Brussels, March 25 – Industry lobbyists are dominating the European law-making process, campaigners warned today with the publication of a new report analysing the membership of a number of the European Commission’s Expert Groups. What is more, the Commission is not being transparent about membership of these groups researchers say, preventing public accountability.
martes, 10 de junio de 2008
miércoles, 30 de abril de 2008
NYT: Pharma wants to cheat and still be able to charge for it
Patent Law Battle a Boon to Lobbyists
WASHINGTON — A fight has erupted in Congress over the question of whether drug makers and other companies should be allowed to keep patents they obtained by misrepresentation or cheating.
The issue has emerged as a contentious point in legislation to overhaul patent laws. In several cases, the courts have voided patents after finding that companies intentionally misled the Patent and Trademark Office.
The legislation, affecting a wide swath of the American economy, has been a boon to lobbyists. In 15 months, two dueling business coalitions have spent $4.3 million lobbying on the legislation, which calls for the biggest changes in United States patent law in more than 50 years. Companies from almost every major industry have joined the battle.
Patents can protect an invention for up to 20 years. But federal judges can void patents after finding that companies engaged in “inequitable conduct,” meaning that they misrepresented or concealed information with an intent to deceive the patent office. In such cases, judges can declare the patents unenforceable.
Robert A. Armitage, a senior vice president and general counsel of Eli Lilly & Company, said, “This is like imposing the death penalty for relatively minor acts of misconduct.”
Brand-name drug companies are urging Congress to eliminate the penalty — or to curtail it as proposed under a bill passed by the House.
Debra S. Barrett, a vice president of the American unit of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the world’s largest maker of generic drugs, said the changes sought by brand-name drug companies “would make it easier for them to cheat and get away with it, easier for them to defend their patents and more difficult for us to get generic products onto the market in a timely way.”
Consumer groups like AARP share that concern. They want to speed access to generic medicines, which can cost 30 percent to 80 percent less than the equivalent brand-name drugs.
The House has approved a comprehensive patent bill that would make it harder to prove inequitable conduct. Senators are haggling over a companion bill, approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and hope to take it to the floor this summer.
In the last 15 years, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which handles patent cases, has affirmed findings of inequitable conduct in at least 40 cases, including 14 that involved pharmaceutical or health care products. Similar findings have been issued by federal district judges in an unknown number of cases that were not appealed.
Courts have found that drug makers knowingly submitted false statements to the patent office, inaccurately described experiments and concealed information that contradicted their claims.
In one case, the appeals court said that Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals improperly failed to disclose that it had not performed an experiment described in its application for a patent related to synthetic human growth hormone. In another case, the court said Pharmacia had used an “inaccurate and misleading” affidavit in obtaining a patent for a glaucoma medication.
Brand-name drug companies say that generic drug makers routinely attack their patents by accusing them of inequitable conduct when they are blameless or guilty of no more than honest mistakes.
The aggressive use of such accusations has become “a plague on the patent system,” the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade group, told Congress.
Harry F. Manbeck Jr., who was commissioner of patents and trademarks under the first President Bush, said the existing penalty was a powerful deterrent to misconduct.
“Patents can be very valuable,” Mr. Manbeck said. “There are strong incentives to want to get them. Cheating occurs from time to time. The inequitable conduct doctrine says that if you cheated to get a patent, you should not be able to enforce it.”
Under federal regulations, people applying for a patent have a duty to deal with the patent office in “candor, good faith and honesty.” They are supposed to disclose if their invention was previously known or used by others, offered for sale or described in a publication. In that case, it may not be innovative enough to warrant a patent.
In reviewing an application, patent examiners can search the relevant literature, but may not find all the pertinent information, so they depend on applicants to be forthright.
“If Congress eliminated or reduced the penalty for inequitable conduct, applicants would no longer have a reason to disclose all the information they are aware of,” said Robert D. Budens, president of the Patent Office Professional Association, which represents 5,500 examiners.
Mr. Armitage, the Lilly executive, said: “The doctrine of inequitable conduct is used so aggressively in litigation that it has unintended consequences. Applicants give the Patent and Trademark Office too much information, to avoid allegations that they concealed anything, and they refuse to explain the information, to avoid later allegations that they engaged in some form of misrepresentation.”
James C. Greenwood, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, said, “The poor patent examiner gets a dump truck full of information that he has to pore over without any assistance from the applicant.”
The number of patent applications — 467,243 in 2007 — has nearly doubled in the last 10 years and has more than tripled since 1987.
Jon W. Dudas, the under secretary of commerce for intellectual property, said: “We are getting more and more unpatentable ideas, worse and worse quality applications. Historically, in the last 40 years, the allowance rate — the percentage of applications ultimately approved — hovered around 62 percent to 72 percent. It went up to 72 percent in 2000, but dropped to 43 percent in the first quarter of this year.”
A major impetus for the patent legislation is the desire of technology companies to limit the damage awards and legal costs they sometimes face when they are accused of infringing patents. Companies like Cisco and Palm say the disputes drain resources that could be better spent on research and innovation.
Many of these companies have banded together in the Coalition for Patent Fairness, which in the last 15 months has spent $2.5 million for a small army of lobbyists including Mark W. Isakowitz, a Republican, and Steven A. Elmendorf, a longtime Democratic strategist.
A rival group, the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, consists of about 50 companies that zealously guard their intellectual property and are more likely to file suit to protect their patents. It includes pharmaceutical and biotech companies like Genzyme, Lilly, Merck and Pfizer. This coalition has paid $1.8 million to lobbyists, much of it to the law firm of Akin Gump.
lunes, 14 de abril de 2008
The Economist: US Judges and Lobby
Judicial elections
Torts and courts
Apr 10th 2008 MADISON, WISCONSIN
From The Economist print edition
Life, liberty and the pursuit of a fair judiciary
JUSTICE is meant to be impartial. To this end, Britain's judges are appointed for life. In America federal judges are as well. But in 39 states some or all judges must face election and re-election, often with unbecoming hoopla. An election to the Supreme Court of the state of Wisconsin has just involved about $5.5m and more than 12,000 aired advertisements. Habeas circus, one might say.
Michael Gableman defeated Louis Butler, an incumbent on Wisconsin's Supreme Court, on April 1st, and the cacophony has not yet subsided. The scuffle has revealed two worrying traits of America's judicial elections.
First, they have become bitter contests. In 2006 91% of Supreme Court elections featured television advertisements, up from 22% in 2000, according to New York University's Brennan Centre. Second, the war over tort, or liability, reform has turned judicial elections into a nasty battlefield—especially in those states where state Supreme Court justices are directly elected. Karl Rove, once George Bush's Svengali, ascended in part by helping Texas businessmen fight trial lawyers for control of that state's highest court. The most expensive judicial race in America's history, a $9.3m fight in 2004, saw tort interests pour money into rival campaigns for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court.
