With Daniel Lippman WALDEN HEADS TO K STREET: Former Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon is partnering up with the lobbying shop Alpine Group to form Alpine Advisors, a separate strategic advisory firm. Walden spent years as the top Republican on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, and twice chaired the House GOP’s campaign arm before retiring at the beginning of this year. But retirement’s “not what it’s cracked up to be for me,” the 11-term lawmaker said in an interview. — Walden isn’t sure whether he will register to lobby when his one-year ban lifts, or whether he’ll represent foreign clients, explaining that he believes “there’ll be enough opportunity” in the strategic advising space. — There’s a “huge, big need now that people have to get a better understanding of what's going on in the country, in the halls of Congress, from a sort of strategic and forward-looking brain,” he said. “We live in this instant world, and the smallest misstep can be material to a company,” Walden noted, and those stakes result in “a huge opportunity and a tremendous demand from those making strategic decisions in companies.” — Walden is the fourth former lawmaker out of last year’s class of retired or defeated lawmakers to head to K Street by PI’s count, joining former House Ag Chair Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who started his own lobbying shop, Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas), who joined Hance Scarborough, and Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.), who rejoined his old firm Adams and Reese earlier this year. VENABLE ADDS FORMER CARPER CHIEF: Venable has added Jim Reilly, a former chief of staff to Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Tom Carper (D-Del.) as a senior policy adviser. Reilly, who will focus on issues like energy, infrastructure and the environment, joins the firm from the American Wind Energy Association (now the American Clean Power Association), where he led the federal affairs team. Prior to that, he served as Carper’s top aide dating back to now-President Joe Biden’s days in the Senate, and he did a stint advising the British Embassy on climate issues. — In an interview, Reilly touted the Delaware congressional delegation’s ability to consistently “punch above its weight” while adding that his move to Venable was a “natural next step” given the Biden administration’s intent to enact a major infrastructure package “that is paying attention to the energy that goes into it and the way infrastructure helps the economy, helps the environment,” which he noted is “the space that I have worked in in Washington, both on the Hill and” at AWEA. Good afternoon and welcome to PI. Send tips: coprysko@politico.com. And follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko. NOT SOMETHING YOU HEAR EVERY DAY: “Beset with rising consumer criticism and a dire need for recycled materials, consumer giants are calling for a fee on packaging — a plea for, in essence, a tax on their own products,” POLITICO’s Catherine Boudreau reports. The Recycling Partnership, an industry coalition that includes food giants Nestlé, Mars and Unilever, has unveiled a framework that would pool revenue from the fees with $4 billion in annual taxpayer money that currently funds thousands of local recycling programs. — “It’s a turnabout for the brands, which for years have fought efforts that would force them to take responsibility for the empty bottles, used wrappers and other refuse their products leave behind. The change of heart is driven by a quandary — companies aiming to attract sustainability-minded investors and meet the green demands of consumers have pledged to increase their use of recycled material. But without access to salvaged waste, they can’t make good on those promises.” — The plan doesn’t have total buy-in across industry, however — the Consumer Brands Association, one of its largest lobbying groups, has yet to back a recycling fee and earlier this month released its own recycling blueprint. HOW AN ISRAELI BILLIONAIRE SECURED LAST-MINUTE SANCTION RELIEF FROM TRUMP: The New York Times’ Eric Lipton is out with a lengthy investigation into how Israeli mining magnate Dan Gertler was able to convince the Trump administration in its final days to roll back stiff sanctions it slapped him with in 2017 over accusations of corruption. — Over former President Donald Trump’s tenure, Gertler hired “high-powered lobbyists and lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz, who had represented President Donald J. Trump in his first impeachment trial, and the former F.B.I. director Louis Freeh. But with time running out on the Trump administration and the incoming Biden administration unlikely to give his pleas much of a hearing, Mr. Gertler put one last offer on the table: He would agree to have outside monitors track his business and submit regular reports on his financial transactions if the United States would lift the sanctions.” TV, FILM INDUSTRY ASKS WHITE HOUSE FOR CRACKDOWN ON PIRACY: A group of industry group and union heads representing the entertainment industry are asking the Biden administration to crack down on online piracy that they say has surged throughout the pandemic and to strengthen copyright laws in order to boost the sector’s recovery. — In a letter to Biden last week, Jennifer Dorning, president of AFL-CIO’s Department for Professional Employees, Matthew Loeb, the international president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Charles Rivkin, the Motion Picture Association’s chair and chief executive, Russell Hollander, the national executive director of the Directors Guild of America, Jean Prewitt, president and CEO of the Independent Film & Television Alliance, and David White, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director, wrote that the industry stands “ready to partner with you and the Congress on a comprehensive policy agenda to ensure the entertainment industry recovers and delivers more of the vibrant movie, television, and streaming content that audiences around the world love.” — To do so, they argued that the Biden administration needs to appoint leaders at key agencies including USTR, Commerce, DOJ and within the White House will provide creators with copyright protection and rein in piracy while enacting a “globally-competitive environment” to incentivize American production “including with tax, trade, and insurance policy.” FORMER AMNESTY LOBBYIST GRANTED FIRST BIDEN ETHICS WAIVER: Charanya Krishnaswami, the senior counselor to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and a former lobbyist for Amnesty International, has received an ethics waiver to work on policies in areas she lobbied for, the first of the Biden administration, according to Axios’ Lachlan Markay. — In a memo made public Friday, acting OMB Director Robert Fairweather argued that without a waiver, “the adjustments that would be necessary to maintain Ms. Krishnaswami’s recusal are anticipated to result in serious limitations and inefficiencies in the Department.” The memo indicated that Amnesty’s status as a nonprofit, as well as Krishnaswami’s assertion that she has only ever lobbied Congress and not DHS, weighed favorably on the waiver process. The waiver still bars Krishnaswami from participating in issues “directly affecting” Amnesty’s finances, the memo says. | 
