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INVARIANT ADDS AN INFRASTRUCTURE, APPROPS VET: Invariant is boosting its transportation and infrastructure offering with the addition of Senate Democratic leadership veteran Joe Bushong. Bushong is joining the firm after serving for the past seven years as a senior policy adviser to Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), where he handled the Democratic whip’s infrastructure portfolio. — Before that, Bushong spent about half a decade working for Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations panel that oversees spending on transportation and housing. “I've been able to shape every infrastructure and appropriations piece of legislation that we've enacted” over the past few years, Bushong told PI. — “Being there in the room when we negotiated a lot of these provisions in these super complicated bills … I sort of know the insights of a lot of these issues” as well as the main players both on and off the Hill, he added. “We enacted these bills, but there's just a ton to do on the implementation side.” — Bushong said he expects to work from the outside to guide the government translate “legislation into reality” in addition to helping clients navigate the flood of new federal funding and new programs and shape the upcoming FAA reauthorization and appropriations bills. CONGRESS ZEROING IN ON SHEIN: Executives for fast fashion behemoth Shein have received a flurry of missives from Congress this week, putting pressure on the company to reveal more about its business practices and supply chain ahead of a potential IPO by the booming e-commerce brand. — The latest Hill demands came Tuesday from the heads of the House China Select Committee, who asked Shein CEO Chris Xu to turn over documents relating to the company's process for verifying that no materials sourced by the company originated in China’s Xinjiang region and that its manufacturing supply chain is free of forced labor or other human rights violations. — Chair Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) also questioned Xu about Shein’s exploitation of a trade loophole that critics say allows Shein to flood U.S. and European markets with cheap goods while avoiding both billions of dollars in tariff costs and stepped-up scrutiny of its products’ potential ties to forced labor. — The letter is one of four sent to the heads of retailers to ask about companies’ compliance with a U.S. law meant to crack down on the widespread use of forced labor by Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region. Adidas, Nike and the Chinese retailer Temu also received letters from the select committee. — A day earlier, two dozen House lawmakers wrote to SEC Chair Gary Gensler to demand the agency require an independent audit of Shein’s supply chain as a condition of allowing the Chinese-founded company to be listed on a U.S. stock exchange, pointing to reporting that cotton used by the company had been traced back to the Xinjiang region. Shein, which is now based in Singapore, has denied those allegations. — The pressure from Congress comes amid a lobbying campaign by the Shut Down Shein coalition, which launched earlier this year and aims to tie the brand to another politically toxic — but popular — Chinese-linked company, TikTok. The coalition, which isn’t disclosing its funders, launched its first digital ad buy last week, while Shein last fall hired a crew of high-powered lobbyists at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld as well as former Rep. Benjamin Quayle to plead its case in Washington. STATE LEGISLATORS FACE LOBBYING DELUGE FROM TECH GROUPS: With federal legislation addressing kids’ online safety floundering in Washington, trade groups funded by tech giants have flooded state capitals to water down proposals advancing there, even as the tech companies themselves remain publicly out of the fray, The Washington Post’s Cristiano Lima and Cat Zakrzewski report. — “Tech groups including NetChoice, CCIA and the Chamber of Progress have fired off letters warning about the potentially catastrophic impact of the bills on user privacy and free speech online, deployed lobbyists to meet with key state officials and sent their leaders to testify in opposition to the efforts in Maryland, Minnesota and Nevada, among other states — part of a widespread campaign to neutralize the budding regulatory push.” — “Supporters of the proposed legislation, which they say is necessary to prevent children from being exposed to addictive social media features and other harmful designs, say the tech groups’ lobbying has at times relied on misleading or deceptive tactics aimed at stoking confusion about what the proposals do.” — “The uptick in activity is a harbinger of how states have become a new lobbying battleground for Silicon Valley, after lawmakers in Washington have passed no new comprehensive laws regulating the tech industry despite years of debate.” — But while lawmakers in D.C. “have become more aware of tech giants’ lobbying strategies and more skeptical of groups that receive funding from Meta, Amazon and other companies, said Katie Paul, the director of the Tech Transparency Project, … state lawmakers are an ‘easy target’ because they do not have as much experience or depth of knowledge about the industry apparatus, she said.”
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