Nonprofits raise alarms about clawing back Biden stimulus money for infrastructure — API adds 3 — Children’s hospital advocates fly in (virtually)

From: POLITICO Influence - Monday Jun 14,2021 08:37 pm
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By Caitlin Oprysko

Presented by Tyson Foods

With Daniel Lippman

NONPROFITS RAISE ALARM ON CLAWING BACK STATE AND LOCAL COVID FUNDS: A trade association for charitable groups has added its voice to the chorus of warnings from cities and counties against repurposing unused state and local funds included in the March coronavirus relief package to pay for a bipartisan infrastructure proposal.

— “The State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds are unique in the federal response to the COVID crisis because they empower state and local decisionmakers to partner with nonprofits and businesses to target and solve specific challenges in communities,” which “cannot be said for many of the other relief programs enacted in 2020 and so far this year,” National Council of Nonprofits President and CEO Tim Delaney and board Chair Marnie Taylor wrote in a letter to congressional leadership today.

— “While supportive in many ways, federal relief for charitable organizations often has been less robust than for other segments of the economy,” the letter argues, describing a callout for nonprofits as potential beneficiaries in President Joe Biden’s coronavirus bill “was a welcome acknowledgment of the challenges” the sector continues to face. “Clawing back those funds would deny nonprofits their best and likely last chance to achieve any degree of parity and fairness,” Delaney and Taylor argue, given that the PPP program has run out of money.

— The warning comes as Clinton-era Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, as well as a group of Republican senators led by Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, proposed repurposing unused stimulus money in an offer to the White House last month, which Biden ultimately rejected before agreeing to hear out a compromise plan from a bipartisan group of senators. The idea swiftly sparked pushback from a group of Democratic state treasurers and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, National League of Cities and National Association of Counties, who expressed “adamant opposition to any proposal that would detrimentally recoup and repurpose funds allocated to local governments from” the March bill.

— In a separate statement, Delaney called the economic rebound “tenuous and incomplete” as vaccination rates rise and much of the country opens back up. He also contended that nonprofits need the assurance of the local aid to ensure that the sector, which is still down 770,000 jobs, according to Johns Hopkins University, is able to get back on its feet.

 

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Leading global protein company, Tyson Foods announced its ambition to achieve net-zero emissions globally by 2050. “Achieving net zero emissions has to be more than just words. It must be done together, rooted in science, so that we can truly make an impact,” said John R. Tyson, Chief Sustainability Officer, Tyson Foods. Learn more about the company’s primary focus areas to get there here.

 

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API ADDS 3: The American Petroleum Institute brought on Amy Travieso Loveng, Alex Dominguez and Owen McDonough to its federal relations team. Travieso Loveng was most recently chief of staff for Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and is an American Hotel & Lodging Association and U.S. Chamber of Commerce alum. Dominguez was an adviser at EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation and previously worked for former congressman and current Ohio gubernatorial candidate Jim Renacci. McDonough was director of regulatory and scientific affairs at The Fertilizer Institute and is also an EPA alum.

CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL ADVOCATES ON THE HILL: Nearly 50 families of patients at the nation’s children’s hospitals are kicking off a week of virtual advocacy today on behalf of the Children’s Hospital Association , which represents hundreds of children’s hospitals across the country. The advocates will focus in particular on bolstering support for pediatric mental health care, an issue that was only exacerbated over the past year by the coronavirus pandemic, by calling for an extension of the pediatric health safety net, and growing capacity and improving access to such care.

HOW THE WHITE HOUSE HAS NAVIGATED THE ETHICS QUANDARY OF THE RICCHETTI BROS.: “When President Biden flew to Detroit last month to highlight his infrastructure plans for a new network of electric car-charging stations, a White House official announced on Air Force One that senior counselor Steve Ricchetti had stayed behind to negotiate the bill with Republicans,” The Washington Post’s Michael Scherer and Sean Sullivan write. “Left unmentioned was that Ricchetti’s brother, Jeff Ricchetti, was also working on the infrastructure bill as a lobbyist for General Motors, hired” to lobby the House, Senate and Commerce Department on funding for charging stations.

 

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— As the president has pledged to “restore ethics in government,” White House ethics lawyers have required Steve Ricchetti “to recuse himself from involvement with ‘particular matters’ for four companies that paid his brother to lobby Biden’s executive office — pharmaceutical firms GlaxoSmithKline, Vaxart Inc. and Horizon Therapeutics, as well as TC Energy, the company that oversaw the now-canceled Keystone XL pipeline project — according to a White House official briefed on the arrangement.”

— Under the administration’s ethics guidance, “Jeff Ricchetti’s work with General Motors did not trigger a recusal for his brother, both because his lobbying targeted a Cabinet agency and not the Executive Office of the President, and because the issue of electric charging stations applied broadly to the car industry and was not considered a matter specific to the company,” a White House official told the paper. Meanwhile, Jeff Ricchetti, who saw his first-quarter lobbying revenue quintuple compared with 2020, told the paper he will no longer lobby the White House Office.

