Delta, regional carrier lobbied up amid policy fights

From: POLITICO Influence - Friday Jun 16,2023 10:56 pm
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By Caitlin Oprysko

With Daniel Lippman 

Programming Note: We’ll be off this Monday for Juneteenth but will be back in your inboxes on Tuesday.

DELTA, SKYWEST LOBBY UP: Delta Air Lines brought on one of Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) top aides last month as the airline was ramping up its push for additional long-haul flights out of Reagan National Airport as part of the FAA reauthorization.

— Cruz, the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, was set to co-sponsor an amendment as part of a planned markup of the FAA bill that would have done just that — before the markup was derailed by disagreements over a different amendment.

— Newly filed lobbying disclosures show AxAdvocacy Government Relations began working for Delta on May 8 on issues related to the FAA reauthorization. Steve Chartan, who left Cruz’s office days earlier after seven years with the senator and four as his chief of staff, are among those listed on the account. Bobby Babcock, a former managing director at Clark Hill and an ex-Republican Hill aide, and Samantha Dravis, a former Scott Pruitt adviser, are also working on the account.

— The push for more direct flights out of DCA beyond its 1,250-mile perimeter has split lawmakers and the airline industry alike — with Delta, its home state members, and Western lawmakers and business groups lining up on one side.

— The anti-slot expansion camp includes United Airlines, which has a hub at nearby Dulles International Airport, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines, lawmakers from Virginia, Maryland and D.C., the airport authority that operates DCA and Dulles, the FAA and regional airports concerned they could get left behind with more long-haul flights out of Reagan.

Punchbowl News reported Thursday that Cruz and Cantwell’s amendment would authorize four new slots at DCA for flights outside the perimeter — a fraction of the 28 new slots called for in standalone bills from Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) in the Senate and Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) and Burgess Owens (R-Utah) in the House. Its opponents are digging in, however, warning that the inclusion of new slots could delay the entire FAA bill.

— Regional carrier SkyWest Airlines, meanwhile, has hired its first-ever federal lobbyists as the airline pushes for approval to operate part of its fleet as charter flights. The airline retained nearly two dozen lobbyists from Mehlman Consulting to lobby on issues related to charter aircraft, according to a disclosure filed earlier this week.

— The hire comes as SkyWest is seeking a greenlight from the Transportation Department to form a subsidiary in order to operate some of its jets as “commuter air carriers,” which POLITICO’s Alex Daugherty reports would allow the company to hire pilots with only 250 hours of training versus the 1,500-hour minimum for other airlines that operate scheduled flights.

— Earlier this month, unions representing pilots and flight attendants urged DOT to reject SkyWest’s proposal. The plan has also drawn opposition from former House Transportation Chair Peter DeFazio, who is now a consultant and told Alex he’s been talking with DOT about the issue.

TGIF and welcome to PI. Send lobbying tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.

 

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ANNALS OF THE REVOLVING DOOR: “The chief of staff to the new top Democrat on the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust lobbied on behalf of Amazon and Apple as recently as 2022, including on the very issues the ranking member will oversee in his new role,” CNBC’s Lauren Feiner reports.

— “The background of California Democrat Lou Correa’s top staffer is likely to further upset progressives who supported efforts to reform the rules of the road around digital competition. René Muñoz has served as chief of staff to Correa since November 2022, according to Congress tracking site LegiStorm.”

— “Before that, Muñoz worked at the lobbying firm Federal Street Strategies beginning in May 2020, according to LinkedIn, where his clients included Amazon and Apple, along with other corporations. Earlier, he worked for other Democratic representatives in Congress.”

— Correa was one of the Democrats who voted against a bipartisan tech antitrust package crafted by the antitrust subcommittee’s then-Chair David Cicilline (D-R.I.), whose recent retirement led to Correa’s succession, and then-ranking member Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who was replaced by libertarian Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) for this current Congress. A Correa spokesperson defended Muñoz’s decades of public service.

— But disclosures “show that as recently as 2022, Muñoz lobbied Congress on the very areas which Correa is now overseeing. Correa’s ability to influence the agenda while in the minority is limited, but ranking members can often serve an important role in pushing back on the majority or in messaging to industry and agencies. Some fear that should the Democrats take back the House, it will now be harder to replace Correa with a more reform-minded Democrat.”

SPEAKING OF: Senate antitrust Chair Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and more than a half dozen of her colleagues reintroduced the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, one of the main bipartisan bills aimed at reining in tech companies that fell victim to fierce lobbying by Silicon Valley and their advocacy groups last Congress. The bill would block tech giants from promoting their own products over their rivals’ on their platform.

— A day before its reintroduction, Amazon was making the rounds on the Hill with more than three dozen of its sellers with a fly-in that highlighted one of its key strategies to fight the legislation: re-centering online sellers as the face of its push to defeat antitrust crackdowns.

— As lawmakers advanced the AICOA last Congress, Amazon and advocacy groups it funds spent heavily to plead the case that additional regulations would be devastating for small businesses selling on its platform (those efforts saw mixed results) and that the measure could sink offerings like the e-commerce giant’s free two-day shipping.

— In a nod to that night’s Congressional Baseball Game, the sellers handed out baseball cards with information about their shops, and one seller handed out one of her products at an Amazon table inside the game.

— Wednesday’s fly-in came on the heels of a company report released last month that found 60 percent of Amazon’s sales last year came from “independent sellers,” many of which the company says are small and medium-sized businesses.

DEMS PUSH TO TIGHTEN PENTAGON ETHICS RULES: “Lawmakers in both chambers are looking to rewrite the ethics and lobbying rules that affect Pentagon officials, retired brass, executives with U.S. defense contractors and even foreign governments” as part of this year’s defense authorization bill, per Roll Call’s John M. Donnelly.

