lampkin, marc
<div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/how-trumps-trade-war-is-making-lobbyists-rich-and-devastating-small-businesses"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/how-trumps-trade-war-is-making-lobbyists-rich-and-devastating-small-businesses</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>How Trump’s trade war is making lobbyists rich — and devastating small businesses</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Lydia DePillis / Pro Publica January 6, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mike Elrod voted for Donald Trump in 2016, hoping for a break from tight government oversight that his business had endured for years, which he often found unreasonable.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There was a time when every day I dreaded opening the mail,” said Elrod, who founded a small firm in South Carolina called Eccotemp that makes energy-efficient, tankless water heaters. “The Department of Energy would put in an arbitrary rule and then come back the next day and say, ‘You’re not in compliance.’ We had no input into what was changing and when the change was taking place.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elrod also thought that big businesses had long been able to buy their way out of problems, either by spending lots of money on compliance or on lobbyists to look for loopholes and apply political pressure. Trump, of course, had promised to address that — to “drain the swamp.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elrod is in his mid-60s, tall with a white beard and deliberative drawl. He trusted the president even as Trump started a trade war with China, where Elrod manufactures his heaters. The administration said U.S. companies that could prove they had no other source for their imports and whose business would be gravely injured could be spared the punishing tariffs that Trump was imposing. They would simply have to file for an exemption.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I had every reason to believe they were talking about us,” Elrod said. Eccotemp had spent 15 years developing different models of tankless heaters with manufacturers in China. Simply finding new factories in other countries seemed impossible.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So in the summer of 2018, Elrod settled in at his desk, strewn with brass valves, a pressure tester and a smiling jade Buddha from a Chinese supplier, and began typing. He and his dozen U.S. employees — designers, engineers, salespeople and customer service representatives — operate out of a squat cinder block building in a woodsy suburb of Charleston that used to be a film studio and now doubles as a distribution warehouse.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In letters to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Elrod asked that gas-powered water heaters be exempted from the administration’s 25% tariffs, writing that the cost would be “devastating” for the company’s balance sheet. “We had all the boxes checked,” Elrod said. “Or so I thought.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The process didn’t go as he expected. It’s the stuff that libertarians like Elrod dread: Low-level staffers with limited industry knowledge issuing seemingly arbitrary decisions that can save or smash a company’s bottom line.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Every few weeks, a list comes out with a new batch of lucky winners, and losers. “Non-electrical wall candelabras, of wood, each with 3 wrought iron candle holders” received a pass, for example, but none with one or two candles.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is no mechanism for appeals.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Overall, Trump’s tariffs have not had the effect that the self-described “Tariff Man” promised. Companies have moved manufacturing out of China — and it has mostly gone to Vietnam, Taiwan and Mexico. Tariffs are chiefly behind a months-long decline in domestic manufacturing, Federal Reserve researchers have found. The total loss of jobs across the economy may be as high as 300,000.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But constantly up-in-the-air trade agreements and the byzantine, opaque exclusion process has been a blessing for one set of players: Washington’s influence industry, including the firms of former Trump officials and allies like inauguration committee chief Brian Ballard, former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Trump fundraiser Marc Lampkin.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ballard was once Trump’s lobbyist in Florida. He’s since been dubbed “the most powerful lobbyist in Trump’s Washington.” A cancer therapy firm, Varian Medical Systems, paid Ballard and a colleague $540,000 to lobby the White House, the trade office and Vice President Mike Pence on trade issues, filings show. The outreach included a meeting with Trump’s director of trade and manufacturing policy, Peter Navarro.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since then, four of Varian’s five exclusion requests have been approved — which, the company said in an SEC filing, boosted revenues by $23 million. (Navarro said he doesn’t intervene in the exclusion process.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Priebus’ firm, Michael Best Strategies, was hired by a Wisconsin company, Primex, to handle exemptions</b> for its timekeeping and temperature measurement devices. “You’re not gonna do it on your own,” Primex CEO Paul Shekoski said in an interview. “It’s suicide actually.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shekoski said he wanted help understanding the process and making sure all the requests were filed correctly. With Michael Best’s guidance, he personally wrote letters to and met with his representatives in Washington.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The collective effort may have made it all the way to the Oval Office. Shekoski said in an email last fall that he heard from his lobbyist at Michael Best, Denise Bode, that <b>Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.</b> cited Primex as an example of a Wisconsin company suffering from tariffs when the senator took the issue to the president. “He not only called USTR, he was able to bring our specific case up to Trump directly,” Shekoski said. Bode did not respond to a request for comment, and a Johnson spokesman did not respond to questions about the Trump contact, saying only that Johnson had advocated for many Wisconsin companies.</font></div></div></div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b><b /></b></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b><b>
</b></b></font></b></b></font></div>=<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b><b>
</b></b></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b><b>They're making use of the opportunity. A connected super PAC and nonprofit manned by lobbyists tied to<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Boehner</span> have
collectively received millions from interests in the insurance, drug,
energy and other industries. Big-money groups associated with<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> <font color="#FF0000">McConnell </font>have been funded by coal companies, insurers and hospitals.</span> Mining and gambling businesses have given directly to the super PAC associated with <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Reid</span>, which is staffed by two Reid confidantes,</b> one
of whom advises the lobby shop that represents those companies while
she also prepares to run the senator's 2016 re-election bid. All these
companies have hired lobbyists who are connected to those same lawmakers
as well as to the big-money groups and who are also working on issues
over which Congress has much sway. The groups they fund have spent big
to put and keep Boehner, McConnell and Reid in the driver’s seat.
