Dawson Hobbs, left, and Michael Bilello, right, of the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America, which is lobbying for a tax break in the GOP’s tax and policy measure.

Photo by Kate Ackley

Republicans’ mega tax and budget measure holds huge promise for many clients, but lobbyists in some sectors are doing damage control. Neither side can take a pause.

Here’s a look at some with the most to gain or lose as House Republicans work to tee up a floor vote today and their counterparts in the Senate gear up for their turn. Of course, today’s losers can end up winner, and vice versa, in the final deal.

The Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America are among the lobbying groups toasting the package for making permanent and expanding a pass-through deduction for business owners.

Dawson Hobbs, the group’s chief lobbyist, said it’s a policy push seven years in the making. It included hosting lawmakers at member-company facilities to highlight how business owners were using the temporary deduction included in the 2017 tax overhaul, he said.

• “Right now, we’re in a very good place,” said Hobbs, who said it benefits Main Street, family businesses that are a priority for Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.).

“The corner store or the roofers, the contractors, the bakers, the people that are really the backbone of a local community, those are all pass-through businesses for the most part,” he said.

It’s not over yet.

“This is a long process,” Hobbs said, noting that the group’s members, in town last week, held meetings in Senate and House offices.

“We’ll be having individual meetings. It’ll be an old fashioned shoe leather lobbying campaign. We’ll be up there talking to senators,” he said.

Higher education: Colleges with big endowments face a major increase in the taxes paid on investment income, up to 21% for the largest.

It’s hardly the only problem for universities. Harvard is locked in a fight with the Trump administration over its tax-exempt status and federal funding for research projects.

“Higher education is dealing with a significantly shifting landscape,” said Loren Monroe, a principal at BGR Group, which this year signed on Columbia University, University of Michigan, University of California, and the University of Wisconsin.

Schools increasingly are “engaging directly with Congress and agencies” to defend their funding and even to find opportunities, Monroe said.

Solar and other renewable energy companies are lobbying to retain tax benefits

(Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP)

Energy credits: Elimination and limits on tax credits for renewable energy, electric vehicles and related technology are driving a lot of business for lobbyists whose clients want to keep those in place.

• “A lot of our clients on the energy side, have built business models around clean energy credits,” said Stewart Verdery, founder of Monument Advocacy.

As negotiations continue, some companies that rely on those credits may be looking to get “half a loaf” while for others half a loaf “doesn’t keep the doors open,” said Verdery, whose firm’s registered lobbying clients include Maxeon Solar Technologies Ltd. and Johnson Matthey Inc., a sustainable technologies company, this year.

Some lobbyists are already bailing on the House and putting their efforts into swaying the Senate.

“Our focus is lodging our displeasure with the House and working with the Senate to fix these credits so they’re usable for industry,” said Ben Steinberg, an executive vice president at Venn Strategies, who also acts as the spokesman for the Battery Materials and Technology Coalition.

“We have language we’re working on,” he said. The coalition is working with other firms and trade associations. “We’re at the end of the beginning.”

PhRMA fight: A long-running, high-dollar fight between the pharmaceutical industry and pharmacy benefit managers is also playing out in the tax and budget bill. The measure includes some of the changes that Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America has sought — and that the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association has opposed.

Proposals, including new requirements for pharmacy benefit managers in Medicare and Medicaid programs, “would help address some of the real drivers for why American patients pay more, and we hope that Congress gets these reforms over the finish line,” said PhRMA spokesperson Sarah Ryan in an email statement.

Greg Lopes, a spokesperson for PCMA, said the measure would increase costs for seniors and taxpayers “while handing big drug companies a massive profit windfall.”

Welcome to the latest edition of Power Play, Bloomberg Government’s newsletter on the lobbying, money, and people moving Capitol Hill’s agenda from the outside.

Reach out with tips, news, complaints, and most importantly all your exclusives: kackley@bloombergindustry.com.

Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) will be the special guest at a fundraiser next week for Rep. Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.),at a resort in Sedona, Ariz.

(Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Lobbyists and lawmakers, still in the round-the-clock throes of Republicans’ tax and budget legislation, have their eyes on far-flung fundraisers scheduled for the Memorial Day recess.

Chairman Jason Smith is billed as a special guest at a Tuesday event in Sedona, Ariz., for Rep. Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.), a Ways and Means member. The fundraiser is slated to take place at the Enchantment Resort, according to invites making the rounds on K Street.

• The resort, featuring an outdoor pool “oasis” surrounded by Boynton Canyon, offers casita guestrooms and suites with private decks and views of the canyon, the resort’s website says. For that night rooms range from a little under a $1,000 to $3,200.

On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Jim Clyburn’s leadership PAC is planning an annual Memorial Day weekend trip in his home state of South Carolina, according to invitations. Clyburn’s Building Relationships in Diverse Geographic Environments, or BRIDGE, PAC had $265,000 cash on hand at the end of last year and had donations from the PACs of Amazon.com, Johnson & Johnson, and Walmart Inc., according to federal disclosures.

New PAC: The Center for AI Safety Action Fund, which bills itself as a nonpartisan advocacy organization focused on artificial intelligence and national security threats, started an affiliated new federal PAC, Bloomberg Government’s Greg Giroux spots. Varun Krovi, who directs government relations for the group and was previously chief of staff to then-Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.), is the PAC’s treasurer, according to a federal campaign filing.

