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Presented by the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future: Delivered daily, Influence gives you a comprehensive rundown and analysis of all lobby hires and news on K Street. | | | | | |  | | By Theodoric Meyer | Presented by |  | | | With Daniel Lippman RESTAURANTS APPEAL FOR MORE AID: Restaurateurs spent most of last year successfully lobbying Congress to create a fund to aid restaurants battered by the pandemic. Now they’re mounting another lobbying campaign seeking more money, even as Congress turns its attention to President Joe Biden ’s infrastructure proposal and as Covid relief legislation recedes from the congressional agenda. — The Restaurant Revitalization Fund has received more than 300,000 applications for aid since it started accepting them earlier this month. The deadline to apply is May 24, the Small Business Administration, which administers the fund, announced on Thursday. Restaurant lobbyists say it’s already clear that the $28.6 billion in relief funds now available aren’t nearly enough. Erika Polmar, the Independent Restaurant Coalition’s executive director, said restaurants need as much as $160 billion. — While indoor dining restrictions are being rolled back and the weather in much of the country is increasingly hospitable to eating outdoors, many restaurants are deeply in debt and struggling with back rent that’s coming due, lobbyists said. “Two good months doesn’t make up for more than a year of being closed,” Polmar said. Restaurants are “turning their lights back on with a lot of debt, a lot of loss and a very uncertain future,” said Sean Kennedy, the National Restaurant Association's top lobbyist. — Restaurant lobbyists have already been pressing lawmakers to appropriate more money, but they’re preparing to make a renewed push once the fund stops accepting applications next week. Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who worked on the original relief bill, are trying to determine how much more money is needed, according to Danielle Cohen, a Blumenauer spokesperson. — “The lawmakers are looking at outstanding need, number of applicants, and what the appetite is in both chambers for legislation to replenish the fund,” Cohen wrote in an email to PI. “They haven’t settled on a specific number yet, but are getting very close.” | | A message from the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future: NEW STUDY: The number of uninsured Americans would fall significantly under an enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) model – providing the latest evidence that the most effective way to expand access to affordable, high-quality health coverage and care is to build on and improve what’s working. Get the facts. | | | Good afternoon and welcome to PI. I’m filling in for Caitlin, who’s off until June 1. Send me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free — and also your tips: tmeyer@politico.com. Here’s Percy Shelley to enliven your afternoon. You can also follow me on Twitter: @theodoricmeyer. ACG ADDS A DEMOCRAT: ACG Advocacy has hired Roberto Fierro as a partner, filling the gap in the firm’s Democratic lineup opened up when Eriade Williams left the firm for theGROUP earlier this year. He was previously a lobbyist for BSA | The Software Alliance and before that worked for D&P Creative Strategies. He told PI he expects to focus on lobbying House Democrats at ACG. FRENCH REGISTERS TO LOBBY FOR MORE THAN A DOZEN AT COZEN: Towner French, who recently left Capitol Counsel to join Cozen O’Connor, has registered for 13 lobbying clients at his new firm, according to disclosure filings. He’ll lobby for two of them, Firstfloor and the Everglades Trust, as a subcontractor to Capitol Counsel. An additional six are clients he represented at Capitol Counsel, and the remaining five — the Cleaning Coalition of America, Compology, the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, Withum Smith+Brown and Young Living Essential Oils — are new clients. TRADE GROUP BACKING HASN’T SHIFTED POLITICS OF CARBON TAX: “For years, opposition from corporations helped prevent any carbon pricing plans from gaining traction in Congress, but now the business lobby has changed its tune,” POLITICO’s Anthony Adragna, Marie French, Debra Kahn and Lorraine Woellert report. “The American Petroleum Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers and American Chemistry Council have all endorsed carbon pricing as a means of controlling emissions. And all say they are actively lobbying Congress to adopt a pricing scheme. So far, however, they have little to show for the effort.” — “‘All this work and time and energy has been put into getting the business community to the table, and we are now. And nobody wants to do it anymore,’ said Ross Eisenberg, vice president of federal affairs at the American Chemistry Council.” FARA CASE DEFENDANTS SHAKE UP THEIR LEGAL TEAMS: Two wealthy, well-connected targets of a Justice Department investigation into potential Foreign Agents Registration Act violations recently shook up their legal teams, according to court records, Josh Gerstein reports. — The moves by the Republican megadonor Elliott Broidy and Nickie Lum Davis , a Hawaii-based businessperson, were prompted, at least in part, by a mysterious court ruling partially unsealed in December and by news reports that identified some of the key players in it, people familiar with the matter said. — Broidy and Davis both pleaded guilty last year to felony charges that they worked together to violate FARA by failing to report that they were taking millions from Malaysian businessperson Jho Low for their efforts to get the Justice Department to drop a long-running investigation into Low. JOBS REPORT — Former Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Ind.) will be a co-chair of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition’s Indiana Advisory Committee, serving alongside former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.). — The Treasury Department has hired Antonio White as deputy assistant secretary for the office of community engagement, per Playbook PM. He’ll lead Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s outreach to community, private sector and advocacy leaders. He was previously the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s senior communications officer for U.S. campaigns.
