Off The Air

Healthcare Lobbyist Hosts Ben Nelson Fundraiser

One of the big questions left as healthcare reform moves toward the Senate floor is whether a small group of Democrats from red states, most with heavy ties to business, will attempt to filibuster the final bill. Among them is Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska), who reportedly was telling folks back home he would not filibuster in June, but now might help block a vote.

Just in time to celebrate this change of heart, Nelson's having a little get-together tomorrow, hosted by a former Republican Congressman and a health insurance lobbyist... and you're invited!* 

The Sunlight Foundation obtained an invite for the event, which is being held at the "UPS Townhouse", a popular place for these kinds of functions.

So what's it all about? Perhaps getting to know our hosts a little better would help:

• Amy Tejral- once Nelson's Legislative Director, Tejral has found more lucrative work representing insurers like Aetna, United Health Group, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Bravo Health and pharmaceutical giant Medco at lobby-shop Avenue Solutions, which specializes in "creating opportunities the private sector needs in Washington."  As the firm's website says: "We maintain relationships for the long haul and for the hot issue... Among Democrats, we have relationships with all the key players, from the Leadership, to Committees, to the newest Members." 
• Henry Bonilla- a former Republican Congressman from Texas, now a lobbyist for The Norman Group.
• Sheryl Bonilla- wife of Henry, who lobbies for UPS on Healthcare, among other issues.

Should be an interesting event, particularly because there's no telling who the guests, each ponying up $1000 for lunch, will be. It's a safe bet, however, that more than a few of them will have some involvement with the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, looking to curry favor with show their steadfast support for Senator Ben. 

*If you've got $1000 to donate to Nelson's 2012 Senate bid.

Update 1: Turns out that Nelson was working very hard today to wreck the public option by reviving "triggers". Sure to please at least a few of tomorrow's donors.

Getting Harder to Track Lobbying

OMB Watch and the Center for Responsive Politics have published an important report on the very high volume of lobbying "deregistrations" in recent months and what it means:

The OMB Watch-CRP study found 1,418 "deregistrations" of federally registered lobbyists during the second quarter of 2009, a marked increase for any reporting period during all of 2008 and 2009. This occurred shortly after President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13490, which created new restrictions on former lobbyists appointed to the executive branch. Guidance was then issued in March which marks the start of the 2nd quarter reporting, which enacted a gift ban and further restricted the kind of communications lobbyists could have about stimulus and TARP funds. Via a recent blog post, the White House also announced, “it is our aspiration that federally registered lobbyists not be appointed to agency advisory boards and commissions,” a practice that is common today...

The study also indicates that since the beginning of 2008, the number of lobbyists filing termination reports has generally outpaced the number of newly active lobbyists – a trend that considerably accelerated during this year's second quarter. All told, there have been 18,315 lobbyist termination reports filed since January 2008. Meanwhile, only 15,310 lobbyists became active again after previously filing termination reports. This leaves a total of 3,005 lobbyists who have effectively “deregistered,” of which more than half (1,691) have come since April 2009.

This might be the report's most important finding (emphasis mine):

Another troubling issue highlighted by the organizations is that the thousands of lobbyists who appear to have left their line of work may not have actually done so. At the federal level, many people working in the lobbying industry are not registered lobbyists, instead adopting titles such as "senior advisor" or other executive monikers, thereby avoiding federal disclosure requirements under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

Chevron Drops By The White House

Mother Jones reporter Kate Sheppard has a good post out today about how Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson has been visiting the White House-- three times in recent months-- and questioning why he's meeting high-ranking officials while his company is trying to discredit climate change. 

However, in a quick review of White House visitor records, I've found he's not the only energy exec who dropped by, nor the most frequent.

