Environmental protesters gathered Wednesday in front of the White House calling to stop the extension of a crude oil pipeline, from the midwest to the Gulf coast ahead of a State deparment environmental study due to come out today. And with pressure from the Obama administration to resolve the deadlock to either go ahead with the project or not by the end of the year, the Canadian government has stepped up their lobbying efforts.
Earlier Alberta Energy, a government entity, is expanding lobbying in the United States and has hired Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP for a maximum of $150 ...
Continue readingMedicare and the Super Committee: Can doctors afford to lose two percent of their payments?
Medicare and other health care services could see their funds drained in any number of ways as, over the next few months, the congressional Joint Committee on Debt Reduction--better known as the "super committee"--looks for ways to reduce the national debt.
Health care interests are well represented among the big donors to the committee's dozen members. Half those members--including Max Baucus, Fred Upton, Xavier Becerra and Chris Van Hollen--number health care concerns among their top ten career donors. Collectively, health care professionals ranked fourth among those career donors, giving $9.3 million, according to an analysis of ...
Dodd-Frank: How investment banks contributed to the financial crisis
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed in response to the financial crisis of 2008, added new regulations and new regulators for some—but not all—of the institutions whose actions led to the crisis. Over the next several days, we’ll be taking a look at each of the major groups of contributors to the economic crisis, who the major players were, what political influence they brought to bear on Congress and regulators, how Dodd-Frank intends to regulate them, and, using our new Dodd-Frank Meeting Logs tool, what rules these groups are trying to influence as ...
Continue readingWhile the Public is Shut Out, Former Members Lobby on Debt Ceiling with Abandon
Yesterday it was reported that a former Member of Congress, Ernest Istook, was seen on the House floor asking his... View Article
Continue readingPity the Poor Lobbyists
The Hill’s Congress Blog last week featured an item by Howard Marlowe, president of the American League of Lobbyists, in... View Article
Continue readingMurdoch’s influence extends to U.S., global politics
The phone hacking scandal currently plaguing News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch began in London, and because of rumors that his... View Article
Continue readingLobbyists swarm agencies as Dodd-Frank is implemented
Throughout the last Congress, which adopted far-reaching reforms of the financial sector through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, there were an average of 577 clients lobbying on issues related to the act. Eventually some 1,172 clients—including banks, ratings agencies, investment banks, securities firms and a host of other interests with a stake in the legislation—listed Dodd-Frank or related issues on their lobbying disclosure forms. And in 2011, lobbyists for some 488 clients are still lobbying on the bill, according to the most recent data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
The number of ...
Bills designed to alter or repeal Dodd-Frank
When Republicans took over the House after the mid-term elections in 2010, one of the first things on the agenda for some members was to alter or repeal the sweeping financial reform passed by the previous Congress.
In the year that has passed since H.R. 4173, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, was signed into law, there have been at least 12 bills proposed to alter or remove provisions from the law, with two of those bills proposing to repeal the legislation altogether. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., introduced the first of the two bills—H.R ...
Continue readingGoldman Sachs, financial firms flood agencies to influence financial law, new Dodd-Frank tracker shows
Investment bank Goldman Sachs, one of the major players in the crisis that led to the economic meltdown of 2008, has had more meetings with government officials about the implementation of the law intended to reform the financial system than any other company or organization, an analysis of nearly a year’s worth of financial agency meeting logs shows.
The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has made those logs--published by five separate federal agencies--available in one location in and easy-to-search format, updated to include the most current information on contacts between officials and private interests seeking to influence federal regulators.
Agency ...
Continue readingDodd-Frank: Will the bill overturn decades of industry influence?
The financial crisis had several authors--federal policies that opened the door to predatory mortgage lending, unregulated financial products, integrated firms that borrowed heavily from one another to invest in the "sure bet" of mortgage-backed securities, and hedge funds and insurers that sought to profit by mitigating risk through complex financial instruments. In the aftermath of the crisis, Congress passed and President Obama signed on July 21, 2010, the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to set new safeguards for the public, to rein in financial firms, to ensure oversight of new types of financial instruments, and to ...
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