ANNALS OF ETHICS LOOPHOLES: “In 2007, after one of the biggest scandals in K Street history, Congress cracked down on lobbyists’ ability to wine and dine lawmakers and aides with a host of reforms — including limits on extravagant, all-expenses-paid trips. In the nearly two decades since, the influence industry has blown a hole through those rules,” Adriana Navarro, Caley Fox Shannon, Taylor Nichols and Heidi Przybyla report as part of an investigation from the University of Maryland’s Howard Center for Investigative Journalism in partnership with POLITICO. — The investigation found that “U.S. representatives and their staff have taken at least 17,000 trips since 2012 that were paid for by private parties, many of them nonprofits with deep ties to lobbyists and special interests.” — “Leading the way is the nonprofit Congressional Institute,” which is run by former Republican staffers-turned-lobbyists and funded by millions in annual dues from the likes of the Business Roundtable and the American Hospital Association. “Congressional travel rules generally bar lobbyists from playing a significant role in organizing or participating in trips sponsored by corporate entities. … None of these restrictions, however, applies to nonprofits such as the Congressional Institute.” THE LONG TAIL OF THE IRA: Moyer Strategies is standing up a new program within its climate practice focusing specifically on helping startups in the clean energy and climate space navigate Washington amid the industry’s boom following passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. — The launch is timed to Climate Week NYC, which kicked off yesterday, and comes amid potential threats to the landmark climate law depending on the results of November’s elections. — “New climate and clean tech companies are launching seemingly every week, due to the scope of the climate challenge and the unprecedented federal incentives available to them,” the firm’s founder Chris Moyer said in a statement, lamenting that many of those companies “lack a plan for how to communicate with DC decisionmakers, who hold outsized influence over their success or failure,” or wrongly (as Moyer would argue) don’t see playing the complex and chaotic Washington game as worth prioritizing. — Though bipartisan support for the IRA’s provisions has continued to grow, the upcoming lame duck could be crucial, and “knowing how to communicate with policymakers and administration officials and shape the legislative environment has never been more crucial for a young company’s success or failure,” Moyer said. MORE NEW BUSINESS: A coalition of major companies working to fight off corporate tax hikes has added new lobbying help. The Reforming America’s Taxes Equitably (or RATE) Coalition retained Michelle Dimarob of Surround Sound Strategies as debate kicks off over a slew of tax breaks set to expire next year. Dimarob was previously a top in-house lobbyist for tobacco giant Altria, and before that was a coalitions adviser for former House Ways and Means Chair Dave Camp. — While the corporate rate isn’t one of the many tax breaks on the chopping block next year, corporate America will be facing an increasingly hostile Congress wary of how to pay for any tax package. That’s on top of Vice President Kamala Harris pledging she’ll resume President Joe Biden’s fight to hike the rate to 28 percent, while former President Donald Trump has said he’ll reduce the corporate rate further. — The RATE Coalition, which counts AT&T, CVS Health, FedEx, the National Retail Federation, Verizon and Disney among its members, “has already met with about 50 lawmakers, with a focus on leadership, members of the tax-writing committees and lawmakers who weren’t around for the passage of the 2017 tax law,” which slashed the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, according to The Washington Post. — Last month, the coalition submitted written testimony for a Ways and Means field hearing in Iowa, arguing that hiking the corporate tax rate “would have a devastating impact on working families, consumers, farmers, and American businesses.” WHO’S GOT TRUMP’S EAR ON VAPING: Trump “offered enthusiastic support for vaping on Friday, promising to protect the industry following a private meeting earlier in the day with a leading vaping lobbyist,” the Post’s Isaac Stanley-Becker and Dan Diamond reported over the weekend. — Trump’s post on his social media platform, Truth Social, represented “a revisionist account of his administration’s approach to vaping, the heating of nicotine to make an inhaled aerosol,” but followed a surge of campaign support and outreach by the tobacco industry. — They “also offer a case study in the way he takes policy positions. His fulsome praise for vaping came just after a meeting with the head of the Vapor Technology Association, which describes itself as the leading vaping trade association, representing more than 100 members of the industry.” DEM SUPER PACS SWITCH THINGS UP: Our Jessica Piper reports that “Democratic super PACs are taking an unusual approach in this year’s presidential race” in not focusing on Trump. Instead, “a significant majority of this cycle’s spending by pro-Democratic outside groups — which typically function as attack dogs — is going to ads aiming to drive positive perceptions of” Harris. “It’s a particularly striking shift after a majority of similar groups’ spending in both 2016 and 2020 was focused on driving up Trump’s negatives, a POLITICO analysis of ad spending found.” BOEING’S MONEY WOES: Boeing’s D.C. office has temporarily stopped paying the vast majority of its lobbying firms and is cutting back on its political donations as the company confronts a cash crisis during a major strike, Daniel reports. — The company uses more than a dozen lobbying firms, but has stopped most of the contracts with those firms for the foreseeable future to conserve cash, according to a Boeing spokesperson. The spokesperson declined to comment when asked if the company expects to resume payments to the firms when the strike is over. — Boeing, which hasn’t made a profit in years, will still disburse some donations from its PAC, which is entirely employee-funded. It’s also doing rolling furloughs of many of its corporate and non-striking employees, which will affect employees in the D.C. office as well. Boeing’s CEO and its executive team, which includes top lobbyist Ziad Ojakli, are taking a temporary pay cut as well. — Ojakli’s predecessor took a swipe at the news. “Always smart to take your army off the field during battle,” Tim Keating, now the chief strategy officer of space tech company Sierra Space, quipped in a post on X that has since been deleted. (A spokesperson for Keating later told PI that the X post was “not intended for a public audience and was supposed to be a private message.”)
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment