Procter & Gamble hires away Nestlé’s top lobbyist — Rural banking group, NYSE parent company hire new outside firms — Mair Strategies adds a Democrat

From: POLITICO Influence - Monday Aug 02,2021 09:46 pm
Presented by Paid Leave for All: Delivered daily, Influence gives you a comprehensive rundown and analysis of all lobby hires and news on K Street.
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By Caitlin Oprysko

Presented by Paid Leave for All

With Daniel Lippman

NESTLÉ’S TOP LOBBYIST JUMPS TO P&G: Nicole Collier, who spent the last half decade as director of government relations at Nestlé, has joined Procter & Gamble as vice president of U.S. government relations. Prior to joining Nestlé, Collier spent six years at the Podesta Group, where she was a principal, and served as a federal policy adviser to now-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm while Granholm was governor of Michigan. “Procter & Gamble has been a longstanding fixture in millions of homes across the globe, including my own,” Collier said in a statement. “From leading brands on the shelf to their commitment to being a force for good and a force for growth around the world, P&G consistently steps forward as a model corporate citizen. I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting to work advocating for this dynamic company and every consumer who uses our products.”

— Collier might get some opportunities to lobby her former boss, if Procter & Gamble’s recent lobbying disclosures are any indication. The consumer goods company, whose brands include household names like Tide, Pampers, Dawn, Gillette, Crest, Vick’s, Olay, Bounty and more, reported lobbying the Energy Department on issues including packaging policy, climate advocacy and bills regulating single-use plastics and greenhouse gas emissions, according to the company’s second quarter lobbying reports.

NEW BUSINESS: The National Rural Lenders Association has hired Elias Walker’s Lorren Walker to lobby on issues related to government-backed loans and appropriations, according to a newly filed disclosure. The trade association is one of three powerful banking groups that have fought a program included in March’s coronavirus relief package that would provide $4 billion in debt relief to minority farmers, arguing that paying off borrowers’ loans, an effort to counter decades of discrimination, would drag their bottom lines. Walker is a USDA alum, serving during the Trump administration as chief of staff to Greg Ibach, the former under secretary of marketing and regulatory programs. The trade group also retains Capitol Ventures Government Relations.

— The Intercontinental Exchange Group, which owns and operates the New York Stock Exchange, among other markets and clearinghouses, has hired a new outside lobbying firm. Former CFTC chief of staff Charlie Thornton will lobby for the company on issues “concerning trading in the securities and derivatives markets,” according to a disclosure filing. The company briefly retained Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck in 2017 but has relied on in-house lobbyists since, disclosures show.

Good afternoon and welcome to PI . As all of Washington continues to rifle through the Senate's 2,700-plus-page infrastructure bill, which of your clients are celebrating and which did not fare so well? Get in touch: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.

 

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MAIR STRATEGIES ADDS A DEMOCRAT: Wanda Silva is joining Mair Strategies as a vice president as the firm looks to boost its Democratic ties and push into the New York City and Spanish-language markets. Silva is a former Univision and Telemundo reporter and an alum of Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr.’s office. She’ll initially work with Mair’s financial services, antitrust and transportation clients. The communications firm, which just marked its 10th anniversary, was founded by longtime GOP strategist Liz Mair, who noted in an email to clients that Silva’s hiring is part of an effort to bring on more Democratic talent to the majority-Republican shop.

CRYPTO SCORES LATE LOBBYING WIN: “A last-minute lobbying push by the cryptocurrency industry to change language in the bipartisan infrastructure bill that was finalized over the weekend succeeded in scaling back some of the scrutiny that participants in the sector will face from the I.R.S.,” according to The New York TimesAlan Rappeport. “The final legislative text included some changes to alleviate concerns of the cryptocurrency industry, which expressed alarm last week about new requirements that would define most of the participants in the sector as brokers and force them to turn over information to the I.R.S. The provision was projected to raise $28 billion over a decade.”

Lobbyists representing the industry pushed back on the provision, which negotiators revised “to ‘clarify’ the definition of a broker rather than expand upon it. The legislation also removed language that explicitly targeted ‘any decentralized exchange or peer-to-peer marketplace.’ It replaced that with a broader definition that characterizes brokers as anyone ‘responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person.’”

— “The cryptocurrency industry has been adamant that the tougher tax enforcement should not apply to miners, or creators, of digital money, or the ‘node operators’ that keep the software behind transactions moving. Lobbyists were continuing to press senators for greater clarity to ensure that those parts of the nascent sector would be excluded from the law,” particularly when it comes to the Treasury Department’s implementation of the bill. POLITICO’s Kellie Mejdrich and Brian Faler have more on the industry’s scramble over the weekend here.

 

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KOAY JOINS PROSPECT: Brian Koay has joined GOP opposition research and rapid response firm Prospect Strategic Communications as a principal. He most recently was president of America Rising , one of the party’s most prolific oppo research outfits and where Koay has worked since its formation in 2013.

