From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Auto companies and eight of the country's biggest banks that received tens of billions of dollars in federal bailout money spent more than $20 million on lobbying Washington lawmakers in the first half of this year," The Hill reports.

• "Energy companies and industry groups with a major stake in climate change legislation are spending millions of dollars more on lobbying this year," The Hill reports. "The two biggest consumers of coal, for example, each reported increases in lobbying expenditures as lawmakers considered a climate bill, which could reshape the nation's energy fuel mix by capping carbon dioxide."