SCHUMER TO DONORS, TECH LOBBYISTS: ANTITRUST BILLS AIN’T HAPPENIN’: “Legislation aimed at reining in the power of giant technology companies appears to have hit a wall after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told a group of donors Tuesday evening that he doesn’t believe there are enough votes to pass the measure,” Bloomberg’s Emily Birnbaum reports. — “Schumer called the bill a ‘high priority,’ but said the Senate doesn’t have the 60 votes needed to approve it, according to people who attended a fundraiser for Schumer at Bistro Bis , a restaurant near Capitol Hill. Schumer made the comments in response to a question about the measure, the American Choice and Innovation Online Act, which would prevent internet platforms from giving advantages to their own products and services.” — The majority leader “had previously affirmed that he was working with the legislation’s lead Democratic sponsor in the Senate, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, but he hadn’t said publicly that he thinks the bill’s prospects are dim. He had earlier pledged to bring the legislation to a vote early this summer,” but recent Covid diagnoses in the chamber have further complicated floor action. — “Schumer made the remarks while a group of roughly two dozen protesters gathered outside of Bistro Bis, an effort to pressure Schumer into holding the vote on the tech legislation.” Inside, “the fundraiser for Schumer’s political action committee … had a suggested contribution of $2,500 or $5,000. Attendees included lobbyists for Microsoft Corp., American Express Co. and Procter & Gamble Co.” WHAT TIKTOK IS TALKING ABOUT TALKING ABOUT: “Leaked documents from within TikTok reveal how the company games out responses to tricky questions — and highlight what the company thinks its biggest public perception problems are,” per Gizmodo’s Chris Stokel-Walker. “Chief among them: China.” — Though primarily “explanations of press talking points,” the internal documents “are influential even beyond TikTok’s responses to everyday news stories: Language similar to what’s in them appeared in a TikTok executive’s testimony before the United Kingdom’s parliament and in the company’s letters to United States senators . TikTok declined to answer questions about the leaked materials.” — The company’s talking points advise its PR team to “‘Downplay the parent company ByteDance, downplay the China association, downplay AI.’ All three bullet points are the second, third and fourth lines of the document, second only to ‘Emphasise TikTok as a brand/platform.’ Further down, the company advises its employees to stress that, though young people love TikTok, ‘the app is only for users aged 13 and over.’” THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY: “Microsoft Corp. is rallying other big-name cloud-computing providers such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Oracle Corp. to press the U.S. government into spreading its spending on such services more widely, taking aim at Amazon.com Inc.’s dominance in such contracts,” The Wall Street Journal’s Aaron Tilley reports. — “The software giant has issued talking points to other cloud companies aimed at jointly lobbying Washington to require major government projects to use more than one cloud service, according to people familiar with the effort and a document viewed by The Wall Street Journal.” — Microsoft also approached VMWare, Dell, IBM and HP, but “it hasn’t yet asked Amazon to join the loose alliance, the people [familiar] said. Amazon dominates the cloud-infrastructure industry with a 39% share of the 2021 global market ahead of Microsoft at No. 2 with a 21% share, according to research firm Gartner Inc.” A spokesperson for Amazon “called the lobbying effort a self-serving campaign that could end up requiring customers to use inferior technology.” — “Microsoft has grown frustrated about its lack of progress selling its Azure cloud services to the U.S. federal government with its rival’s Amazon Web Services continuing to win most of those contracts, said some of the people familiar with its efforts. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company ‘has consistently advocated a multicloud approach as a commercial best practice, and almost all companies have adopted this.’ The company, she added, works ‘with other companies and trade associations to encourage the federal government to adopt the same strategy.’” PORTMAN’S RESEARCH SECURITY AMENDMENT FIZZLES: The Senate on Tuesday blocked an effort from Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) to insert an amendment that would impose tough new security restrictions on U.S. researchers in an effort to safeguard against Chinese espionage into the chamber’s semiconductor and science research funding package. — Asian American and Pacific Islander advocacy groups mounted a last-minute lobbying push against the language, warning Democratic congressional leaders it could lead to heightened discrimination against the AAPI community, but when Portman requested unanimous consent to include his amendment, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) quickly rose to object, suggesting that opening up the bill to new amendments could derail the legislation. — Cantwell said she still supported Portman’s amendment and that she’d push to include the language in any report that comes out of a conference committee seeking to reconcile the House and Senate’s rival competitiveness bills — though there’s little to indicate her colleagues are on board with restarting the conference process . REED HEADS TO FGS GLOBAL: Anthony Reed is joining FGS Global (which was formerly Finsbury Glover Hering, which was formerly Glover Park Group) as a partner in the energy and sustainability and food and agriculture practices. He spent the past 14 years as a lobbyist at Archer Daniels Midland Company , most recently serving as interim head of global government relations. Before that, he served as a congressional liaison at EPA and was chief of staff and legislative director to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. MEHLMAN’S LATEST: Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas’ Bruce Mehlman is out with his latest slide deck , which zeroes in backlash threatening to upend four different trends in politics and policy. The “counter-revolutions” range from the fairly obvious — the impending revolt against unified Democratic control of Washington in November’s midterms — to the less conspicuous — growing headwinds faced by the ESG movement, the end of the era of easy money, and the shakeup of longstanding tech business models amid tension with China and increased regulation in Europe. FIRST LADY’S PRESS SECRETARY HEADING DOWNTOWN: Michael LaRosa, first lady Jill Biden’s top spokesperson, is leaving the East Wing behind to join Hamilton Place Strategies as a managing director. LaRosa has been with Jill Biden since the presidential campaign, and before that served as deputy director of the House Democratic Policy Comms Committee. CNN’s Kate Bennett first reported LaRosa’s impending move . OFFSHORE HELICOPTER PROVIDER OPENS D.C. OFFICE: Bristow Group, a Houston-based company that shuttles workers and cargo to offshore oil platforms and provides search and rescue services, has tapped John Seale to open an office in Washington to boost the company’s lobbying on advanced air mobility development of electric helicopters and infrastructure, sustainable aviation fuel, and the upcoming FAA reauthorization bill. — Lobbying disclosures show Bristow Group parted ways with its only outside firm on retainer, Elevate Government Affairs, last quarter. The company has reported spending $170,000 on lobbying this year. Seale, who was most recently a senior director at the American Chemistry Council and is a Steve Scalise alum, has also brought on Jim Rowland at Rowland Strategy Group as a consultant.
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