<b>Tony
Podesta, a Democratic super lobbyist with the Podesta Group, told
HuffPost that he has encouraged his corporate clients to give to super
PACs and dark money nonprofits. “It’s unfortunate that we have the
decision Citizens United, but as long as that’s the law of the land,
then Democrats and Republicans are both active in these kinds of
endeavors,” he said.</b>
<b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Speaker John Boehner has close ties to the <font color="#FF0000">American Action Network</font>,</span>
a dark money nonprofit, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super
PAC. These groups raise funds from clients of lobbyists looking to
increase their own influence.</b>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
In the House of Representatives, Speaker Boehner maintains a tight network of former aides who have decamped to K Street. </span>Through
these aides, he is tied to a dark money nonprofit and related super PAC
that have spent millions to help him become speaker and to maintain and
expand his GOP majority. The House leadership's agenda regularly aligns
with that of the clients of the lobbyists who give to these groups.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The
two outside groups in the middle of Boehner’s web are the American
Action Network, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that does not have to disclose its
donors, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC operating
under AAN’s umbrella.</span>
The board of directors of AAN and Congressional Leadership Fund is lined with lobbyists and influencers including<b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">s</span>trategic
adviser<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Barry Jackson, a former chief of staff to Boehner who left his
office in 2012. Brownstein’s profile of Jackson, who is not registered
to lobby</span>, focuses heavily on his congressional and executive branch
connections and experience without mention of any particular policy
expertise.
<font color="#FF0000"><b>Also, Brownstein Hyatt employed former Boehner aide Marc Lampkin</b></font> as
managing director of its Washington lobbying office. His firm bio
declares him to be a proud member of “Team Boehner," and he is widely
seen as one of the speaker's closest advisers. He is also a lobbyist for
a number of interests that contribute to super PACs and nonprofits that
help Republicans in elections.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The Apollo Education Group, which owns and operates the for-profit University of Phoenix,</b> has donated $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund since 2012 while employing Lampkin to lobby on behalf of such schools</span>.
Boehner and his House Republicans have long been staunch supporters of
for-profit universities. In recent years, they have fought back against
federal regulations to rein in that industry, which relies hugely on its
students receiving federal grants and taxpayer-backed loans while it
fails to graduate those same students.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The CEO of pharmaceutical
giant Abbott Laboratories, another Lampkin client, gave $50,000 to the
Congressional Leadership Fund in 2012. </span>Boehner recently inaugurated a
new Abbott factory in his congressional district while opposing changes
to tax laws that allowed Abbott to purchase an overseas competitor in
2014 and turn itself into a multinational corporation to avoid U.S. tax
payments (the tactic, known as an inversion, has come under increasing
scrutiny).
Lampkin and another former Boehner aide, Sam Geduldig, have both registered to lobby for the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Property Casualty Insurers Association of America,</span>
a trade group for large insurance companies that has given $185,000 to
outside groups supporting Republicans since 2012. PCI’s contributions
include $25,000 each to the Congressional Leadership Fund and AAN.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The insurers group also pumped funds into the dark money network run by <b>Steven Law, a member of McConnell’s inner circle and a former general counsel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.</b> PCI
gave $75,000 to Crossroads GPS and $25,000 to the Kentucky Opportunity
Coalition.</span> Both groups are run by Law and spent millions to re-elect
McConnell in 2014. PCI also put money into super PACs supporting two
Republicans first elected to the Senate this past November: Joni Ernst
of Iowa and David Perdue of Georgia. Their seats were among the handful
McConnell needed his party to win in order for him to take the Senate’s
top spot.