In Wisconsin the signs are troubling. The state's new era of judicial elections began last year. A series of rulings had galvanised corporate leaders, explains James Buchen of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), the state's business lobby. In one ruling in 2005, the Supreme Court overturned the state's caps on medical-malpractice cases. In another, the court ruled that a plaintiff could sue several manufacturers when he did not know which (if any) had caused him injury.
In 2007 groups from all sides poured cash into a state Supreme Court race, spending $5.8m. In this month's election one estimate is that the candidates together raised about $1m (Mr Butler outspent Mr Gableman), while outside groups such as WMC and the teachers' union spent more than $4.5m.
This year's flood of money might have drawn less censure if it had spurred a proper debate on judicial philosophy. It didn't. Mr Gableman's campaign produced an advertisement suggesting that Mr Butler, a black man, had helped free a black rapist. An advertisement supporting Mr Butler claimed that Mr Gableman was soft on paedophiles. Even WMC's advertisements were about crime. Regardless of the tenor of the campaign, money may be undermining faith in the court. A recent poll conducted for Justice at Stake, a group devoted to judicial independence, found that 78% of respondents in Wisconsin believe campaign contributions influence judges' rulings.
The question is whether to change the new dispensation and, if so, how? Comprehensive legal reform might help keep the tort war from seeping into judicial elections. But the elections themselves are unlikely to be scrapped. More feasible would be to pass reforms, such as public financing for campaigns or stricter rules to prevent conflicts of interest. In Wisconsin politicians and Supreme Court judges all work beneath the state capitol's giant dome. It is getting hard to tell the difference between them.
Torts and courts
Apr 10th 2008 MADISON, WISCONSIN
From The Economist print edition
Life, liberty and the pursuit of a fair judiciary
JUSTICE is meant to be impartial. To this end, Britain's judges are appointed for life. In America federal judges are as well. But in 39 states some or all judges must face election and re-election, often with unbecoming hoopla. An election to the Supreme Court of the state of Wisconsin has just involved about $5.5m and more than 12,000 aired advertisements. Habeas circus, one might say.
Michael Gableman defeated Louis Butler, an incumbent on Wisconsin's Supreme Court, on April 1st, and the cacophony has not yet subsided. The scuffle has revealed two worrying traits of America's judicial elections.
First, they have become bitter contests. In 2006 91% of Supreme Court elections featured television advertisements, up from 22% in 2000, according to New York University's Brennan Centre. Second, the war over tort, or liability, reform has turned judicial elections into a nasty battlefield—especially in those states where state Supreme Court justices are directly elected. Karl Rove, once George Bush's Svengali, ascended in part by helping Texas businessmen fight trial lawyers for control of that state's highest court. The most expensive judicial race in America's history, a $9.3m fight in 2004, saw tort interests pour money into rival campaigns for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court.
In Wisconsin the signs are troubling. The state's new era of judicial elections began last year. A series of rulings had galvanised corporate leaders, explains James Buchen of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), the state's business lobby. In one ruling in 2005, the Supreme Court overturned the state's caps on medical-malpractice cases. In another, the court ruled that a plaintiff could sue several manufacturers when he did not know which (if any) had caused him injury.
In 2007 groups from all sides poured cash into a state Supreme Court race, spending $5.8m. In this month's election one estimate is that the candidates together raised about $1m (Mr Butler outspent Mr Gableman), while outside groups such as WMC and the teachers' union spent more than $4.5m.
This year's flood of money might have drawn less censure if it had spurred a proper debate on judicial philosophy. It didn't. Mr Gableman's campaign produced an advertisement suggesting that Mr Butler, a black man, had helped free a black rapist. An advertisement supporting Mr Butler claimed that Mr Gableman was soft on paedophiles. Even WMC's advertisements were about crime. Regardless of the tenor of the campaign, money may be undermining faith in the court. A recent poll conducted for Justice at Stake, a group devoted to judicial independence, found that 78% of respondents in Wisconsin believe campaign contributions influence judges' rulings.
The question is whether to change the new dispensation and, if so, how? Comprehensive legal reform might help keep the tort war from seeping into judicial elections. But the elections themselves are unlikely to be scrapped. More feasible would be to pass reforms, such as public financing for campaigns or stricter rules to prevent conflicts of interest. In Wisconsin politicians and Supreme Court judges all work beneath the state capitol's giant dome. It is getting hard to tell the difference between them.
miércoles, 9 de abril de 2008
The 90 days War for Trade
So, the war of lobbies is gonna be on for 90 days, willing to aproove the US-Colombia trade pact. Bush decided tu use de "fast track", that is surprising. He faces no political risk, so decided to go for it. Se, trade is just one tiny part of the story. Newspapers focus on thing like how it will benefit labour intensive industries like Caterpillar, and others. Or that the farmers are affraid of it. Ok, so they know how to manage themselves to get his message heard in the Congress. Cat has it lobbyists, and the farmers have their powerful organizations. Cool. The things they do not name is that so-called free trade agreement is not only about trade, but about intelectual property, investments, etc.
IP issues such as patents, trademarks, etc, are not a natural byproduct of free trade. They represent the opposite of Smith´s dreams. A patent is a legal monopoly to use and commercialize an innovative product or process. Yeah, it restricts the freedom of others to use or trade something. That happens with IP rights on use of vegetable species to heal, so big pharma is deeply interested in getting the agreement complete. Well, I am not going to bore you anymore. Check this video from the Wall Street Journal.
IP issues such as patents, trademarks, etc, are not a natural byproduct of free trade. They represent the opposite of Smith´s dreams. A patent is a legal monopoly to use and commercialize an innovative product or process. Yeah, it restricts the freedom of others to use or trade something. That happens with IP rights on use of vegetable species to heal, so big pharma is deeply interested in getting the agreement complete. Well, I am not going to bore you anymore. Check this video from the Wall Street Journal.
martes, 8 de abril de 2008
Politico.com: More clintonian free traders lobbyists....
Mark Penn isn’t the only Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter on the wrong side of the Colombia trade agreement.The Democratic-leaning advocacy firm the Glover Park Group, former home to Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson, signed a $40,000 per month contract with the government of Colombia in April of 2007 to promote the very agreement that Clinton now rails against on the presidential campaign trail.
That means Glover Park Group was arguing the same position as Penn's firm. The contentious Clinton strategist and Burson-Marsteller chief executive lost his campaign job over the weekend after The Wall Street Journal revealed that he’d met with Colombian officials to plot strategy on the pact.
Several other Glover Park employees have deep connections with the Clintons, including founding partner Joe Lockhart, who served as the White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, and Joel Johnson, who was a senior communications adviser in the Clinton White House. Read more
lunes, 7 de abril de 2008
NYT: Earmarking is not dead
The New York Times brings today a really interesting article on "earmarks". For those of you not familiarized with the term "earmark", following the wikidefinition, it refers to congressional provisions directing approved funds to be spent on specific projects (or directs specific exemptions from taxes or mandated fees). Earmarks can be found in both legislation (also called "Hard earmarks" or "Hardmarks") and in the text of Congressional committee reports (also called "Soft earmarks" or "Softmarks").So they are a problem because corporate interest ussually lobby politians to get an earmark on their favor. It could be a defense contract for building weapons, or a contract to build a highway, etc. Is strongly related with corruption. One of the most famous cases of earmarks related corruption was the affair of Randy "Duke" Cunningham (showing his best smile on the pic), who had received millions of dollars in gifts from a military supplier for the US government. There thousands of examples.
