HOW CONGRESS’ PSYCHEDELICS COALITION CAME TOGETHER: “The first time Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced legislation on psychedelic drugs, her proposal came with an unwanted side effect: It gave her colleagues a case of the giggles,” The Washington Post’s Ben Terris writes. — Her amendment, which the then-freshman says was mocked to her face by a senior Democrat, failed spectacularly. Now, Terris reports, “the idea isn’t seen as quite so funny.” Cut to last year, when amendments on studying the drugs from Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) finally made it out of the House. — The progress reflects growing momentum on the Hill but “it has so far proved difficult to pass any bills related to psychedelics. This is not — according to both Crenshaw’s and Ocasio-Cortez’s offices — because of some organized anti-psychedelics lobbying or big money lining up in opposition. The psychedelics coalition is up against an even more common impediment to change: Washington’s fear of something new.” — “Supporters of psychedelic drug legislation are banking on the fact that these drugs have proved to have a specific mind-bending quality to them, namely that they offer something for all sorts of constituencies,” as PI has noted. “The coalition working on chipping away at the issue in Congress includes not just improbable allies such as Ocasio-Cortez and Crenshaw but also an eclectic group of activists and lobbyists, veterans and survivors of assault, tech bros and spiritualists, who travel to the Hill in hopes of opening minds.” KOREAN MAJORS SET UP SHOP: Top South Korean companies, caught flat-footed in recent years by new U.S. laws aimed at domesticating production of everything from semiconductors to electric vehicles, are putting down roots in Washington and recruiting well-connected influencers to make inroads in D.C.’s corridors of power, Jasmine Choi reports for BusinessKorea. — “Last year, there was speculation about the aftereffects of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) when a high-ranking executive who had overseen overseas public affairs for a global manufacturer in Korea was replaced. The reason was said to be the insufficient information collected and delayed responses until the IRA was passed in the U.S. Congress in August of the previous year.” — Bills like the IRA, as well as last year’s CHIPS and Science Act, have “prompted Korean conglomerates to bolster their Washington information lines. Issues like the U.S.-China conflict, the war in Ukraine, and carbon regulations have become significant variables affecting Korean exports, increasing demand” for intel on Washington’s goings-on. — SK Group and SK Hynix are among those with an expanded D.C. presence, while LG Group opened its first office in Washington last year and brought on former White House deputy chief of staff Joseph Hagin to help head it up. Samsung, meanwhile, tapped former Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert to lead public affairs in North America last year, and Hyundai hired White House and Pentagon alum Robert Hood to lead its Washington office back in 2020. — Lobbying expenditures from top South Korean companies are soaring as a result of the increased focus on Washington, “with last year’s U.S. lobbying amount of the top four groups reaching an all-time high,” BusinessKorea reports. PI METRO SECTION: “The pizza is described by one restaurant critic as dull, the lobster pasta as overcooked. The décor, bland. Street parking? Not so easy. But here, like at Cheers, everybody knows your name—if your name is worth knowing,” The Wall Street Journal’s Annie Linskey writes in a deep dive on the politically transcendent Cafe Milano, “Washington’s most sought-after restaurant.” — President Joe Biden dined with his granddaughter at the Georgetown haunt last month, and where else can you find political opposites like Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway and Democratic power broker Heather Podesta or Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and union boss Randi Weingarten willing to go on the record to confirm interactions with one another — if not the contents of their conversations? — “The bipartisan appeal stands out at a time when most Americans believe the country is hopelessly polarized. At Cafe Milano, the two sides of the country’s ideological chasm find themselves side-by-side. Hugs and air kisses, sincere or not, supplant mean tweets.” And while the food itself is hardly beloved by critics, owner Franco Nuschese “doesn’t mind much about” that — “the restaurant’s private rooms are booked until October.” IF YOU MISSED IT WEDNESDAY: “More than 1,500 lobbyists in the US are working on behalf of fossil fuel companies while at the same time representing hundreds of liberal-run cities, universities, technology companies and environmental groups that say they are tackling the climate crisis,” The Guardian’s Oliver Milman reports. — “Lobbyists for oil, gas and coal interests are also employed by a vast sweep of institutions, ranging from the city governments of Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia; tech giants such as Apple and Google; more than 150 universities; some of the country’s leading environmental groups — and even ski resorts seeing their snow melted by global heating.” — “The breadth of fossil fuel lobbyists’ work for other clients is captured in a new database of their lobbying interests which was published online on Wednesday” by a new group called F Minus that seeks to reveal state-level lobbyists it accuses of “playing both sides of the climate crisis.” The database was put together by former Common Cause lobbyist James Browning. — Some of the seemingly glaring conflicts include “Baltimore, which is suing big oil firms for their role in causing climate-related damages” and “has shared a lobbyist with ExxonMobil, one of the named defendants in the case. Syracuse University, a pioneer in the fossil fuel divestment movement, has a lobbyist with 14 separate oil and gas clients.” — Several of the entities whose hired guns work on the opposite sides of them on environmental issues, from the Environmental Defense Fund to Microsoft, defended those hires and their commitment to addressing the climate crisis. “In some cases it can actually help us find productive alignment in unexpected places,” an EDF spokesperson said. CORRECTION: Wednesday's edition of Influence misidentified which Biden administration officials have worked for Microsoft. PI regrets the error.
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