CLARIFICATION: After publication of Friday’s newsletter, AxAdvocacy Government Relations filed an amendment clarifying that the firm began working for Delta Air Lines on June 1, not May 8, as its initial filing said. OPENAI’S POLICY ASKS IN EUROPE: “The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, has spent the last month touring world capitals where, at talks to sold-out crowds and in meetings with heads of governments, he has repeatedly spoken of the need for global AI regulation,” Time Magazine’s Billy Perrigo writes. — “But behind the scenes, OpenAI has lobbied for significant elements of the most comprehensive AI legislation in the world — the E.U.’s AI Act — to be watered down in ways that would reduce the regulatory burden on the company, according to documents about OpenAI’s engagement with E.U. officials obtained by TIME from the European Commission via freedom of information requests.” — “In several cases, OpenAI proposed amendments that were later made to the final text of the E.U. law — which was approved by the European Parliament on June 14, and will now proceed to a final round of negotiations before being finalized as soon as January. — “In 2022, OpenAI repeatedly argued to European officials that the forthcoming AI Act should not consider its general purpose AI systems — including GPT-3, the precursor to ChatGPT, and the image generator Dall-E 2 — to be ‘high risk,’ a designation that would subject them to stringent legal requirements including transparency, traceability, and human oversight.” FLYING IN: Congress is squeezing in one more week of work before their extended July Fourth break, and that means more advocacy and industry groups are blitzing the Hill this week. — Child patient advocates and their families with the Children’s Hospital Association are in town to kick off their first in-person fly-in since before the pandemic, with advocates as young as 7 years old calling for increased access to pediatric clinical professionals, support for children on Medicaid and CHIP, and resources to address the youth mental health crisis. — The Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America is bringing family-owned wine and spirits distributors to the Hill this week to build on its recent advocacy for full federal decriminalization and regulation of cannabis, which featured a briefing last month geared toward Hill Republicans. — Hundreds of members of the American Society of Travel Advisors will be on the Hill tomorrow to push for industry priorities in the FAA reauthorization bill and funding for a new Travel and Tourism unit within the Commerce Department. They’ve got more than 200 meetings scheduled, including with Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Reps. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), Ed Case (D-Hawaii), Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) and Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.). — Members of the American Forest & Paper Association are in town to meet with lawmakers and their staff about sustainability and manufacturing, as is the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders, which will push back on potential budget cuts tied to the debt ceiling deal that the group says could be “disastrous” for the Latino community. ICYMI OVER THE WEEKEND: Since leaving office as New Jersey’s governor six years ago, Chris Christie “has repeatedly capitalized, for personal gain, on the connections he made as one of the best-known governors in the country,” The New York Times’ Nick Corasaniti and Alexandra Berzon report. — His firm Christie 55 Solutions took in around $1.3 million in lobbying revenue before that practice shuttered, and his consulting clients have included the sports betting giant DraftKings, the lottery company Scientific Games, and the pharmaceutical company Pacira BioSciences. — He’s also “joined a multimillion-dollar real estate venture with a donor, landed a contract with ABC News, represented an international fugitive and sat on corporate boards, including that of his beloved New York Mets, the tortured baseball franchise run by his friend and megadonor, the billionaire Steve Cohen.” — While Christie’s business dealings pose fewer conflicts of interest for his latest presidential bid than those of former President Donald Trump, “they may test how far one more norm has been eroded in the Trump era: Registering as a lobbyist — a card-carrying member of the so-called swamp — has long been viewed as tantamount to retiring from electoral politics.” DAIRY CO-OP SPLITS WITH TRADE GROUP: Dairy Farmers of America, “the nation’s biggest dairy co-op has left the International Dairy Foods Association, citing its disagreement with the trade group’s proposal to overhaul federal dairy pricing regulations,” our Marcia Brown reports. — “The decision by the nation’s largest dairy co-op to leave IDFA — one of two major trade groups representing the U.S. dairy industry — represents a significant ag sector shakeup, just as farm bill negotiations are heating up in Congress.” — “The fracture within the dairy industry not only complicates the efforts to update the system for dairy farmers’ pay, but could hurt dairy’s lobbying clout on the Hill at a time when lawmakers are deciding how to fund federal risk management programs and other major farm bill policies that will shape the industry over the next five years.” — “IDFA acknowledged the departure of DFA and ‘several dairy cooperative members’ from its association,” though it did not disclose which other co-ops. “Land O'Lakes, another major U.S. dairy co-op, is no longer listed as a member on IDFA's website. Internet archives indicate it was on that list as recently as February. When asked whether the co-op was still a member of IDFA, a Land O'Lakes spokesperson said they would look into it but did not respond to follow-up questions.” OZEMPIC MAKER HIRES ARNOLD & PORTER: “Novo Nordisk, which makes the blockbuster weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, hired law and lobbying firm Arnold & Porter to try to convince policymakers to allow Medicare to cover anti-obesity medications,” POLITICO’s Megan Wilson reports. — “The high-cost medicines exploded in popularity when videos on TikTok highlighted the many celebrities taking them to lose weight. But their access to a key market — older Americans — is limited, as Medicare is banned from covering weight loss drugs as part of the Part D program.” — “Bipartisan lawmakers introduced legislation last Congress that would offer Medicare coverage for these drugs, but they have not reintroduced it. Recently retired Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), who sponsored the bill to allow for coverage, joined Arnold & Porter in February. However, ethics rules bar him from lobbying his former colleagues in Congress for one year.” — “The lobbyists working on the contract include Sonja Nesbit, who served as a senior HHS official during the Obama administration, and longtime GOP health care lobbyist Eugenia Pierson. Novo Nordisk spent a total of $4.6 million on lobbying the federal government last year, and $1.3 million in the first three months of 2023. The company and its six outside lobbying firms listed lobbying on obesity medicine coverage this year in disclosure forms.”
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