Check the article of the NYT:
April 7, 2008
Pork Barrel Remains Hidden in U.S. Budget
By RON NIXON
WASHINGTON — Sometimes on Capitol Hill, lawmakers find that it pays to ask nicely instead of just ordering the bureaucrats around.
With great fanfare, Congress adopted strict ethics rules last year requiring members to disclose when they steered federal money to pet projects. But it turns out lawmakers can still secretly direct billions of dollars to favored organizations by making vague requests rather than issuing explicit instructions to government agencies in committee reports and spending bills. That seeming courtesy is the difference between “soft earmarks” and the more insistent “hard earmarks.”
How much money is requested for any specific project? It is difficult to say, since price tags are not included with soft earmarks. Who is the sponsor? Unclear, unless the lawmaker later acknowledges it. Purpose of the spending? Usually not provided.
How to spot a soft earmark? Easy. The language is that of a respectful suggestion: A committee “endorses” or notes it “is aware” of deserving programs and “urges” or “recommends” that agencies finance them.
That was how taxpayer money was requested last year for a Christian broadcasting group to build a shortwave radio station in Madagascar, a program to save hawks in Haiti, efforts to fight agriculture pests in Maryland and an “international fertilizer” center in Alabama that assists farmers overseas.
After hard earmarks figured into several Congressional scandals and prompted criticism of wasteful spending from government agencies and watchdog groups, Congress cut back on their number last year and required disclosure of most of them. (There were more than 10,000, costing nearly $20 billion last year, according to the Congressional Research Service.)
But soft earmarks, while not a new phenomenon, have drawn virtually no attention and were not included in the ethics changes — and current ones under consideration — because Congress does not view them as true earmarks.
Their total cost is not known. But the research service found that they amounted to more than $3 billion in one spending bill alone in 2006, out of 13 annual appropriations bills. And the committee that handles the bill, which involves foreign operations, has increasingly converted hard earmarks to soft ones.
“This shows that even though lawmakers now have to disclose their pet projects, we’re not getting a full accounting of earmarks,” said Ryan Alexander, director of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group in Washington that tracks earmarks. “We may just be looking at the tip of the iceberg.”
Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said he did not believe gentler language changed anything when it came to pork-barrel spending.
“No matter what you want to call it, an earmark is an earmark,” said Mr. Flake, a longtime foe of earmarks. “If Congressional leaders don’t believe that soft earmarks are earmarks, then I think that makes the case as to why we need tougher reforms in place.”
Soft earmarks are included in a number of spending measures, but they tend to occur more frequently in spending bills that give money to the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development and other foreign aid programs.
Federal agencies are not required to finance soft earmarks. However, officials have traditionally felt obliged to comply with such requests.
“Soft earmarks, while not legally binding, frequently come with an implicit threat: If you don’t take our suggestions, we will give you a hard earmark next,” said Andrew Natsios, former administrator of A.I.D. in the Bush administration.
In its report, the Congressional Research Service said agencies also could face budget cuts if they did not finance soft earmarks.
Mr. Natsios said two lawmakers once threatened to cut his budget if he did not pay for one of their requests. He declined to identify them.
Congressional leaders say soft earmarks are merely suggestions and not really earmarks. They argue that money is awarded at the discretion of the agency, largely through a competitive process.
“Recognizing organizations with a record of relevant work is part of Congress’s budgetary role,” Representative Nita M. Lowey, Democrat of New York, said in an e-mail message.
“It broadens the competitive grant process beyond administration priorities and encourages current recipients to maintain high performance standards,” said Ms. Lowey, who is the chairwoman of the House appropriations subcommittee on state and foreign operations.
Mr. Natsios agreed that some soft earmarks in the bill could result in a competitive bidding process. But that is not the case if the report names a specific organization, which routinely happens.
In considering lawmakers’ spending requests, some committees in recent years have switched hard earmarks to soft ones, saying it gives agencies more flexibility. Critics, including Mr. Flake, suggest it is being done to avoid scrutiny.
“With the efforts to shine more light on the earmarking process,” he said, “I am concerned that we might see increasingly creative ways to steer funding to recipients of funding that members of Congress want to see it go to.”
Financing for the shortwave radio station, called the Madagascar World Voice, for example, began as a hard earmark request by Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas.
Mr. Sessions originally sought $2.5 million for World Christian Broadcasting, a group based in Nashville that broadcasts in several countries and promotes abstinence to prevent AIDS. The House Appropriations Committee converted it to a soft earmark.
A spokesman for World Christian Broadcasting said the organization had been in discussions with A.I.D. about the financing.
Another soft earmark was included for the International Fertilizer Development Center, in Muscle Shoals, Ala. The group has been criticized as wasteful by watchdog groups and Senator John McCain of Arizona, a critic of earmarks who is the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
John H. Allgood, director of finance and administration for the group, which teaches third world farmers about soil fertility management and other agricultural practices, confirmed that his organization received financing from A.I.D. but did not know whether it was through an earmark.
Mr. Allgood would not say how much money the group received, and the aid agency did not respond to requests for the information. The fertilizer center previously received a $4 million hard earmark requested by Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama.
A soft earmark, of course, does not guarantee financing. For example, the Sesame Workshop, home of Big Bird and the rest of the Sesame Street gang, said it did not receive any money despite such a request.
Still, organizations spend millions each year lobbying Congress for them. Lobbyists say getting a client’s organization into language in committee reports, which accompany spending bills and contain more detailed instructions to agencies, can have an impact.
“I certainly wouldn’t call them earmarks, but it does say to the agency that this is something that Congress is serious about,” said Fredrick Baird, known as Tripp, a lobbyist with J. C. Companies, a lobbying firm headed by former Representative J. C. Watts, an Oklahoma Republican.
Other than the amendment that Mr. Flake offered last year to shed more light on the process, no efforts to curb soft earmarks have been proposed.
President Bush signed an executive order in January that directed agencies to ignore all earmarks in committee reports.
But legal opinions by the Congressional Research Service and the Government Accountability Office found that Congress could get around the order by simply inserting them in the text of spending bills or including language in the bills that directed agencies to treat earmarks listed in committee reports as if they were written into the law. That frustrates groups seeking openness in government.
“Soft earmarks are even more insidious than hard earmarks,” said Keith Ashdown, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “With hard earmarks, at least you know something about the amounts and recipients. With soft earmarks, everything is done in secret.”
Tom Torok contributed reporting from New York.