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| | | NCF-Dakota 2021 Committee (Dakota PAC, Next Century Fund)
Take Back the Senate (Sens. Lisa Murkowski, John Boozman, Marco Rubio, Chuck Grassley, Mike Crapo, Jerry Moran, Rand Paul, John Kennedy, John Hoeven, James Lankford, Tim Scott, John Thune, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson and Todd Young; AL Senate Republican Nominee Fund 2022; AZ Senate Republican Nominee Fund 2022; GA Senate Republican Nominee Fund 2022; NC Senate Republican Nominee Fund 2022; NH Senate Republican Nominee Fund 2022; NV Senate Republican Nominee Fund 2022; OH Senate Republican Nominee Fund 2022; PA Senate Republican Nominee Fund 2022; MO Senate Republican Nominee Fund 2022; NRSC) | | | Pennsylvania Young Conservatives (PAC)
| | | | A message from the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future:   | | |
| | New Lobbying Registrations | | Blank Rome LLP: Alterwood Health
Boundary Stone Partners: Stem, Inc.
Capitol Advocacy & Government Affairs, LLC: The Livingston Group (on behalf of Ayass Biosciences)
Capitol Advocacy & Government Affairs, LLC: The Livingston Group (on behalf of Ravensafe)
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: Capital Magnet Fund Coalition (ad hoc coalition)
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: Capitol Counsel LLC on behalf of Firstfloor
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: Capitol Counsel LLC on behalf of the Everglades Trust, Inc.
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: Cleaning Coalition of America
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: Compology
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: Florida Community Loan Fund
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: Manhattan Chamber of Commerce
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: National Disability Cdfi Coalition
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: Parsons & Whittemore Enterprises Corp.
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: PFM Financial Advisors LLC
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: Radnet, Inc.
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: Withum Smith+Brown
Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies: Young Living Essential Oils
CTF Global LLC (formerly filing as The Grossman Group, LLC): Idaho Scientific Corp.
CTF Global LLC (formerly filing as The Grossman Group, LLC): Northeastern University
Forbes-Tate: Reforming America's Taxes Equitably
Greenberg Traurig, LLP: Green Point Farms, LLC
Hobart Hallaway & Quayle Ventures, LLC: Fusion Industry Association
Holland & Knight LLP: Niron Magnetics
Manatt, Phelps, and Phillips: St. Barnabas Hospital
Mayer Brown LLP: Health Care Alliance For Patient Safety
O'Neill and Associates: National Braille Press, Inc.
O'Neill and Associates: The Trustees of Reservations
Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund, Inc.: Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund, Inc.
Sapphire Strategies, LLC: Emery Sapp & Sons
Sapphire Strategies, LLC: New Birth Company, LLC
Sapphire Strategies, LLC: The DC Project
Winning Strategies Washington: Genetworx
Winning Strategies Washington: Hope For Marian (NPC)
Winning Strategies Washington: Middlesex County, New Jersey
Winning Strategies Washington: Modern Nitrile LLC
Winning Strategies Washington: Sims Strategies (on behalf of Creighton University)
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| | New Lobbying Terminations | | CFT Global LLC (Formerly Filing As The Grossman Group, LLC): Coal Trading & Utilities Ltd
CTF Global LLC (Formerly Filing As The Grossman Group, LLC): First Cobalt Corp.
John M. Palatiello & Associates, Inc: Miller Wenhold Capitol Strategies on behalf of Project Management Institute
O'Neill and Associates: Town of Middletown | | A message from the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future: A new study on the impacts of expanding the Affordable Care Act finds that roughly 8.1 million (30 percent) and 9.6 million (34 percent) fewer people will be uninsured after the ACA enhancements in 2023 and 2032, respectively, helping more Americans access the care they need. Let’s build on what’s working, not start over. Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