The winner: Chevron's CEO, David J. O'Reilly, who dropped by for five meetings with high-ranking administration officials:

• On February 10, 2009: a meeting with Larry Summers (plus one).
• On February 10, 2009: a meeting with Carol Browner  (plus two).
• On February 13, 2009: a member of the audience for the Business Council Speech.
• On September 17, 2009: a meeting with Rahm Emanuel, one-on-one.
• On September 18, 2009: a meeting with Larry Summers (plus two).

In fact, Rex Tillerson met with Carol Browner two days after O'Reilly, while both men attended the same Business Council speech on February 13th. Tillerson's other White House visit, to see Larry Summers, came in mid-May.

While Chevron might be a bit ahead of Exxon on climate change (in accepting global warming is caused by man), it still labels climate change "a complex subject" about which "uncertainties still exist... such as predictions of future warming and impacts of that warming, pace of technology advancement and forecasts of economic and population growth." With respect to the Kyoto Protocol, Chevron thinks it "asks for emission reductions that are too aggressive too quickly," and doesn't believe "the economic consequences are fully outlined."

Which says nothing of the absolutely terrible behavior Chevron has exhibited in a dispute over its liability for pollution in Ecuador. One Chevron lobbyist actually told Newsweek:

 "We can't let little countries screw around with big companies like this—companies that have made big investments around the world."

All of which makes it necessary to ask: what does meeting with Tillerson and O'Reilly contribute to crafting energy or climate change policy? And what was that one-on-one with Rahm on September 17 all about?

--

Here's some more on Chevron's Ecuador entanglements, via 60 Minutes:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Today's TIME magazine/Aspen Institute Lobbying Salon

For most of today, TIME magazine and the Aspen Institute ran a conference on healthcare reform just a few blocks from the Capitol, an event funded by lobbying group PhRMA and foreign pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. The "symposium" was billed as "a series of can't miss conversations" featuring "Tom Daschle, Richard Gephardt and other health care leaders to diagnose health care reform battle in final days of the debate."

Instead, this TIME/Aspen Institute event was a who's who of the pharmaceutical industry lobby, with Tom Daschle thrown in for good measure. Not only did the event welcome lobbyists and their opinions with open arms and little disclosure, it literally acted as an on-the-clock opportunity for Gephardt to lobby. 

How do I know? Gephardt has said just as much on his firm's website, which states, "on behalf of our client CAMI, Dick Gephardt joined other health care leaders to diagnose health care reform." Good luck finding a reference to the PhRMA offshoot CAMI anywhere in the Aspen Institute/TIME magazine promotional materials, however.

In fact, here's the description the organizers offer for the panel discussion with Gephardt, moderated by a TIME "senior editor", titled "The Payoff of Medical Research Reform":

Medical science research holds great promise in the delivery of cures and the prospects for economic recovery. How do we maintain a focus on innovation and risk-taking even as we seek to avoid more expensive health care? Our panelists discuss the potential of biomedical research beyond the act of discovery.

Note there's no reference there to the actual payoff going on-- Gephardt's take home from presenting his lobbying agenda (You can find more information on CAMI  and Gephardt's work for them in my recent feature in The Nation).

A few months back, many in Washington's press corps were giddy to eviscerate The Washington Post for a proposed series of off-the-record "salons" between reporters, government officials and lobbyists at publisher Katharine Weymouth's mansion. Certainly, the Post deserved the criticism. However, it is events like this TIME/Aspen Institute "symposium" that do the real damage, allowing lobbyists, veiled in the establishment authority of TIME magazine and the non-partisan non-profit credibility of the Aspen Institute, to get a public stage from which to share their biased, self-serving "expertise". As a means of shaping public perception, that's far more powerful than any private get-together between reporters, lobbyists or government officials-- something that happens, salon or no salon, on a daily basis in DC anyway. 

So, while TIME and the Aspen Institute have done something shameful and compromising (even in simply pairing themselves with a large lobbying group like PhRMA), don't expect to hear anything about it from the Washington press corps, with the exception of glowing reviews in tomorrow's papers describing how these "healthcare leaders" earnestly discussed reform.