Pork Barrel Remains Hidden in U.S. Budget
By RON NIXON
WASHINGTON — Sometimes on Capitol Hill, lawmakers find that it pays to ask nicely instead of just ordering the bureaucrats around.
With great fanfare, Congress adopted strict ethics rules last year requiring members to disclose when they steered federal money to pet projects. But it turns out lawmakers can still secretly direct billions of dollars to favored organizations by making vague requests rather than issuing explicit instructions to government agencies in committee reports and spending bills. That seeming courtesy is the difference between “soft earmarks” and the more insistent “hard earmarks.”
How much money is requested for any specific project? It is difficult to say, since price tags are not included with soft earmarks. Who is the sponsor? Unclear, unless the lawmaker later acknowledges it. Purpose of the spending? Usually not provided.
How to spot a soft earmark? Easy. The language is that of a respectful suggestion: A committee “endorses” or notes it “is aware” of deserving programs and “urges” or “recommends” that agencies finance them.
That was how taxpayer money was requested last year for a Christian broadcasting group to build a shortwave radio station in Madagascar, a program to save hawks in Haiti, efforts to fight agriculture pests in Maryland and an “international fertilizer” center in Alabama that assists farmers overseas.
After hard earmarks figured into several Congressional scandals and prompted criticism of wasteful spending from government agencies and watchdog groups, Congress cut back on their number last year and required disclosure of most of them. (There were more than 10,000, costing nearly $20 billion last year, according to the Congressional Research Service.)
But soft earmarks, while not a new phenomenon, have drawn virtually no attention and were not included in the ethics changes — and current ones under consideration — because Congress does not view them as true earmarks.
Their total cost is not known. But the research service found that they amounted to more than $3 billion in one spending bill alone in 2006, out of 13 annual appropriations bills. And the committee that handles the bill, which involves foreign operations, has increasingly converted hard earmarks to soft ones.
“This shows that even though lawmakers now have to disclose their pet projects, we’re not getting a full accounting of earmarks,” said Ryan Alexander, director of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group in Washington that tracks earmarks. “We may just be looking at the tip of the iceberg.”
Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said he did not believe gentler language changed anything when it came to pork-barrel spending.
“No matter what you want to call it, an earmark is an earmark,” said Mr. Flake, a longtime foe of earmarks. “If Congressional leaders don’t believe that soft earmarks are earmarks, then I think that makes the case as to why we need tougher reforms in place.”
Soft earmarks are included in a number of spending measures, but they tend to occur more frequently in spending bills that give money to the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development and other foreign aid programs.
Federal agencies are not required to finance soft earmarks. However, officials have traditionally felt obliged to comply with such requests.
“Soft earmarks, while not legally binding, frequently come with an implicit threat: If you don’t take our suggestions, we will give you a hard earmark next,” said Andrew Natsios, former administrator of A.I.D. in the Bush administration.
In its report, the Congressional Research Service said agencies also could face budget cuts if they did not finance soft earmarks.
Mr. Natsios said two lawmakers once threatened to cut his budget if he did not pay for one of their requests. He declined to identify them.
Congressional leaders say soft earmarks are merely suggestions and not really earmarks. They argue that money is awarded at the discretion of the agency, largely through a competitive process.
“Recognizing organizations with a record of relevant work is part of Congress’s budgetary role,” Representative Nita M. Lowey, Democrat of New York, said in an e-mail message.
“It broadens the competitive grant process beyond administration priorities and encourages current recipients to maintain high performance standards,” said Ms. Lowey, who is the chairwoman of the House appropriations subcommittee on state and foreign operations.
Mr. Natsios agreed that some soft earmarks in the bill could result in a competitive bidding process. But that is not the case if the report names a specific organization, which routinely happens.
In considering lawmakers’ spending requests, some committees in recent years have switched hard earmarks to soft ones, saying it gives agencies more flexibility. Critics, including Mr. Flake, suggest it is being done to avoid scrutiny.
“With the efforts to shine more light on the earmarking process,” he said, “I am concerned that we might see increasingly creative ways to steer funding to recipients of funding that members of Congress want to see it go to.”
Financing for the shortwave radio station, called the Madagascar World Voice, for example, began as a hard earmark request by Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas.
Mr. Sessions originally sought $2.5 million for World Christian Broadcasting, a group based in Nashville that broadcasts in several countries and promotes abstinence to prevent AIDS. The House Appropriations Committee converted it to a soft earmark.
A spokesman for World Christian Broadcasting said the organization had been in discussions with A.I.D. about the financing.
Another soft earmark was included for the International Fertilizer Development Center, in Muscle Shoals, Ala. The group has been criticized as wasteful by watchdog groups and Senator John McCain of Arizona, a critic of earmarks who is the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
John H. Allgood, director of finance and administration for the group, which teaches third world farmers about soil fertility management and other agricultural practices, confirmed that his organization received financing from A.I.D. but did not know whether it was through an earmark.
Mr. Allgood would not say how much money the group received, and the aid agency did not respond to requests for the information. The fertilizer center previously received a $4 million hard earmark requested by Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama.
A soft earmark, of course, does not guarantee financing. For example, the Sesame Workshop, home of Big Bird and the rest of the Sesame Street gang, said it did not receive any money despite such a request.
Still, organizations spend millions each year lobbying Congress for them. Lobbyists say getting a client’s organization into language in committee reports, which accompany spending bills and contain more detailed instructions to agencies, can have an impact.
“I certainly wouldn’t call them earmarks, but it does say to the agency that this is something that Congress is serious about,” said Fredrick Baird, known as Tripp, a lobbyist with J. C. Companies, a lobbying firm headed by former Representative J. C. Watts, an Oklahoma Republican.
Other than the amendment that Mr. Flake offered last year to shed more light on the process, no efforts to curb soft earmarks have been proposed.
President Bush signed an executive order in January that directed agencies to ignore all earmarks in committee reports.
But legal opinions by the Congressional Research Service and the Government Accountability Office found that Congress could get around the order by simply inserting them in the text of spending bills or including language in the bills that directed agencies to treat earmarks listed in committee reports as if they were written into the law. That frustrates groups seeking openness in government.
“Soft earmarks are even more insidious than hard earmarks,” said Keith Ashdown, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “With hard earmarks, at least you know something about the amounts and recipients. With soft earmarks, everything is done in secret.”
Tom Torok contributed reporting from New York.
EULaw Blog: New rules wanted for EU regulatory agencies
Those interested in administrative law would do well to look at the Commission's review of regulatory agencies entitled "European Agencies - The Way Forward" (COM(2008) 135 final). That document is accompanied by another one, referenced SEC(2008) 323, but the Commission true to its secretive form has not made that document public!...see the EULawblog
PD. The report does not say anything about lobbying control or interest groups. But is useful to learn how the influence of regulatory administrative agency, the natural environment for lobbyists, is growing and growing......
PD. The report does not say anything about lobbying control or interest groups. But is useful to learn how the influence of regulatory administrative agency, the natural environment for lobbyists, is growing and growing......
domingo, 6 de abril de 2008
Good on Hillary and Bill.