WASHINGTON’S OTHER MOST POWERFUL JOE: “No senator emerges from the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package with a bigger basket of policy victories than the most-watched man in Washington,” POLITICO’s Anthony Adragna, Zack Colman, Alex Guillén, Ben Lefebvre, Annie Snider and Kelsey Tamborrino write. West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin , “whose coal-producing home state has been ground zero for partisan energy politics, served as the lead author of one of the most significant climate packages to date. The provisions he advanced through his Energy and Natural Resources Committee would send tens of billions to pay for drought mitigation in the West, coastal resilience measures, and ecosystem restoration — as well as investments aimed at helping coal communities, bolstering carbon capture technologies, domestic critical mineral development and cleaning up the nation’s abandoned mines.”

— “While the bill offers some money for green energy priorities, it also offers billions for programs backed by the oil and gas industry. Climate hawks hope the bipartisan bill, H.R. 3684 (117), is just a down payment ahead of a much more aggressive, $3.5 trillion Democrat-only bill that party leaders intend to move in parallel. But such a measure will still have to win the support of Manchin and other Democratic centrists, like Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who has expressed reservations over the price tag. Manchin’s success in the bipartisan bill previews that power dynamic, where the West Virginian’s victory stands in stark contrast to the fate of Environment and Public Works Chair Tom Carper (D-Del.), a White House ally from President Joe Biden’s home state, who saw some of his biggest water priorities go unfunded.”

WHO’S FUNDING THE ‘BIG LIE’: “A well-funded national movement has been exploiting [former President Donald] Trump’s claims of fraud in order to promote alterations to the way that ballots are cast and counted in forty-nine states, eighteen of which have passed new voting laws in the past six months,” Jane Mayer reports in The New Yorker. “Republican-dominated legislatures have also stripped secretaries of state and other independent election officials of their power.”

— “One of the movement’s leaders is the Heritage Foundation, the prominent conservative think tank in Washington, D.C,” which has been working with the American Legislative Exchange Council. Also “among those deep in the fight is Leonard Leo, a chairman of the Federalist Society, the legal organization known for its decades-long campaign to fill the courts with conservative judges. In February, 2020, the Judicial Education Project, a group tied to Leo, quietly rebranded itself as the Honest Elections Project , which subsequently filed briefs at the Supreme Court, and in numerous states, opposing mail-in ballots and other reforms that have made it easier for people to vote.”

— “Another newcomer to the cause is the Election Integrity Project California. And a group called FreedomWorks, which once concentrated on opposing government regulation, is now demanding expanded government regulation of voters, with a project called the National Election Protection Initiative. These disparate nonprofits have one thing in common: they have all received funding from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.”

 

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Jobs Report

Matt Terrill has been promoted to managing partner at Firehouse Strategies.

Erica Elliott Richardson is joining the Investment Company Institute as chief public communications officer. She most recently was a managing director at FTI Consulting.

Amy Shuart is now head of U.S. government affairs at Onfido. She most recently was staff director for House Ways and Means’ Social Security Subcommittee.

New Joint Fundraisers

Burgess Owens Victory Committee (Rep. Burgess Owens, Just Win Baby, NRCC)

 

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New PACs

AECOM LOBBYING SSF (PAC)
Freedom Conference PAC (Super PAC)
Parent Party PAC (Hybrid PAC)
Protect Our Freedoms PAC (Super PAC)
Union Home Mortgage Corp. Political Action Committee (PAC)

New Lobbying Registrations

Balch & Bingham, LLP: Hy Stor Energy Lp
C. Baker Consulting, Incorporated: Hardwire, LLC
Dutko Worldwide, LLC: USa Bobsled/Skeleton
Elias Walker, Inc.: National Rural Lenders Association
Hance Scarborough: Mewbourne Oil Company
Homeserve USa Corp: Homeserve USa Corp
King & Spalding LLP: Kidney Transplant Collaborative
Old North Strategies, LLC: City Of New Bern, North Carolina
Penn Hill Group: Jumpstart
Phlow Corporation: Phlow Corporation
Robert Crowe: Patriot X LLC
Strategies 360: Pallet, Spc
Tai Ginsberg & Associates, LLC: American Council Of Engineering Companies
T Cap Solutions, LLC: Intercontinental Exchange Group, Inc.
Thompson Advisory Group: Lyca Tel, LLC
Welsh Rose, LLC: Baylor Healthcare System C/O Baylor Scott And White Health
Welsh Rose, LLC: Methodist Health System
Welsh Rose, LLC: Texas Health Resources
Winning Strategies Washington: Prologis Inc.

 

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New Lobbying Terminations

Alliance For Market Solutions Action: Alliance For Market Solutions Action
Daly Consulting Group: Hsbc-North America
Janis Guerney: Family Voices
Mr. Doyce Boesch: Integris Health System
Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough: Aspol, LLC
Palladian Hill Strategies: Purify Fuel, Inc.
Republic Consulting, LLC: Raytheon Black Bird Technologies
The Smith-Free Group, LLC: Bank Of America Corporation

 

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