— The proposals from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), “would extend the cooling off period for former Defense Department officials to work for military contractors and vice versa. And it would strictly limit those officials’ ability to own stock in the defense industry. It would restrict lobbying by former brass for foreign governments. And it would tighten stock ownership rules.”

— They plan to push for the measure to be adopted later this month when the House and Senate Armed Services committees hold marathon markups on each chamber’s version of the NDAA.

— In addition to heightened restrictions for individuals, “the measure has a number of new transparency requirements as well. It would mandate that large defense contractors submit a report of their lobbying activities. It would require the secretary of Defense to publish online copies of unclassified contracts.It would require the military services to maintain public websites with the names, biographies, financial disclosures and audit and other reports about top officers.”

ANNALS OF FUNDRAISING: “Business and lobbying association PACs have two big problems: They’re stuck with contribution limits set in the 1970s, and more lawmakers are refusing their cash,” Bloomberg’s Kate Ackley reports. But the online fundraising platform Democracy Engine “says it offers a workaround, giving business interests a more politically palatable route for directing campaign cash to favored lawmakers.”

— “Heading into the 2024 elections, his company is on pace to process more individual donations for business, association, and union political action committees than it has previously, according to statistics the company shared first with Bloomberg Government.”

— “These donations flow outside of industry PACs but enable them to pitch allies to donate to candidates directly and to capture real-time data about where the money is coming and going. It’s a potential way for industry lobbies to harness the rise of online, often small-dollar contributions, while circumventing the increasing number of lawmakers and candidates who refuse business PAC money.”

SPOTTED at Gatsby’s for a post fly-in, pre-Congressional Baseball Game reception hosted by the Insured Retirement Institute, per a tipster: Reps. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and Rick Allen (R-Ga.); Wayne Chopus, Paul Richman and John Jennings of IRI, Michael Myers of Transamerica, Shawn Gallagher of Corebridge Financial, Joe Caruso of Jackson National Life Insurance, Aliya Robinson of T. Rowe Price, Carol Danko and David Burns of Prudential Financial, Blake Major of American Equity Investment Life Insurance, Alice Joe and Andrew Vermilye of Fidelity Investments, Jonathan Paone of New York Life, Kara Adams of Protective and Jill Kozeny of the American Council of Life Insurers.

— And at a summer kick off for the Black Women’s Congressional Alliance and Black Men on the Hill hosted by BGR Group, per a tipster: Chay English of Ford Motor Company, Courtney Cochran of House Minority Whip Katherine Clark’s (D-Mass.) office, Nick Johnson of Black Men on the Hill, Alyssa Mensie of Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar’s (D-Calif.) office, Kyle Bligen of Rep. Juan Vargas(D-Calif.) office, Nate Robinson of Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester’s (D-Del.) office, Usman Rahim and Frank Williams of Bank of America, Susan Murphy of Blackstone, Dominic Sanchez of Grubhub, Michael Pauls, Jr. of NCTA, Mike Moran of Deutsche Bank, Ian Mair, Jake Hulina and Chloe Bonini of GeoComply and Andy Lewin, Dan Murphy, Steve Pfrang, Keiffer Mitchell and Erskine Wells of BGR Group.

 

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Jobs Report

Amy Shuart is joining The Business Roundtable as vice president of technology and innovation. She most recently launched the D.C. office of Onfido, where she served as head of North America government affairs.

Benjamin Schiffrin has joined Better Markets as director of securities policy, Morning Money reports. He was most recently associate general counsel at the SEC.

Adam Bozzi has joined the Democratic staff on the House Administration Committee as a senior advisor. He most recently served as an executive vice president at End Citizens United and is a Michael Bennet and Harry Reid alum.

Scott Friedman is joining Altana as vice president of government affairs. He most recently was a senior policy adviser to former Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.) and is a DHS and CISA alum.

John Kelly will be global head of corporate affairs at BlackRock. He most recently was senior vice president for brand, communications and corporate affairs at Roku and is an alum of Starbucks and Microsoft.

New Joint Fundraisers

Victory NOW for Tester (Sen. Jon Tester, VICTORY NOW PAC)

New PACs

American Citizens Abroad Inc PAC (PAC)
REAL ESTATE & NOTE INVESTORS UNITED (PAC)

New Lobbying REGISTRATIONS

Alston & Bird LLP: Catalis Holdco, Inc.
Axadvocacy Government Relations (Formerly Known As, Apex Advocacy LLC): Charter Communications
Axadvocacy Government Relations (Formerly Known As, Apex Advocacy LLC): Comcast Corporation
Axadvocacy Government Relations (Formerly Known As, Apex Advocacy LLC): Delta Airlines
Ballard Partners: Uptodate, Inc.
Capitol Counsel LLC: Rebuild Local News Coalition/ The Ground Truth Project, Inc.
Capitol Counsel LLC: Share Our Strength
Cassidy & Associates, Inc.: Rancho Santiago Community College District
Cassidy & Associates, Inc.: The Renco Group, Inc.
Cgcn Group, LLC: Emergent Biosolutions Inc.
Emmer Consulting, Inc. (Formerly Known As Emmer Consulting, P.C.): Frndly Tv, Inc.
Foley & Lardner LLP: Omegaflex
Gephardt Group Government Affairs: Colorado Nonprofit Development Center On Behalf Of One Chance To Grow Up
Metanoic Strategies: Broadcom Inc.
Metanoic Strategies: Tenable
Subject Matter: Specialty Equipment Market Association

New Lobbying Terminations

None.

 

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