First in Power Play: Whit Askew, a former House GOP leadership aide, and Cedric Grant, a former chief of staff to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), will take the reins of Avoq’s government relations operation from managing partners Steve Elmendorf and Jimmy Ryan.

Elmendorf and Ryan, both former top Democratic congressional aides and longtime lobbyists, will continue to focus on client lobbying and expanding the business, the firm shared first with Power Play.

Republican Whit Askew, left, and Democrat Cedric Grant, right, are running the government relations division at Avoq.

Photo courtesy of Avoq

Askew, who worked for then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said the moves were “a natural piece of the longterm puzzle in terms of Avoq’s growth.”

Askew was formerly the top lobbyist at the American Gaming Association and has run the Economic Investment Alliance, a tax policy coalition. Grant focuses on outreach to House Democratic leadership and the Congressional Black Caucus and previously was the lead Democratic in-house lobbyist for H&R Block.

• “Our approach is a blend of experience but also strategic insights and seeing around corners to help clients moving forward,” Askew said. “We’re excited to be part of that next chapter.”

It’s environmental groups v. organized labor and a local utility in an intense lobbying effort targeting western New York state lawmakers over the future of the state’s natural gas use, reports Zach Williams.

The wrangling is over legislation that would mandate the state utility regulator and gas companies plan for future reductions in gas consumption while potentially capping energy costs for low-income people. The measure is among the most contentious in the final weeks of the session in Albany that ends in mid-June.

The lobbying war stretches from the halls of the state Capitol to cyberspace with western New York legislators a key focus of efforts from advocacy groups such as Earthjustice and the Sierra Club as well as bill opponents including National Fuel and the New York State AFL-CIO, according to public records.

Opponents of state legislation that would urge reduction of gas consumption cite the December 2022 winter storm, pictured above, in Buffalo, as a cautionary tale.

(Photo by JOED VIERA/AFP via Getty Images)

One provision of the bill would require utilities to create plans within one year to identify residential areas where renewable energy could replace gas service. That would endanger the reliability, maintenance and cost-effectiveness of the broader system still reliant on gas, according to Brian Welsch, a vice president at National Fuel.

• “The people in Buffalo, they remember what happened in the winter of 2022,” he said.

His company has spent at least $24,000 this year on lobbying state officials, including on the energy measure. The bill is also a target of the Business Council of New York State and the American Petroleum Institute, who respectively spend about $39,000 and $13,000 per month on their Albany lobbying efforts. Read More

Legislation to ban members of Congress from trading stock is gaining momentum.

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Advocates pushing for legislation to ban members of Congress from trading stocks said they see increasing momentum, including support from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), report Maeve Sheehey, Kate Ackley, and Lillianna Byington.

Ethics watchdog organizations, such as Public Citizen, have been lobbying for support, and the group’s lobbyist Craig Holman said bipartisan support for the effort, especially in the House, was a good sign for getting a ban enacted.

• “We’re working with the legislators to keep the language as strong as possible,” he said, adding that lawmakers haven’t sought to weaken the legislation. “So far, there isn’t a lot of resistance.”

Business lobbying groups have been mostly silent on the matter, at least so far. Lobbyists for financial industry stakeholders said it hadn’t become a topic of discussion downtown.

• Some on K Street said they do see downsides for Congress, not specifically for their clients.

A ban on company stock trades could make it more difficult to recruit congressional candidates who understand financial markets or who don’t want to give up their ability to make such transitions, said former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), who once ran House Republicans’ campaign arm.

Lawmakers “have to disclose everything they do now, so all their trades are under disclosure and the voters can decide,” said Davis, now a lobbyist at Holland & Knight. “It’s great politics — everybody likes to beat up on Congress. But I don’t know that it gives you any better policy.” Read More

Checkmate Government Relations, a firm with links to the Trump administration and Capitol Hill Republicans, signed on a slate of new clients including Alexander von Furstenberg and the Florida law firm Patino & Associates, lobbying disclosures show.

For von Furstenberg, who is in private equity, the firm registered to lobby on “issues regarding retirement,” a filing said. The firm disclosed lobbying for the son of fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg but did not provide more details beyond the filing.

Ballard Partners registered to lobby for the Alexander von Furstenberg family in December, according to a disclosure. The family paid Ballard Partners $120,000 in fees through the first quarter for lobbying the White House and Senate on retirement issues.

Checkmate’s other new clients, according to disclosures this week, are:

• Eversheds Sutherland LLP
• Monte Valle Energy LLC
• Morgan Hughes Energy
• RIL USA, Inc.

Checkmate, a North Carolina firm, opened a Washington office this year and disclosed about $1 million in federal lobbying revenue in the first quarter.

K Street colleagues are remembering Gary Lytle, a co-founder of the GOP firm now known as the CGCN Group, who died May 14 after being diagnosed with an aggressive leukemia, according to the firm’s Steve Clark.

Lytle, who was 82, had a long career in lobbying, including in-house at Michigan Bell and the US Telecom Association where he once served as interim president and CEO. He formed Lytle Consulting before teaming with Clark in Clark & Lytle where clients included the American Bankers Association.

• “Born in Detroit, Michigan, Gary remained a proud son of the Great Lakes state throughout his life,” Clark wrote in an email tribute. “A dedicated alumnus of Michigan State University, he earned both his bachelor’s degree and MBA there, all while excelling as a varsity athlete in both basketball and baseball.”

That’s where he got his nickname Tall Man, Clark said.

Lytle was a “bridge-builder” in the oftentimes partisan business of government affairs, he added.