Gotta admit that when I read this in the Wall Street Journal, was ready to attack the Clintons:From 2003 to 2006, the couple also appeared to receive at least $12.5 million from Mr. Clinton's relationship with Yucaipa Cos., the Los Angeles investment firm run by his longtime friend, billionaire Ronald Burkle. For 2007, the campaign said the couple received $2.75 million from "partnership income," but didn't specify the source.
But then I read this about Yucaipa and changed my mind:
- The Yucaipa Companies is a premier private equity investment firm that has established a record of fostering economic value through the growth and responsible development of companies.
- As an investor, Yucaipa works with management to strategically reposition businesses and implement operational improvements, resulting in value creation for shareholders, customers and employees.
- Since its founding in 1986, the firm, based in Los Angeles, has completed mergers and acquisitions valued at more than $30 billion.
- Yucaipa and its founder Ron Burkle have forged a reputation for dealing favorably and fairly with unions. The company’s philosophy: Give workers strong wage and benefits packages and you’ll improve productivity and consequently, the bottom line.
- "He's probably the best employer we ever dealt with," Ricardo Icaza, President of the Los Angeles local of the United Food and Commercial Workers, told the San Francisco Chronicle. UFCW negotiated a number of labor contracts with Burkle when he owned supermarket chains like Ralphs and Food 4 Less.
- Burkle has marched with the United Farm Workers and has long been a friend to unions, which have given him many awards. Most recently, Burkle and his Yucaipa Cos. spearheaded a bid for the 12 Knight Ridder papers put up for sale last year by McClatchy Co. The bid, though not successful, was backed by the union representing workers at many of those papers.
sábado, 5 de abril de 2008
Center for Public Integrity shows lobby ties in each state
This table shows the percentage of legislators in each state who reported in 2002 a financial tie—through an employer, a personal business, a stock investment or a directorship—to a business or organization registered in 2001 to lobby their state's government.
| State | Legislator Only Ties | Legislator & Spouse Ties |
| Texas | 48.9% | 52.3% |
| Virginia | 39.0% | 40.7% |
| Florida | 38.1% | 38.8% |
| North Carolina | 37.9% | 40.5% |
| California | 33.3% | 35.8% |
| Delaware | 32.8% | 34.4% |
| New York | 32.8% | 40.3% |
| Washington | 31.9% | 36.1% |
| New Jersey | 30.0% | 36.0% |
| Ohio | 28.7% | 28.7% |
| Alaska | 28.3% | 38.3% |
| Connecticut | 27.6% | 33.0% |
| Maryland | 27.4% | 28.5% |
| Minnesota | 25.4% | 25.4% |
| Utah | 24.0% | 25.0% |
| Nevada | 23.8% | 31.7% |
| Wisconsin | 23.1% | 27.7% |
| Indiana | 23.1% | 26.5% |
| Arkansas | 22.6% | 25.6% |
| North Dakota | 22.6% | 26.9% |
| Massachusetts | 22.2% | 29.4% |
| Nebraska | 21.7% | 21.7% |
| Arizona | 20.7% | 26.4% |
| Montana | 18.6% | 18.6% |
| Colorado | 18.4% | 20.4% |
| Kansas | 16.0% | 18.5% |
| Kentucky | 15.9% | 18.1% |
| Illinois | 14.7% | 15.3% |
| Oklahoma | 13.5% | 14.9% |
| New Mexico | 11.7% | 17.1% |
| Hawaii | 11.1% | 11.1% |
| Alabama | 10.4% | 13.3% |
| Oregon | 10.2% | 21.6% |
| Pennsylvania | 9.0% | 9.0% |
| Rhode Island | 9.0% | 11.3% |
| Iowa | 8.7% | 8.7% |
| Tennessee | 8.7% | 15.9% |
| West Virginia | 7.7% | 7.7% |
| Missouri | 7.4% | 12.6% |
| Georgia | 7.3% | 7.3% |
| Wyoming | 6.9% | 6.9% |
| Maine | 5.4% | 6.5% |
| Mississippi | 3.8% | 5.6% |
| New Hampshire | 2.8% | 3.0% |
| South Carolina | 2.4% | 3.0% |
| South Dakota | 1.0% | 1.0% |
| Louisiana | 0.7% | 0.7% |
Louisiana issues legislation on ethical standars
A bill passed during a special session of the Louisiana State Legislature makes substantial changes in the state's financial disclosure standards, an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity shows.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal
The new law, which takes effect in January 2009, will provide more information to the public about the personal financial interests of state legislators and public officials. The law earned 99 out of a possible 100 points on a survey used by the Center to rank public disclosure requirements for state legislators and puts Louisiana's law on par with the nation's best financial disclosure laws.
Two years ago, in the same survey, Louisiana's financial disclosure law earned 43 out of 100 points, ranking it in the bottom fifth of all states for ethics standards.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who took office in January, initiated the special legislative session, which focused on ethics reform. Jindal, a Republican, made transparency in government the centerpiece of his 2007 campaign for governor. He maintains that strengthening Louisiana's ethics laws will help the state attract investment and jobs.
In pushing for reform, Jindal has pointed to the Center's survey and similar yardsticks in arguing that Louisiana must achieve the "gold standard" in ethics. During the special legislative sessions, for example, the governor's staff distributed a 16-page document to lawmakers that explained how the Center's survey awards points.
Jindal's staff relied on the Center's methodology for ranking ethics laws as a jumping-off point in the governor's ethics proposals, Camille Conaway, a policy adviser, said. "We started with the ranking, then tried to go beyond that and see what other states were doing," Conaway told the Center. "We did our best to craft a bill that would make us a model."
The new law includes provisions that do not earn points in the Center's rankings. One, for example, requires public officials to disclose loans and other liabilities of more than $10,000.
According to Conaway, the governor's office plans to use improvements in rankings such as the Center's as tool to attract investors to Louisiana.
"Louisiana thinks, and it may be rightly or wrongly, that the nation views Louisiana as incredibly corrupt and therefore untrustworthy," G. Pearson Cross, a professor of political science at University of Louisiana-Lafayette, told the Center. "They think that nationally people will notice that Louisiana has cleaned up its act."
An earlier version of the bill would have required state judges to meet the same disclosure standards as legislators and public officials. The Louisiana Supreme Court has promised that it will upgrade its disclosure rules for the state judiciary to an equivalent standard by June.
In a letter to Jindal and Joel Chaisson II, the president of the state Senate, Supreme Court Chief Justice Pascal Calogero, Jr., said that he has "already begun the process of examining financial disclosure provisions adopted by other states with an eye towards amending our Code of Judicial Conduct," according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Judicial disclosure standards vary widely from state to state, a July 2007 Center report found.
viernes, 4 de abril de 2008
The Clintonian Free Trader Lobbyist
So, Ms Clinton is opposed to the signing of any more free trade agreement. She has told everybody that story. All right with that. However, her main campaign advisor seems to 
think different. Mark Penn, the advisor, is lobbying on behalf the government of Colombia to get the bilateral trade agreement approved in the Senate. He is doing that because he works for Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, one of the most important lobbying firms in the world, hired ussually by countries to lobby such things as international agreements, financial aid, etc. in Washington.