"PCI participates in the political process like many
others and supports pro business and pro property & casualty
organizations,” Marguerite Tortorello, PCI's senior vice president for
public affairs, said in a statement.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Shortly after the 2014 election, the two top priorities of the insurers group and the broader<b> insurance industry </b>were rolled into one: A provision to roll back capital standards placed on insurance companies by the <b>Dodd-Frank</b> financial reform law was attached to the reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. </span>Although
that bill stalled last year, the new Congress in January passed a
terrorism insurance reauthorization with the capital standards rollback
attached -- with bipartisan support. An amendment from Sen. Elizabeth
Warren (D-Mass.) to strip the rollback measure failed.
<b>The
inability to pass legislation was a hallmark of the last Congress. But
one area where lawmakers forced swift action wound up being profitable
for the super PACs and nonprofits that support them.</b>
In April 2013, the <b>Federal Aviation Administration</b> announced
that it would be furloughing air traffic controllers throughout the
year due to the automatic budget cuts brought about by sequestration.
This would have led to flight delays, lost profits for the airline
industry and lost wages for controllers and pilots. Within a week of the
announcement, Congress passed legislation to ease the sequester cuts at
the FAA.</b></font><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">...</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">DELTA?</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The
inability to pass legislation was a hallmark of the last Congress. But
one area where lawmakers forced swift action wound up being profitable
for the super PACs and nonprofits that support them.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In April 2013, the <b>Federal Aviation Administration</b> announced
that it would be furloughing air traffic controllers throughout the
year due to the automatic budget cuts brought about by sequestration.
This would have led to flight delays, lost profits for the airline
industry and lost wages for controllers and pilots. Within a week of the
announcement, <a data-beacon="{" href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/04/congress-passes-bill-to-end-sequester-flight-delays/" target="_hplink">Congress passed legislation</a> to ease the sequester cuts at the FAA.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Lobbying
players who pushed Congress to act on the FAA also sent contributions
to various outside groups connected to congressional GOP leaders.
Airlines for America, the industry’s main trade group, gave $150,000 to
the<b> Congressional Leadership Fund, $35,000 to the pro-McConnell</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">super PAC Kentuckians for Strong Leadership</span> and $40,000 to<b> Defending Main Street SuperPAC</b>, a group backing moderate Republicans in fights with tea party candidates.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“You
can’t have good policy without good candidates and legislation, which
is why it’s important to the 2 million people we fly every day and the
nearly 600,000 people we employ that we be involved,” Airlines for
America spokesman Vaughn Jennings said in a statement.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The
lobby group is headed by Nick Calio, a veteran of both Bush
administrations, who expressed an interest in increasing the airline
industry’s political giving upon taking the helm in 2010.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“You’ve got to be part of the political process, and contributions and political support are part of the political process,” <a data-beacon="{" href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45688.html" target="_hplink">Calio told Politico</a> in
2010. “When you have people who consistently support you on policy
issues, they expect you to be part of their political life support
system. It’s just that simple.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The
National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a labor union, also gave
$50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund and $150,000 to Defending
Main Street after Congress ended the sequester-related furloughs. Those
contributions were out of the ordinary for the union, which had been a
major supporter of Democrats alone. It has given $3.9 million to super
PACs backing Democrats.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Calio
is deeply enmeshed in the political party machinery, and his group
rewards congressional action by making huge contributions to outside
groups that directly support lawmakers. What he does not have is a
direct relationship with an outside spending group. Other major
lobbyists, including heads of trade associations, do.</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" face="Times New Roman" size="4">Take<b> Mike Duncan,</b> who
served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2007 to
- Following the Citizens United decision, he joined with Karl Rove
and other GOP operatives to form the super PAC American Crossroads and
the nonprofit Crossroads GPS. He still sits on the board of American
Crossroads.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But Duncan is not just a party operative. In 2012, he became head of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity,</span> a
major Washington lobbying arm of the coal and railroad industry. The
coalition was in the midst of a massive advertising and pressure
campaign in Washington as the Obama administration pushed for new
regulations on coal-fired power plants to reduce their pollution.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">To further increase its GOP connection, the coal coalition signed up <font color="#FF0000"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Boehner’s former aide Lampkin</span></font> to lobby in 2013.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Coal industry companies and executives on the board of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity </b>have contributed more than $10 million to Republican outside groups. Joe Craft and his company <b>Alliance Resource Partners</b> have
provided most of this money with contributions totaling nearly $9.4
million. Alpha Natural Resources, Consol Energy and Murray Energy have
also chipped in. Additionally,<b> Matthew Rose, the CEO of Burlington North
Santa Fe</b> and a member of the coal coalition’s board, gave $25,000 to
the super PAC supporting McConnell in 2014. (This is all aside from the
hundreds of millions in political spending by the Koch brothers, fossil
fuel magnates.)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Republicans
have, in turn, become increasingly vocal in their support for the coal
industry and their opposition to any rule, regulation or idea --
including belief in climate change driven by human action -- that could
harm the industry.</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" face="Times New Roman" size="4">A
spokeswoman for the coal coalition said that Duncan separates his work
at American Crossroads from that at the lobbying group and does not
solicit the latter’s members to give to the former.</font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The <b>pro-Boehner AAN,</b> the nonprofit parent of the <b>Congressional Leadership Fund,</b> is
a hotbed of lobbyist activity. The board currently boasts four
registered lobbyists -- former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), former Reps.
Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) and Vin Weber (R-Minn.), and former RNC official
Maria Cino -- and two other employees of lobbying firms -- former Puerto
Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno and former Boehner aide Barry Jackson.</font></span></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Past AAN board members include major GOP fundraiser and previously registered lobbyist <b>C. Boyden Gray </b>and former Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Iowa), who is the head of the Credit Union National Association.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“We’re
proud to have a distinguished board from business executives to policy
leaders to former elected officials -- they’ve been successful in all
walks of life and they’re critical to our success,” Dan Conston,
spokesman for both AAN and the Congressional Leadership Fund, said in an
email. “Do they fundraise for us? Of course. Do they uphold their
fiduciary responsibility to us as board members? Of course.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Crossroads
GPS, like its sister super PAC, also maintains connections to K Street
through its board. Crossroads board member Sally Vastola, a former
staffer for Rep. Reynolds, decamped with her old boss to the law and
lobbying firm of Nixon Peabody, where she lobbies for pharmaceutical
companies and the student loan giant Sallie Mae.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"Both
American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have separate and independent
boards whose members do not fundraise for either organization and have a
range of work outside their board positions," said Paul Lindsay,
communications director for the Crossroads duo.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span class="feature-dropcap">L</span>obbyists
straddling the party operative-influence peddling line have themselves
given more than $1 million to super PACs and nonprofits since the
Citizens United decision.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The top lobbyist donor to these groups is Boyden Gray, a top-shelf GOP fundraiser and former AAN board member, </b>whose
contributions total $390,000. Gray made contributions to such super
PACs as American Crossroads, Freedom PAC and Kentuckians for Strong
Leadership. According to lobbyist contribution disclosures, he also gave
to dark money groups: $50,000 to Crossroads GPS and $15,000 to
Wisconsin Club for Growth <a data-beacon="{" href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/walker-wanted-funds-sent-to-wisconsin-club-for-growth-b99336519z1-272364371.html" target="_hplink">as it worked incredibly closely with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R)</a> to help him survive a recall election.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"The
vast majority of our donors give on the basis of broad philosophical
conviction," said Crossroads' Lindsay. "The fact that some have various
policy interests should come as no surprise, but those interests have no
effect on our activities."</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The
full record of lobbyists and their clients funding outside groups
connected to party leadership is almost certainly obscured by the fact
that many of these groups are not required to disclose their donors.
Dark money nonprofits like AAN, Crossroads GPS and the Democratic Party
group Patriot Majority USA spend huge sums on elections and on attack
ads masquerading as issue advocacy. Few of their donors have
materialized, but what little has leaked indicates that contributions
from clients of party-linked lobbyists and trade associations actively
lobbying Congress are common.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">AAN
has sucked in millions from Washington-based corporate trade groups and
corporations with major interests in Congress. Those donations include
$6 million from Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and
$3.3 million from pharmaceutical giant Aetna. The Alliance for Quality
Home Nursing Care chipped in $250,000. Additional funds came from
America’s Natural Gas Alliance, the Motion Picture Association of
America and <a data-beacon="{" href="http://www.citizensforethics.org/blog/entry/hcsc-lobbyist-unmasked-as-american-action-network-donor" target="_hplink">the top lobbyist for Health Care Service Corporation</a>.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The
Alliance for Quality Home Nursing Care and its affiliated group, the
Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare, have given $2.9 million to
outside groups as part of their lobbying campaign to restore Medicare
reimbursements for home and hospice care that were cut by the Affordable
Care Act. The two groups have hired top lobbyists to help direct their
efforts, including Democrat Tony Podesta and Republican Haley Barbour.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Barbour,
a former two-term governor of Mississippi and a onetime RNC chairman,
is the personification of this cross-pollinating age. He is a powerhouse
lobbyist running the BGR Group who is also an adviser to political
campaigns and a past fundraiser for American Crossroads and Crossroads
GPS. One client, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare, gave
$500,000 to Crossroads GPS in 2012.</font></p></div>