Washington experienced an $849 million lobbypalooza in the third quarter of 2009, according to an analysis by OpenSecrets.org.

The watchdog group says that's the largest quarterly expenditure tabulated since organizations began filing every three months in 2008. As of the end of September, companies, trade associations, unions and other special interest groups had spent a total of $2.5 billion on federal lobby activities.

The biggest spenders for the first nine months of the year, not surprisingly, were healthcare ($396M), energy and environment ($300M), and the financial industry ($334M).