SIFMA ADDS DAINES AIDE: P.J. Austin is heading back to K Street after nearly eight years on the Hill. Austin will join SIFMA, which represents the securities industry, as a vice president focused on tax policy. He’s spent the past three years as a tax and economic policy adviser to Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), a member of the Senate Banking and Finance committees. Before that, Austin worked for former Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.). — Prior to his time on the Hill, Austin worked on the government affairs team for the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste. A spokesperson for SIFMA told PI that Austin plans on registering to lobby. OUSTED FERC CHAIR SETS UP SHOP DOWNTOWN: “Former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Richard Glick and an ex-agency staff member are launching a new clean energy consulting firm,” E&E News’ Miranda Willson reports. — “GQ New Energy Strategies aims to help clients respond to new energy policies and regulations and ‘thrive in the ongoing clean energy transition.’” It will be led by former FERC chief of staff Pamela Quinlan in addition to Glick, who left the agency earlier this year after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) refused to confirm him for a second term. — “The firm will help clients understand new rules issued by FERC, the Treasury Department and the Department of Energy, as well as take advantage of programs in the Inflation Reduction Act. It will also advocate on behalf of clients for policies to expand the electric grid, update the energy permitting process and eliminate market barriers facing emerging energy technologies, among other issues.” LAYING DOWN A MARKER: A trio of progressive senators preemptively knocked the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its support of spending caps in a debt limit deal ahead of an expected tax push from House Republicans next month. They contend “that any tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations would be hypocritical to the GOP’s current debt ceiling demands for across-the-board spending slashes,” Nancy Vu reports for POLITICO Minutes. — The House Ways and Means Committee is set to take up a series of extensions to provisions in the 2017 GOP tax bill that have begun to expire or are set to shortly, including restoring research-and-development deductions, full bonus depreciation and removing caps on business interest expensing. — In a letter to Chamber CEO Suzanne Clark obtained by POLITICO, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) “argued that the 2017 tax cuts ‘increased the deficit by $1.9 trillion,’ citing a previous CBO study released in 2018. Supporting the tax cuts while ‘cheerleading’ House Republicans’ demands of spending cuts, according to the senators, is hypocritical.” — “Even as you cheer Congressional Republicans’ demands for deep cuts to critical programs that Americans rely on, you also continue to support Republican proposals to extend TJCA tax cuts for its giant corporate members,” the lawmakers wrote. “Of course, the Chamber also spent millions in 2017 in order to pass TCJA in the first place.” — Clark praised the deal struck over the weekend by the White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to avert a default, saying in a statement that “federal leaders should use this opportunity to limit out-of-control spending to avoid simply passing on the issue to future generations.” — The Chamber issued a key vote alert on the debt ceiling deal on Monday. Days earlier, chief policy officer Neil Bradley told POLITICO that he had not met with McCarthy amid the standoff, arguing that it would amount to the business lobby “wasting [McCarthy’s] time to come in and say, ‘look how much I agree with you.’” GRIN AND BEAR IT: “With less than a year until the primaries, politicians’ wealthiest benefactors are sizing up the presidential hopefuls soliciting their donations. But many on Wall Street find the prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch unappetizing,” The Wall Street Journal’s Cara Lombardo reports. — “Wall Street likes Biden’s steady hand and cabinet picks like Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, but his aggressive stance on antitrust enforcement has turned off potential backers whose profits depend on a healthy supply of corporate deals. And while another Trump term could deliver the traditional Republican goodies of lower taxes and less regulation, financiers are worried that the former president’s unpredictability could wreak havoc on global markets.” — Another wrinkle: “With the rise of online fundraising and its ability to reach the masses, Wall Street’s money is less important to candidates than it used to be. Still, bankers and their ilk enjoy easy access to candidates and spend millions encouraging those with business-friendly policies, such as protecting the favorable tax treatment of private-equity profits.” — The distaste is also proving fertile ground for No Labels’ efforts to finance a viable independent presidential ticket, with the centrist group “steadily adding Wall Street supporters. Founded in 2010, the group took off in 2016 when it launched a coalition of super PACs with the help of a quartet of billionaires, including investor Nelson Peltz and hedge-fund manager Louis Bacon. Zoom fundraising events during the pandemic attracted new followers.”
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