Congressional earmarking is in full swing as the 2010 appropriations bills make their way to conference, and ultimately, to President Obama's desk.
There's pork aplenty in the Agriculture-Rural Development-Food and Drug Administration appropriations bill - 481 congressional requests totaling $370.4 million, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. A "Swine and Other Animal Waste Management" project in North Carolina will receive $349,000. (Isn't that a by-product of pork?) Other, more cryptic earmarking includes a "wool research" project in Montana, Texas and Wyoming ($206,000) and $4.8 million for "wood utilization" - requested by 28 members. (See the group's earmarks database here)
West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd has been busy delivering the bacon to his constituents in West Virginia. In the 2010 Homeland Security appropriations bill, he has earmarked $39.7 million for an "advanced training center" and another $3.6 million for an "operations systems center." And scores of small towns - undoubtedly the epicenter of possible future terrorist attacks - received handouts. They include Shelter Island, NY ($200,000), Winthrop, Mass. ($500,000) and Pelham, NY ($563,000).
While presidents invariably rail against unauthorized appropriations, they too get their finger in the pie. Obama alone earmarked four projects totaling $21 million in the Homeland Security bill. His requests in the Agriculture appropriations measure were more numerous - 14 earmarks totaling $101.4 million.
Members often join the president in requesting earmarks that land in their states or districts. The practice provides some political cover, as presidential requests tend to be less parochial than money steered by a lawmaker alone, said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Advertising has long been a key part of the University of Phoenix's commercial success: according to AdWeek the school shells out more than $100 million a year--more than General Mills spends to market Cheerios--to lure students to its massive network of for-profit career schools.
The university, which serves more than 400,000 students at some ninety campuses and 150 learning centers worldwide has been a goldmine for its parent company, the Apollo Group, accounting for most of Apollo's $4 billion in revenues. But a spate of recent pricey ads the University has been running in The Washington Post are about damage control.
A recent joint investigation by New York -based ProPublica and American Public Media's "Marketplace" accused the school, which is the single largest recipient of federal education aid, of using high pressure recruitment tactics that leave students in deep debt--which the school denies-- while The Washington Monthly has an article outlining how federal laws and regulatory changes in the past decade have abetted aggressive recruitment and a spike in predatory private lending to students at these schools.
The charges come as the Apollo Group, is setting aside $80.5 million to settle a long running suit by two former admissions officers accusing the school of getting federal student-aid funds under false pretenses. It also comes as the Obama Administration contemplates tightening regulations meant to prevent such recruitment abuses. One University ad featured an open letter to students, alumni, calling the media reports the work of "ideologically driven critics" and asking to share success stories on the University's website.
Advocacy and lobbying stories in this week's National Journal: (subscription)
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "The insurance industry lobby is panning the Senate legislation. The lobbying group, America's Health Insurance Plans, said in a statement on Thursday that the bill would increase costs for individuals, families and employers; reduce benefits for older Americans; and threaten employer coverage," the New York Times reports. "In the statement, Karen Ignagni, the group's president and chief executive, said the association would work with the Senate to improve the bill."
Advocacy efforts over the prospect of credit card interchange regulation have led to a gridlocked debate between retailers and credit card companies. Interchange fees are the cost stores pay to banks when customers use credit cards.
A GAO study released Thursday, which sought to cut through the fray, was pretty much a wash. Stakeholders on both sides immediately adopted certain aspects of the report into their lobbying efforts, ignoring points that weren't so favorable.
Points supporting retailers:
- Total costs of accepting credit cards for merchants have risen over time as consumers use cards more.
- Part of these increased costs ...may be the result of how Visa and MasterCard competed to attract and retain bank issuers to offer cards by increasing the number of interchange fee categories and the level of these rates.
- Consumers who do not use credit cards may be paying higher prices for goods and services, as merchants pass on their increasing card-acceptance costs to all of their customers.
Continue reading GAO Study on Interchange Fees Inconclusive.
After striking a conciliatory note for most of 2009, the National Federation of Independent Business is now opposing both the House and Senate Democrats' health care reform legislation.
"Small business can't support a proposal that does not address their No. 1 problem: the unsustainable cost of health care," said Susan Eckerly, senior vice president of the NFIB in a statement about the legislation Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., unveiled last night.
Their opposition matters because the 350,000-member group has used its grassroots muscle in years past to oppose legislation, most memorably 15 years ago when it helped play a role in ending then President Clinton's plans for health care reform.
The NFIB joined with other business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to create a coalition called Employers For A Healthy Economy, which has committed to spending as much as $10 million on advertising criticizing the House Democrats plans for health reform.
The NFIB had been working much of this year with Democratic staff, mostly in the Senate, to offer input into the developing health care legislation, and therefore remained conciliatory. We will be watching to see what they do next. I couldn't immediately reach an NFIB official for comment.
Meanwhile my colleague Marilyn Serafini and I have a story in tomorrow's National Journal looking at the NFIB and other groups that will have to be reckoned with for a health care bill to reach President Obama's desk.
Kristin Wells has just signed on as a partner with Patton Boggs. Wells was most recently deputy chief counsel at the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
According to a release, Wells will work with public policy and international law teams at the firm to "help corporate clients in their dealings with foreign governments and legal systems, as well as international markets."
Wells, who worked under current committee chairman Howard Berman, D-Calif. and the late Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., dealt with issues such as international refugee policy and immigration matters, international women's issues, and consular affairs. While working on Capitol Hill, she has had a hand in congressional resolutions declaring genocide in Darfur, the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, and the Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008.
She has also worked as counsel at the House Judiciary Committee under then-ranking member (now chairman) John Conyers, D-Mich. In addition to the departure of Wells, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chief Counsel David Abramowitz recently took a position as director of policy and government relations in Humanity United's Washington office.
More than 900 former federal employees, including 70 former members of Congress, have gone to work as lobbyists for the financial services sector in 2009, according to a Public Citizen report released today analyzing data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics
Nearly half of the 150 former members who have reported lobbying in 2009 are working in the financial services sector. These include former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill; former Senate Majority Leader and Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole, R-Kan.; former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.; former House Majority Leaders Dick Armey, R-Tex. and Dick Gephardt, D-Mo; former Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La.; former Ways & Means Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif.; and former Rep.Vin Weber, R-Minn.
"It's a shame that so much taxpayer money has been spent to train people to lobby," said David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Watch division.
Henry "Hank" White Jr., the American Bar Association's executive director, resigned from his position this week, reports the National Law Journal. (subscription)
White's departure follows the September exit of the ABA's chief financial officer, Kenneth Widelka, who was arguably the No. 2 staff official below White.
The Journal says that the executives left as part of a reorganization led by Carolyn Lamm, the president of ABA, who joined the organization in August.
The ABA has 1,000 employees and has a membership of about 400,000.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "The nation's mayors are pressing lawmakers to send more money directly to cities if Congress passes a second stimulus, arguing joblessness is often concentrated in metro areas. The lobbying push could reprise an earlier battle with state governors over control of federal dollars," The Hill reports. However, "several interest groups are reactivating and dusting off old policy proposals as Democratic leaders in Congress consider another jobs measure to ease unemployment levels."