There is nothing wrong at first glance. Mr Penn works for that firm, that ok. He also advises Hillary on PR, great!. But what the hell was he thinking when he accepted to have a meeting with the colombian govenmental agents. The fees charged to Colombia must be so high that he did not care about the conquence of his action.
Do you know how much does it cost to invite senators expensive meals, trips, gifts an all those luxurious things that tend to awake their best democratic rationale? Apparently, most journalist do not. Othewise, they would not charge against him because of this. Penn has a lot of mouths to feed (his own family, lawmakers, and lawmaker´s families). It is not easy to be a guardian of good policy-making.
Poor Mark, this is not a time nor a place for heroes like you....... Check out the story in the The Wall Street Journal.
think different. Mark Penn, the advisor, is lobbying on behalf the government of Colombia to get the bilateral trade agreement approved in the Senate. He is doing that because he works for Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, one of the most important lobbying firms in the world, hired ussually by countries to lobby such things as international agreements, financial aid, etc. in Washington.There is nothing wrong at first glance. Mr Penn works for that firm, that ok. He also advises Hillary on PR, great!. But what the hell was he thinking when he accepted to have a meeting with the colombian govenmental agents. The fees charged to Colombia must be so high that he did not care about the conquence of his action.
Do you know how much does it cost to invite senators expensive meals, trips, gifts an all those luxurious things that tend to awake their best democratic rationale? Apparently, most journalist do not. Othewise, they would not charge against him because of this. Penn has a lot of mouths to feed (his own family, lawmakers, and lawmaker´s families). It is not easy to be a guardian of good policy-making.
Poor Mark, this is not a time nor a place for heroes like you....... Check out the story in the The Wall Street Journal.
miércoles, 2 de abril de 2008
Corporate world is bipartisan, money goes to the winner, that is it.
The democrats are receiving more money from the corporate world that Republicans. That demonstrate two things: 1) Big Pharma, Finance Industry and so on are bipartisan, they only care who wins, no matter which patry the candidate is from. 2) Democrats and Republicans have one and only big difference, democrats tend to be more fun to whatch and hear and Rpublicans more boring.
Wall Street Journal brings the story (Do not miss the graphic):
Business Donors Bypass McCain
Democrats Rake In
Cash From Industry;
Catch-Up for GOP
By BRODY MULLINS
April 2, 2008; Page A1
WASHINGTON -- John McCain faces a problem as he tries to close a deep fund-raising deficit against the two Democratic candidates for president: Both have been cleaning his clock among business interests that give mainly to Republicans.
Of seven major industries that have been the most reliable Republican resources, Sen. McCain has beaten Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama in only one, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization. Even that one, transportation, is a close call. Among the seven combined, the expected Republican nominee raised $13.1 million through February, compared with $22.5 million for Sen. Obama and $27.1 million for Sen. Clinton.
See more data on the finances behind the Clinton, Obama and McCain campaigns
The Republican standard-bearer's attempt to claw back financial support from the GOP's business base could be a pivotal factor in determining the outcome of the presidential race. Employees of financial-services, insurance and real-estate companies so far have donated to Sen. Obama over Sen. McCain by almost two-to-one -- and favored Sen. Clinton by even more. Health-care and pharmaceutical firms have given three times as much to each of the two Democrats as to Sen. McCain. Defense firms put Sen. McCain ahead of Sen. Obama, but behind Sen. Clinton. Energy, construction and agribusiness firms have given more to both Democrats. (See related article.)
In February, as Sen. McCain neared a lock on the nomination, he showed signs of a fund-raising recovery among those industries. A Wall Street Journal analysis of campaign-finance reports shows that he raised far more from energy firms in February than either Democratic rival, cutting into his deficit there. He outraised Sen. Clinton among employees of finance, insurance and real-estate firms, though he fell short of Sen. Obama's total during that month, the latest available. In agriculture, Sen. McCain outraised Sen. Clinton and fell just $1,000 short of tying Sen. Obama.
But in the health and defense industries, he fell further behind -- by more than enough to wipe out his gains elsewhere. From the Republican-friendly industries combined, Sen. McCain raised $1.6 million in February, closing in on Sen. Clinton's $1.8 million but well behind Sen. Obama's $2.7 million. Those figures don't include major industry sectors -- media, entertainment, communications and high-tech -- where Democrats are historically strong and which almost double the industry totals for Sens. Obama and Clinton.
Sen. McCain told reporters last week that his campaign had seen a "dramatic increase in contributions" once other Republicans ended their campaigns in early February. He also noted how badly he needed the turnaround: "We've got our work cut out for us," Sen. McCain said. "I mean, the numbers don't lie." The Republican is some $100 million behind each of the two Democrats in fund raising from all sources.
Executive Donations
Corporations themselves by law aren't allowed to donate money to candidates. But executives and employees of companies and their spouses can each give up to $2,300 to a candidate for the primary campaign and another $2,300 for the general election. Candidates must make public the names and employers of people who donate $200 or more, a group that the Center for Responsive Politics says mostly come from executive ranks.
Two main factors have combined to put Sen. McCain in such a deep hole with businesses. First: Since early 2007, Democrats in general have been more successful at fund raising than their Republican counterparts. The unusually strong business-sector fund raising of Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama has been helped by a wide expectation during 2007 of likely Democratic success in the White House and congressional races because of President Bush's unpopularity. Corporations have been "moving in a direction where the electorate is likely to be," says Mike Feldman, a Democrat and consultant for a number of U.S. corporations in Washington.
Second, Sen. McCain's maverick status in his party and frequent tangles with big business interests made other Republican candidates far more attractive to many industry donors. The 2008 presidential nominee of the traditional party of business is seen as one of the least business-friendly Republicans in Washington, and the fund-raising numbers reflect that. "It's very foreboding for Republicans," says Jan Baran, a former general counsel at the Republican National Committee and now a campaign-finance lawyer at Washington law and lobbying firm Wiley Rein LLP. Mr. Baran called McCain's weakness among business interests compared with the Democrats "startling."
According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 40 of 47 current Republicans it ranked in the Senate have stronger pro-business voting records over their lifetimes than Sen. McCain -- though he still has voted with business interests 81% of the time, the Chamber says.
Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, noted that Sen. McCain "led the charge to limit the money and influence of special interests in politics, so it's not surprising that he's not at the top of their handout list." But, she added, the campaign will "have the money we need to win."
In the Senate, the Arizona Republican has had no trouble raising money to run for re-election, even from industries whose interests he sometimes opposed. But Sen. McCain hasn't needed to raise much: He has faced only token opposition for decades in the Senate, and Arizona isn't an expensive state to campaign in.
