MORE NEW BUSINESS: Facial recognition software provider Clearview AI has hired its first lobbyists. The company brought on Klein/Johnson Group, the firm founded by aides to Schumer and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to provide “education” about facial recognition technology, according to a disclosure filing. — A bill introduced last month by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) aimed at barring government agencies from buying location data from third-party brokers without a warrant or if the data was “obtained from a user’s account or device, or via deception, hacking, violations of a contract, privacy policy, or terms of service,” which Wyden said would disqualify Clearview, has 20 bipartisan co-sponsors in the Senate. — The grocery delivery app Instacart has registered its first in-house lobbyists. The team includes retail lobbying vet and director of federal affairs Belinda Garza Hartwig, a former vice president of economic development at the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, and Christina Lotspike, a former vice president of government affairs for transportation and technology at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. BP SAYS IT WILL STICK WITH TRADE GROUPS AFTER PROGRESS ON CLIMATE: “Energy giant BP endorsed carbon pricing and other climate policy steps taken by five leading industry trade groups, including Washington’s top oil and gas lobby, and said it would continue its membership in the organizations,” POLITICO’s Lorraine Woellert reports. “In its annual sustainability report, BP said it would retain membership in the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Institute of Petroleum Producers, and the Australian Institute of Petroleum,” citing their progress on climate issues including several of the groups’ reversals on opposing carbon pricing. — “We’ve been working to influence those associations to be more progressive on climate and in our latest update we’re pleased to report that they all have made considerable progress,” the company said in a written statement. “We will continue to be transparent where we differ, and if we find we no longer hold influence and are unable to reconcile our views, we will be prepared to leave,” it wrote in its report. MARIJUANA ADVOCACY FLOURISHES IN WASHINGTON: The Wall Street Journal’s Julie Bykowicz reports on how “cannabis companies, banks and new marijuana trade organizations are deploying platoons of lobbyists to state capitals and Washington, D.C., to help shape the ground rules for the industry as more states legalize use, and as Congress weighs measures that could further legitimize the market. — “A decade ago, a handful of pro-pot companies and interest groups spent less than a half-million dollars on federal lobbying. By 2019, there were dozens of supporters, and they spent more than $8 million to hire about 130 registered lobbyists, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of public lobbying disclosures. — “Federal lobbying on cannabis declined last year amid the coronavirus pandemic and presidential election, but this year’s first-quarter reports show spending is rebounding … as states are developing their own rules for recreational use and Democrats in Washington say they will soon push to decriminalize marijuana federally.” BIDEN TAPS FORMER REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH LOBBYIST TO RUN HHS OFFICE: “The Biden administration has hired Jessica Marcella, an abortion rights advocate, to run the HHS office overseeing policy on abortion, contraception and sexually transmitted infections,” POLITICO’s Alice Marie Ollstein reports. — Marcella was most recently vice president of advocacy at the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, for which she was registered to lobby until 2018, according to a series of amendments filed by the group in February. She “started Monday as the deputy assistant secretary for population affairs,” marking “a sharp departure from the Trump administration’s staffing of anti-abortion advocates atop the HHS population affairs office.” TOP ED: In a piece in The Washington Post on Sunday, Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub rebuked two of her GOP counterparts, Sean Cooksey and Trey Trainor, for invoking “prosecutorial discretion” in dismissing the commission’s probe into former President Donald Trump’s role in a hush-money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. — “The courts have turned ‘prosecutorial discretion’ into magic words that render any administrative decision invulnerable to appeal,” Weintraub argued, and called for the full D.C. Circuit to take up a case, CREW v. FEC (New Models) , in which a split panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C. recently upheld a lower court ruling that the case be dismissed. Weintraub urged the court to “close this gaping loophole.” — “Here’s the reality otherwise,” she wrote. “Republican commissioners continue to deem a breathtaking variety of campaign finance law violations as not worth our time — modest violations, medium-size violations or, in this case, a serious and well-documented violation committed by the former president who appointed them to their positions. That’s not prosecutorial discretion deserving of judicial deference. It’s an abandonment of responsibility that shouldn’t be tolerated.” FLYING IN: The News Media Alliance, a trade group that represents newspapers and digital news outlets, will host its virtual fly-in over the next three days, dispatching executives representing Advance Publications, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Boston Globe, CNHI, Gannett, the Los Angeles Times, McClatchy, Tampa Bay Times/Times Publishing, Trib Total Media and Tribune Publishing Company to meet with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle about legislation to let news publishers and broadcasters collectively bargain with tech platforms like Google and Facebook. BIDEN PLUGS PRO ACT BUT SKIPS OVER TAX HIKES IN REMARKS AT INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK KICK OFF: In pre-recorded remarks played this afternoon during an infrastructure week kickoff event for the advocacy group United for Infrastructure, the president argued that the group’s partnership between business groups and unions shows “that infrastructure isn’t Democratic versus Republican, business versus labor [or] energy versus the environment.” — But speaking just after Chamber CEO Suzanne Clark and AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka , Biden failed to mention his administration’s plan to pay for the massive infrastructure package he’s proposed, and one of the key sticking points between the administration and business interests: tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy. — Though he didn’t directly challenge opposition to the plan’s pay-fors among some of United for Infrastructure’s members, which include businesses and business groups like the Chamber and Business Roundtable , Biden did lay down a marker on the Democrats’ labor overhaul bill, the PRO Act, which is just as fiercely opposed by business groups as it is supported by unions. — “American tax dollars are going to be used to buy American products to create American jobs. We want these to be jobs that you can raise a family on. That's why my plan asks Congress to pass” the PRO Act, he said. “And all of you listening, business, labor advocates, elected officials, you know how much this matters, how much it will help our people and our businesses succeed. You know the difference it will make in our lives today, in our economy tomorrow, in our global competitiveness well in the future.” | 
