NOT YOUR AVERAGE WORKING VACATION: “The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and the ensuing news that US regulators were jacking up lenders’ fees for deposit insurance quickly transformed the Hilton Hawaiian Village this week into ground zero for a lobbying blitz by community lenders,” Bloomberg’s Lydia Beyoud, Steven Dennis and Katanga Johnson write. — “Senior bankers attending the industry confab were fuming in paradise as they made calls to their political contacts in Washington to argue they shouldn’t have to pick up part of the tab for the errors of two much larger firms that didn’t share their neighborhood focus.” — “The bankers, instructed to don resort wear for a retreat that concluded Wednesday with a luau, argued it was unfair that they would have to pay more money for the management missteps of Silicon Valley Bank, which was the 16th largest lender in the US, said one of the people. They didn’t want to pay another penny, the person added. Many wanted clarity on how the extra fees would even work.” GRWM TO TRY AND SAVE TIKTOK: “Dozens of TikTok creators will descend on Washington for three days next week” as the video platform mounts an eleventh-hour lobbying blitz to stave off the forced sale of the company, a person familiar with the plans tells POLITICO's Hailey Fuchs. — “The creators will hold a press conference on Wednesday on Capitol Hill, the person added. Another person familiar with the plans noted that TikTok was paying for the cost of sending influencers to D.C. It was not clear which influencers would be making the trip.” — “Lawmakers in Washington debating TikTok should hear firsthand from people whose lives would be directly affected by their decisions,” said Jamal Brown, a former Biden campaign spokesperson who now works for the video platform. “We look forward to welcoming our creators to our nation’s capital, helping them make their voices heard, and continuing to drive meaningful impact in their lives and for their communities.” BIDEN VOWS ‘ACCOUNTABILITY’ FOR BANK EXECS: “The White House wants Congress to give regulators more power to punish bank executives like those responsible for the Silicon Valley Bank collapse,” our Eleanor Mueller writes. — “I'm firmly committed to accountability for those responsible for this mess,” Biden said in a statement, lamenting that "the law limits the administration’s authority to hold executives responsible." — “When banks fail due to mismanagement and excessive risk taking, it should be easier for regulators to claw back compensation from executives, to impose civil penalties, and to ban executives from working in the banking industry again,” the president continued. “Congress must act to impose tougher penalties for senior bank executives whose mismanagement contributed to their institutions failing.” — It’s the latest effort by the White House to shore up its political standing following last weekend’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and the administration’s decision to guarantee deposits of every size, not just those under $250,000, in a bid to prevent a wider financial panic. — The request helps Biden push back against complaints that it had bailed out the banks’ wealthy progressive customers — at the expense of smaller banks — and comes the same day as the president and DNC said they would return tens of thousands in campaign contributions from SVB executives and the bank’s PAC. A TIME FOR CHOOSING: “The Biden administration is preparing to impose some of the first new rules in a generation to restrict or ban an array of toxic chemicals that are widely used in manufacturing, presenting the White House with tough choices between its economic agenda and public health,” per The New York Times’ Eric Lipton. — “Many of the substances in question are important to industries that President Biden has backed through other policies intended to bolster global competitiveness and national security, such as semiconductors and electric vehicles.” — The proposals have sparked a lobbying fight, with business “framing the decisions about new regulations … as putting at risk the administration’s drive to nurture the American economy of the future. Environmental and public health groups are stressing the need to focus on protecting workers and communities from substances known to carry health risks, such as cancer, liver and kidney damage and infertility.” GENE SEQUENCING COMPANY EXPANDS D.C. PRESENCE: Illumina, the leading maker of gene-sequencing machines, is bringing on Nick Magallanes of Iovance Biotherapeutics to lead its D.C. office, Megan reports. He’ll lead the company’s domestic lobbying operation and its work in Canada and Latin America. — Illumina spokesperson David McAlpine confirmed the hire, telling Megan that the company has “a strategic plan to grow our Washington footprint as we increase our work around the clinical application of genomics.” Magallanes will serve under Illumina’s lone in-house lobbyist, Brian Toohey, who he previously worked with at PhRMA. — It’s a significant step for the rapidly expanding company, which has been fending off U.S. and international regulators concerned about its acquisition of biotech company Grail and now finds itself in a proxy battle with activist investor Carl Icahn, who urged Illumina to divest it. Illumina spent about $6 million on lobbying the federal government last year, nearly double the $3.3 million it spent on advocacy in 2021.
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