Regulatory Influence
Senators who hold important positions also can generally count on campaign donations from businesses with legislative or regulatory issues over which they have influence. Sen. McCain is a senior Republican and holds top-ranking positions on the Armed Services Committee and the Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over industries ranging from aviation to telecommunications.
Even businesses that he has clashed with have often given him campaign money, such as the cable industry and auto makers. "Every single entity that I've ever been involved with has given him money, and every single entity has gotten the crap beaten out them by McCain," says Brian Kelly, a telecommunications lobbyist.
But presidential fund raising works on a much larger scale, against different competition for the funds.
During 2007, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney -- with decades of experience in private industry -- and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani won the biggest Republican share of business donations. Sen. McCain, whose fund-raising problems famously all but pushed him out of the race midyear, trailed even a Democratic also-ran, Sen. Chris Dodd, in a number of business fund-raising categories through 2007.
Now, as Democrats increasingly paint Sen. McCain as a friend to business who favors light regulation, the question is whether he can raise more in business donations than the Democrats have.
To be sure, Sen. McCain can expect more help from across the party now that he's the presumptive nominee. Corporate executives tend to donate to candidates they think will win, and Republicans are gaining confidence in their chances this November as Sens. Clinton and Obama continue to slug it out in their primary. The Democrats' fund-raising efforts have yet to be combined behind one candidate, while Sen. McCain is marshaling forces across the party. His fund-raising staff is telling prospective donors that Sen. McCain is "better than the alternative," says Rick Hohlt, a longtime Republican fund-raiser.
The candidates haven't yet announced their overall fund-raising figures for March. Details including breakdowns of donations by industry won't be available until April 20.
Sen. McCain's February fund-raising comeback came partly from reaching out to executives who backed other Republicans who left the race. People who raised money for Mr. Giuliani began working with Sen. McCain's fund-raising staff in February. Mr. Romney's fund-raising team began working to raise money for Sen. McCain later that month and Mr. Romney appeared last week at a pair of events in Salt Lake City and Denver. "I'll think you'll find that the Republican Party, like any great family, comes together," Mr. Romney said after the events.
Detroit Chips In
In February, officials at Ford Motor Co. helped raise money for Sen. McCain's presidential bid at an event outside Detroit. Ford's chief Washington lobbyist and general counsel were among the officials who donated the maximum $2,300, though Mr. McCain has worked with Democrats to raise fuel-efficiency standards.
"For me, I like him because he's strong on national security, will keep our taxes low and spending in check," says Ziad Ojakli, the Ford lobbyist.
On a trip this month to the Middle East and Europe, Sen. McCain worked in a private fund-raising event in London. Last week, he raised money at an event hosted by Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, and attended a New York fund-raiser that drew many of Wall Street's titans.
MORE ON ELECTIONS
• McCain Has Yet to Win Over Key Conservatives
• Complete Coverage: Campaign 2008
• Washington Wire: Updates from the campaign trailBut the extent of Democratic inroads in former Republican strongholds is daunting. From the beginning of 2007 through the end of February 2008, the Democratic presidential candidates together won a slight majority of donations from employees in the defense sector, an industry that since 1990 has favored Republicans by a 61%-39% ratio, according to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics for all federal elections.
The Democratic presidential candidates have collected 41% of construction-industry giving and about 43% of agribusiness contributions, both up from their normal share of about a third. Most strikingly, they've won a combined majority of the donations from the health industry and from the combined financial, insurance and real-estate industries, receiving 58% and 53%, respectively. Since 1990, Republicans have taken about 55% of the donations from those sectors.
Individually, Sens. Clinton and Obama haven't just beaten Sen. McCain to business donors. In many areas they bested the top Republican fund-raisers, Messrs. Romney and Giuliani, too.
Sen. Clinton was first among all candidates in raising money through February from financial, defense and health-care firms. She's helped by representing New York in the Senate and by taking a leadership role on health-care issues, even though many firms in the industry oppose aspects of her health-care plans. Sen. Obama, meantime, was the most popular recipient of donations from pharmaceutical manufacturers and electric utilities -- both normally Republican strongholds.
Sen. McCain's rocky relationship with business stems from his evolving regulatory outlook. At his core, he is a conservative inclined to trust free markets to lower prices and produce benefits for consumers. But mainly in the last decade, he has developed what some see as a populist streak, becoming more willing to use his powers in the Senate to help consumers when he thinks the free market isn't working properly. The Club for Growth, a leading advocate for lower taxes and smaller government, released a nine-page report last fall titled: "John McCain's Tenuous Record as an Economic Conservative."
Sen. McCain bucked oil and gas interests by opposing new drilling in Alaska while championing global-warming legislation. He supports the importation of cheap prescription drugs over the opposition of the drug manufacturers. He helped pass a fuel-efficiency increase that was resisted by auto manufacturers. He backed legislation to regulate tobacco. He has spent a decade feuding with cable and broadcast companies. And he has worried defense contractors with demands for stricter oversight, most recently helping to reopen a $23 billion Boeing Co. contract for airborne fuel tankers.
Many of the industries and companies he clashes with nevertheless have been top sources of campaign cash for Sen. McCain, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The oil and gas sector ranks among the top contributors to Sen. McCain over his career. So do people who work in the real-estate, securities, finance and commercial-bank industries, even though he voted against President Bush's tax cuts on investments.
Employees of Miami-based law firm Greenberg Traurig are top contributors to Sen. McCain, even though he led the Senate investigation into the firm's former top lobbyist, Jack Abramoff. Jill Perry, a spokeswoman for Greenberg Traurig, says employees of the firm have been "active givers to all three presidential candidates."
Cable Battles
Sen. McCain's pushes against some businesses also have benefited other firms, which have sometimes donated to his campaigns. His decadelong battle with cable companies and television broadcasters has benefited the satellite-television companies, which have become top backers. Sen. McCain's push for cleaner energy sources has aided the nuclear industry, whose executives have sometimes donated to him. His tussle with Boeing has coincided with $12,000 in donations from employees from a Boeing competitor: European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co.
McCain fund-raiser Kirk Blalock tells corporate executives to "take a leap of faith" on Sen. McCain. Many companies calculate that, on balance, Sen. McCain helps them, even if he tangles with them on some specific priorities. "If someone is going to write a check to McCain, it's on the broader macro issues. I don't think it's because he's for one industry or another because he's not," says Mr. Blalock, who lobbies for a range of industries including insurance and generic pharmaceuticals.
Sen. McCain supports free-trade agreements and, in a reversal of an earlier position, now backs extending President Bush's lower tax rates on individuals and investments, currently set to expire at the end of 2010. Neither Sen. Clinton nor Sen. Obama wants the tax cuts to become permanent, and both have become increasingly harsh about free trade on the campaign trail. Both vote with business interests just under half the time, according to the Chamber of Commerce ratings, despite their success at business-sector fund raising.