MORE FAMILY TIES: Steve Ricchetti’s son has landed a job at Treasury, CNBC’s Brian Schwartz reports. “The Treasury Department said Monday that J.J. Ricchetti … would be a special assistant in the office of legislative affairs. The announcement gave no details on what the role would entail, nor did it refer to whom J.J. Ricchetti is related. It only says that he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania last year with a bachelor’s degree in political science.”

— “A Biden White House official, who declined to be named in order to speak on the matter, said the administration hired Ricchetti’s son after he volunteered on the campaign. Because the post is an entry level position at Treasury, the official stressed that it would not involve collaborating with senior White House officials.”

EXPLAINING DRUG PRICING CRITICS’ SILENCE ON ALZHEIMER’S THERAPY: “The FDA’s approval of an expensive new Alzheimer’s therapy would seem like the perfect candidate for inflaming Washington’s long-running debate over sky-high prescription drug prices,” POLITICO’s Susannah Luthi and Rachel Roubein report. “But hardly anybody on Capitol Hill is talking about it, worried they’ll be seen as dashing desperate patients’ hope for an Alzheimer’s treatment — even one that may provide little or no benefit.”

— “The FDA’s controversial approval of Biogen’s drug, known as aducanumab or Aduhelm, has caught both political parties flat-footed amid a high-stakes legislative battle over drug pricing reform this summer.” Chalk it up to the severity, complexity and breadth of the disease, which “afflicts roughly 6 million Americans and levies a harsh toll on their families” and “makes it difficult for even many of pharma’s Democratic critics on the Hill to cry foul.”

— “Patient advocacy groups for years lobbied hard for Aduhelm’s approval after seeing many other candidates fail over the years. … For Republicans, the weak evidence for Aduhelm’s efficacy makes it harder to tout the treatment as an example of the breakthrough cures that they argue Democratic drug pricing proposals would stifle.”

 

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Jobs Report

Chamber of Progress has hired Koustubh “K.J.” Bagchi, most recently at New America’s Open Technology Institute, as senior director of federal public policy. Montana Williams will join the chamber as director of state and local public policy, and Chris Mackenzie will join as director of communications.

Debbie Curtis is joining McDermott+Consulting as a vice president focused on health policy after three decades divided between work on the Hill and health insurance groups, Morning Pulse reports. Curtis was a key Democratic congressional staffer during development of the Affordable Care Act, and most recently served as chief of staff to Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) and as staffer for the House Ways & Means subcommittee on health.

Lara Muldoon is joining the Information Technology Industry Council as senior director of government affairs, working on tax issues. She was most recently a senior tax and economic adviser to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and is an Amy Klobuchar, Barbara Mikulski and Treasury alum.

Glen Echo Group has added Brad Williamson as a senior director, Danielle Leopold as a senior associate and Kylie Fronczak as an associate. Williamson was most recently a director at strategic communications firm Pinkston , and Leopold was most recently a senior associate at Subject Matter.

New Joint Fundraisers

Democratic Leadership 2022 (Reps. Juan Vargas, Ritchie Torres, Grace Meng, Jake Auchincloss, Shontel Brown for Congress)
Tim Ryan Victory Fund 2022 (Rep. Tim Ryan, Ohio Democratic Party, America 2.0 PAC)

New PACs

Beyond Finance Employee Political Action Committee (PAC)
Massachusetts Students for Progress (Super PAC)
OHIO WOMEN RISING (Super PAC)
Project 55 (Super PAC)
San Tan Valley Democrats (PAC)
Team PAC (Super PAC)

 

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New Lobbying Registrations

Ambessa Solutions LLC: Guinean American League Of Friends For Freedom, Inc
Ballard Partners: Discovery Communications, LLC
Carpi & Clay, Inc.: Harris County
Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP: Brulin Holding Company
Invariant LLC: Accenture Federal Services LLC
Invariant LLC: Accenture LLP
Kit Bond Strategies: Public Strategies Washington On Behalf Of Grand Trunk Corporation
McDermott+Consulting LLC: The Permanente Federation

 

A message from Tyson Foods:

Tyson Foods announced its ambition to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally by 2050. The move to net zero is an expansion of the company’s current science-based target of achieving a 30% GHG emissions reduction by 2030.

“Achieving net zero emissions has to be more than just words. It must be done together, rooted in science, so that we can truly make an impact.” said John R. Tyson, Chief Sustainability Officer, Tyson Foods.

As a first step, the company will be focusing in on key areas including:
• Updating baseline emissions target to align with the Paris Agreement by 2023.
• Establishing a pathway to using 50% renewable energy in the U.S. by 2030.
• Expanding land stewardship targets and grazing lands program by 2025.
• Eliminating deforestation risk globally by 2030.

Learn more about how the company plans to get there here.

 
New Lobbying Terminations

Fdj Solutions, LLC: The Mirram Group LLC (On Behalf Of Open Society Foundation)

 

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