BLUE ORIGIN SIGNS 2: Jeff Bezos’ space flight company Blue Origin has added some familiar faces at two new outside lobbying firms as it steadily builds up its lobbying footprint in D.C. The company brought on Actum, the lobbying and consulting firm run by former White House acting OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, back in February, according to newly filed disclosures. — Actum’s Lauren Lipin and Kevin Kelly — both of whom joined the firm earlier this year from Clark Hill, where they already lobbied for Blue Origin — will work on the account. Blue Origin directly retained Juliane Sullivan of J.Sullivan Advocacy, who lobbied for the company as a subcontractor to Dewey Square Group, at the beginning of the year, another disclosure filed this morning shows. — Both of the firms will lobby on appropriations issues for Blue Origin, which successfully completed its first crewed flight in 2021 and is competing for a federal contract to shuttle astronauts to the moon. Blue Origin’s lobbying expenditures have steadily ticked up over the past decade, and the space flight company’s annual spending topped $2 million for the first time last year. Blue Origin also retains Maynor & Stiers, Barnes & Thornburg, K&L Gates and Clark Hill. ANOTHER QUANDARY FOR 1 FIRST STREET: ProPublica’s Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski published an astonishing deep dive this morning on the ties between Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and GOP megadonor and businessperson Harlan Crow, raising more questions about the lack of ethics rules governing members of the highest court in the land. — “For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. … The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.” — “These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said.” — While Crow acknowledged to ProPublica he’d “extended ‘hospitality’ to the Thomases ‘over the years,’” he said that Thomas had neither asked for it nor received different treatment than others in his circle, which over the years has included conservative activists like Leo as well as other prominent business executives. Thomas did not comment for the story. — Democrats on the Hill quickly seized on the report, with Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) contending that the lack of transparency “undermine[s] the trust that our country places in the Supreme Court” and calling for “an enforceable code of conduct for Justices.” Fellow Judiciary Committee member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who has long railed against opaque judicial ethics rules, demanded an investigation into the matter by Chief Justice John Roberts. AFP PRESSES BATTLEGROUND SENATORS ON DOOMED GOP ENERGY BILL: Koch-backed advocacy group Americans for Prosperity is rolling out a six-figure ad campaign to squeeze vulnerable Senate Democrats over House Republicans’ sprawling energy package. The group is running digital and connected TV ads in seven states sure to feature tight Senate races next fall, urging incumbents there to throw their support behind the bill. — The Lower Energy Costs Act, which was the new House GOP majority’s first marquee policy proposal, passed in the House last week with support from four Democrats from swing districts, though it’s all but certain to die in the Senate. — The package included a number of partisan messaging provisions aimed more at jabbing President Joe Biden, who has said he would veto the bill, “but the House GOP also sought for the bill to represent an opening bid on the wonky issue of energy permitting — a rare policy area that both parties believe could lead to a bipartisan deal later on with the Senate,” our Josh Siegel reported last week. — H.R. 1’s likely fate isn’t slowing up AFP, though, which pushed for House passage along with a coalition of other conservative advocacy groups and think tanks. “For over two years President Biden has waged a war on American energy, and families across the country are paying the price,” AFP vice president of government affairs Akash Chougule said in a statement. “We are urging these Senators to make the Lower Energy Costs Act a top legislative priority and deliver it to President Biden’s desk.” — AFP’s ads will run in Arizona, Montana, Nevada, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and ask viewers to urge their senator to “lower energy costs now.” WHOSE PROFITS ARE THEY ANYWAY: “Visitors driving into Montana’s Glacier National Park this summer must buy a vehicle pass on Recreation.gov. The pass is free, but visitors pay a $2 fee to book the reservation. Visitors might assume that, like entrance fees, the reservation charges help pay for improving trails around the park’s Running Eagle Falls or expanding the park’s volunteer program. But a chunk of the money ends up with consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.,” The Wall Street Journal’s Allison Pohle reports. — The firm, which runs the government website on which visitors book campsites and hikes on federal park land “gets paid every time a user makes a reservation on Recreation.gov, per its government contract. … Booz Allen invoiced the government for more than $140 million from October 2018 to November 2022, the most recent date available, according to documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal in a public-records request.” — The five-year arrangement, which is up for renewal this year, “has its critics, including members of a lawsuit against Booz Allen seeking class-action status, and other die-hard national park visitors. They say the government has let a multibillion-dollar company profit by charging for access to public lands — access that used to cost less, or nothing. … Booz Allen says such claims mischaracterize its work and its compensation structure,” while “Recreation.gov officials say the arrangement is an example of efficiency in government.”
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