Chemical industry among big spenders on lobbying this quarter
America’s most powerful special interests are collectively regaining their appetite for old-school government lobbying.
About half of the nation’s top 100 lobbying entities reported spending as much or more on lobbying during this year’s first quarter than they did the year before, according to a Center for Public Integrity of analysis of new congressional disclosure reports and Center for Responsive Politics data.
These new numbers reverse — at least temporarily — top lobbying forces’ shrinking investments in the kinds of conventional government influence efforts that they must by law report publicly. Some have increasingly funneled resources into influence activities just outside the scope of public disclosure.
Big-name trade associations, advocacy groups and corporations representing a range of industries, including chemicals, medicine, social media, shipping and beverages, led the way in early 2014, federal lobbying filings show. The increase was likely thanks, in part, to modest signs of congressional movement on legislation key to their interests after what’s been a year marked by gridlock.
Dow Chemical, for example, spent more than $5 million on lobbying this past quarter, or about $2 million more than during the year before.
In a statement, the company attributed the hefty spending to “increased collaboration in public policy, specifically in energy, trade and agriculture” as well as payment of annual dues to trade associations that represent its interests. The company also noted it spent more on lobbying thanks to its “successful 2013 earnings results.”
The American Chemistry Council’s lobbying spending jumped from $1.9 million during the first quarter of 2013 to nearly $3 million during the first quarter of 2014. Such action is was prompted in large part, spokeswoman Anne Kolton said, by the trade group’s push to pass legislation reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act, which regulates the production, use and disposal of industrial chemicals.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
