International lobbying is the hidden story to come out of the Arab Spring, which hits a major landmark Saturday, the first anniversary of ex-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation. Lobbying represents a vital puzzle piece in an international structure of power that propped up dictators and oppressed millions of people. The Sunlight Foundation has been tracking these developments using the Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker, a searchable database of international lobbying records gleaned from the Department of Justice that we've just updated.
The project started in partnership with ProPublica, aiming to make this treasure trove of information accessible to the ...
New nuclear plant builder a major Washington player
The company benefiting from today’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision to approve the construction of the first new nuclear plant in the U.S. in over three decades is an influential powerhouse in Washington.
Southern Company, a power company based in Atlanta, has spent $130 million lobbying the federal government since 1998, ranking 17th among all organizations, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Last year, the company spent nearly $13 million on lobbying, including in-house efforts and hiring 14 outside firms.
The company’s political action committee, its employees and their family members also donate generously to federal candidates ...
Continue readingRevolving door from CFTC to lobbying firm
A former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioner has gone through the revolving door to the law and lobbying firm firm Patton Boggs, where he'll work as a senior policy advisor, the firm announced Tuesday.
"Regulatory agencies should be accessible to the businesses and industries they regulate," said Michael Dunn, the former commissioner, in a statement today. "I am excited to join the firm, and I look forward to helping clients navigate complex regulatory processes and agencies."
Appointed to the CFTC by former President George W. Bush, Dunn specialized in agricultural issues at the agency. His new employer is ...
Continue readingRevolving door boosts private equity lobbying
The Private Equity Growth Capital Council has a new president with Democratic credentials who has been through Washington's revolving door.
Steven Judge won the job after serving since last year as interim head of the trade group, which, among other things, lobbies against proposals to increase taxes on carried interest. Those proposals have gained steam in recent weeks because of revelations that carried interest enabled GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney to keep his tax rate lower than that paid by many Americans who made considerably less.
Before coming to the council, Judge worked for 14 years as the lead ...
Continue readingGingrich super PAC super donor Sheldon Adelson has businesses under scrutiny by IRS, Justice
Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, who have reportedly given a combined $10 million to Winning Our Future, the super PAC that supports and is run by former staffers of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, were drawn to him by a shared view of the importance of the U.S. relationship to Israel.
But a review of public records by Sunlight suggests that the couple, who appears to be the former House speaker's most generous political patrons pending the filing of Winning Our Future's first complete financial disclosures later this month with the Federal Election ...
Continue readingGOP lawmakers reopen fight over Keystone XL pipeline
As House Republicans reopen efforts Wednesday to win approval for the Keystone XL energy project, new lobbying records filed over the weekend reveal a lopsided spending battle over the controversial proposed pipeline.
The Keystone pipeline has become an emblematic fight for those who see the pipeline as a North American job creator versus those who see it as an environmental disaster.
Environmentalists have applied political pressure through protest, but their lobbying expenditures on the pipeline have been dwarfed by those of their opponents. Three environmental groups that mention Keystone in their lobbying reports -- National Wildlife Federation, League of Conservation Voters ...
Continue readingRegulators lobbied by industry testify on Volcker rule
Federal regulators have had at least 89 meetings with outside groups, most of them big banking interests, about the controversial "Volcker rule," the provision in the Dodd-Frank financial law that prohibits banks from making bets with their own money. The effort to curb the practice, widely held to be a contributor to the 2008 financial meltdown, was the subject of a hearing in Congress today.
Representatives of the same agencies that met with these outside interests testified that the Volcker rule would be difficult to implement. "One of the more difficult tasks in implementing the statutory prohibitions is distinguishing between ...
Continue readingFutures industry nabs former government regulator as new leader
In the latest example of a former financial regulator finding employment in the industry, the Futures Industry Association (FIA) has announced that its new president will be a former leader at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Walter Lukken was nominated to the commission by former President George W. Bush and chaired the agency's global markets advisory committee while there. From 2007-2008, when the financial crisis was at its height, he served as its acting chairman. Lukken resigned when President Obama took office in 2009.
In his current role as chief executive officer for New York Portfolio Clearing, he ...
Continue readingFood and media companies donated generously to lawmakers opposing food marketing guidelines for kids
Last summer, a bipartisan group of House members from Pennsylvania wrote federal agencies complaining that proposed guidelines restricting the marketing of unhealthy food to children marked “an alarming regulatory overreach.” They emphasized their sugary roots in “the leading confectionary producing state in the nation.”
Indeed, Pennsylvania is home to the 117-year-old Hershey Company, maker of the ubiquitous Hershey’s kiss. But what the lawmakers from the Keystone State didn’t say was that they had other “constituents”—out-of-state campaign cash constituents, many of them Washington-based trade associations.
The massive lobbying push by food and media interests against the controversial guidelines ...
Continue readingSOPA revolvers: Sixteen former Judiciary staffers lobby on online copyright issues
As the House Judiciary Committee readies to consider a controversial bill that supporters say will crack down on websites pirating content, some interest groups may have a leg up on influencing the legislators.
That’s because 16 lobbyists, representing various companies and organizations favoring, opposing or watching the bill, used to work on the House panel. The committee plans to markup the measure tomorrow.
The bill, called the Stop Online Piracy Act, is hotly contested, dividing Hollywood, which wants tougher laws to protect copyrighted material, and Silicon Valley, which contends that SOPA would introduce new, uncertain liabilities for web companies ...
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