different kinds of viruses can be built. — At least nine companies and one research organization working on the next wave of Covid-19 vaccines with little or no K Street representation before the pandemic hired lobbying firms to help them get in front of regulators and lawmakers to secure funding. Now, roughly half of them no longer employ lobbyists. — Lobbyists, researchers and others in the biotech industry described dysfunction among the agencies that fund these types of projects and how — ultimately — leaning on lobbying firms wasn’t the boon they hoped it would be. That’s because dysfunction at the agencies and partisan disagreements on Capitol Hill meant that getting money for development was difficult. — There is a sense that companies or researchers working on platforms and components — technologies on which vaccines for different viruses can be built — rather than individual products likely have a greater success in advocating for money, however. As such, there are still companies jumping into the lobbying fray — including companies like Vaxxas and Ocugen — but some still fear that politics and “pandemic fatigue” could prevent significant investments. HOPE YOU FLOSSED: The American Dental Association is hosting its annual Hill fly-in this week with the American Student Dental Association. Hundreds of dentists and dental students hailing from every state and D.C. were set to participate in more than 300 visits on the Hill focused on Medicaid dental benefits, student debt and insurance reforms, according to ADA. SOHN WITHDRAWS FROM CONSIDERATION FOR FCC POST: “President Biden’s pick to serve as a telecommunications regulator is withdrawing her nomination to the Federal Communications Commission, following a bitter 16-month lobbying battle that blocked her appointment and opened her up to relentless personal attacks,” The Washington Post’s Cat Zakrzewski reports. — “Gigi Sohn, a longtime public interest advocate and former Democratic FCC official who was first nominated by the White House in October 2021, said her decision to withdraw follows ‘unrelenting, dishonest and cruel attacks’ seeded by cable and media industry lobbyists” and came after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced that he would vote against her nomination. — “The opposition to Sohn catapulted the relatively low-profile position to the center of an unprecedented fight, which involved three Senate confirmation hearings, a series of ads and a billboard criticizing Sohn as ‘extreme’ and ‘partisan’ amid dissection of her social media posts.” The withdrawal also “leaves the Biden administration’s ambitious internet agenda mired in limbo, continuing more than two years of a deadlock at the FCC.” RULES OF ENGAGEMENT: “IBM and Pirelli Tire North America are among a handful of companies that are joining together to adopt a new set of corporate responsibility principles aimed at helping businesses navigate a turbulent political and lobbying environment,” Roll Call’s Kate Ackley reports. — “As part of signing on to the principles, developed with the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute, companies choose from a range of policies for political spending, from voluntary disclosures to a prohibition on using corporate funds for such expenditures, organizers said.” — “The moves come as corporations are under pressure from competing interests, including shareholders and customers who are prodding for more environmental, social and governance initiatives. On the other side, congressional Republicans — and even some Democrats — have sought to clamp down on ESG efforts.” — “‘You can see over the last few years, companies are facing a lot more pressure about their political influence,’ said Elizabeth Doty, director of the Erb Institute’s Corporate Political Responsibility Taskforce, which developed the principles,” which she “said grew out of informal conversations that began among executives and lobbyists who sought nonpartisan common ground to consider these matters.” — “‘The interplay between government institutions and businesses engaging in both policy and politics is rightfully being scrutinized in ways not seen for generations,’ said Christopher Padilla, IBM vice president of government and regulatory affairs, in a statement. He added that as companies try ‘to navigate this moment,’ the principles offer ‘an actionable framework to follow and so that, collectively, we can strengthen society’s trust in the ways that businesses impact policymaking.’”
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