Perhaps no industry better shows Sen. McCain's approach to industry regulation than cable. In the early 1990s, Sen. McCain helped cable companies win deregulation. But when cable rates spiked up, Sen. McCain stepped in. Unwilling to impose regulations, he backed injecting competition into the marketplace by beefing up satellite-television companies, such as DirecTV and EchoStar, to create marketplace pressure to hold down rates. (News Corp., the owner of this newspaper, owned DirecTV for a period during that time.)
Recently, Sen. McCain has tried to lower cable prices by forcing the industry to allow consumers to purchase only the channels they want, without having to pay higher prices for packages of channels. The cable industry opposes the plan.
"Lord knows the guy has a track record of not helping us," says Kyle McSlarrow, the head of the cable industry's Washington lobbying association. But Mr. McSlarrow serves as a volunteer fund-raiser for Sen. McCain, because "there are big-time issues I agree with him on, even though there are smaller issues that we agree to disagree on."
Cable executives and employees have donated $161,000 to Sen. McCain's presidential campaign -- a sizable amount, but far behind the $561,000 and $249,000 they have given to Sens. Clinton and Obama, respectively, neither of whom has been involved in cable issues.
--Elizabeth Holmes contributed to this article.
Write to Brody Mullins at brody.mullins@wsj.com
Business Donors Bypass McCain
Democrats Rake In
Cash From Industry;
Catch-Up for GOP
By BRODY MULLINS
April 2, 2008; Page A1
WASHINGTON -- John McCain faces a problem as he tries to close a deep fund-raising deficit against the two Democratic candidates for president: Both have been cleaning his clock among business interests that give mainly to Republicans.
Of seven major industries that have been the most reliable Republican resources, Sen. McCain has beaten Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama in only one, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization. Even that one, transportation, is a close call. Among the seven combined, the expected Republican nominee raised $13.1 million through February, compared with $22.5 million for Sen. Obama and $27.1 million for Sen. Clinton.
See more data on the finances behind the Clinton, Obama and McCain campaigns
The Republican standard-bearer's attempt to claw back financial support from the GOP's business base could be a pivotal factor in determining the outcome of the presidential race. Employees of financial-services, insurance and real-estate companies so far have donated to Sen. Obama over Sen. McCain by almost two-to-one -- and favored Sen. Clinton by even more. Health-care and pharmaceutical firms have given three times as much to each of the two Democrats as to Sen. McCain. Defense firms put Sen. McCain ahead of Sen. Obama, but behind Sen. Clinton. Energy, construction and agribusiness firms have given more to both Democrats. (See related article.)
In February, as Sen. McCain neared a lock on the nomination, he showed signs of a fund-raising recovery among those industries. A Wall Street Journal analysis of campaign-finance reports shows that he raised far more from energy firms in February than either Democratic rival, cutting into his deficit there. He outraised Sen. Clinton among employees of finance, insurance and real-estate firms, though he fell short of Sen. Obama's total during that month, the latest available. In agriculture, Sen. McCain outraised Sen. Clinton and fell just $1,000 short of tying Sen. Obama.
But in the health and defense industries, he fell further behind -- by more than enough to wipe out his gains elsewhere. From the Republican-friendly industries combined, Sen. McCain raised $1.6 million in February, closing in on Sen. Clinton's $1.8 million but well behind Sen. Obama's $2.7 million. Those figures don't include major industry sectors -- media, entertainment, communications and high-tech -- where Democrats are historically strong and which almost double the industry totals for Sens. Obama and Clinton.
Sen. McCain told reporters last week that his campaign had seen a "dramatic increase in contributions" once other Republicans ended their campaigns in early February. He also noted how badly he needed the turnaround: "We've got our work cut out for us," Sen. McCain said. "I mean, the numbers don't lie." The Republican is some $100 million behind each of the two Democrats in fund raising from all sources.
Executive Donations
Corporations themselves by law aren't allowed to donate money to candidates. But executives and employees of companies and their spouses can each give up to $2,300 to a candidate for the primary campaign and another $2,300 for the general election. Candidates must make public the names and employers of people who donate $200 or more, a group that the Center for Responsive Politics says mostly come from executive ranks.
Two main factors have combined to put Sen. McCain in such a deep hole with businesses. First: Since early 2007, Democrats in general have been more successful at fund raising than their Republican counterparts. The unusually strong business-sector fund raising of Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama has been helped by a wide expectation during 2007 of likely Democratic success in the White House and congressional races because of President Bush's unpopularity. Corporations have been "moving in a direction where the electorate is likely to be," says Mike Feldman, a Democrat and consultant for a number of U.S. corporations in Washington.
Second, Sen. McCain's maverick status in his party and frequent tangles with big business interests made other Republican candidates far more attractive to many industry donors. The 2008 presidential nominee of the traditional party of business is seen as one of the least business-friendly Republicans in Washington, and the fund-raising numbers reflect that. "It's very foreboding for Republicans," says Jan Baran, a former general counsel at the Republican National Committee and now a campaign-finance lawyer at Washington law and lobbying firm Wiley Rein LLP. Mr. Baran called McCain's weakness among business interests compared with the Democrats "startling."
According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 40 of 47 current Republicans it ranked in the Senate have stronger pro-business voting records over their lifetimes than Sen. McCain -- though he still has voted with business interests 81% of the time, the Chamber says.
Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, noted that Sen. McCain "led the charge to limit the money and influence of special interests in politics, so it's not surprising that he's not at the top of their handout list." But, she added, the campaign will "have the money we need to win."
In the Senate, the Arizona Republican has had no trouble raising money to run for re-election, even from industries whose interests he sometimes opposed. But Sen. McCain hasn't needed to raise much: He has faced only token opposition for decades in the Senate, and Arizona isn't an expensive state to campaign in.
Regulatory Influence
Senators who hold important positions also can generally count on campaign donations from businesses with legislative or regulatory issues over which they have influence. Sen. McCain is a senior Republican and holds top-ranking positions on the Armed Services Committee and the Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over industries ranging from aviation to telecommunications.
Even businesses that he has clashed with have often given him campaign money, such as the cable industry and auto makers. "Every single entity that I've ever been involved with has given him money, and every single entity has gotten the crap beaten out them by McCain," says Brian Kelly, a telecommunications lobbyist.
But presidential fund raising works on a much larger scale, against different competition for the funds.
During 2007, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney -- with decades of experience in private industry -- and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani won the biggest Republican share of business donations. Sen. McCain, whose fund-raising problems famously all but pushed him out of the race midyear, trailed even a Democratic also-ran, Sen. Chris Dodd, in a number of business fund-raising categories through 2007.
Now, as Democrats increasingly paint Sen. McCain as a friend to business who favors light regulation, the question is whether he can raise more in business donations than the Democrats have.
To be sure, Sen. McCain can expect more help from across the party now that he's the presumptive nominee. Corporate executives tend to donate to candidates they think will win, and Republicans are gaining confidence in their chances this November as Sens. Clinton and Obama continue to slug it out in their primary. The Democrats' fund-raising efforts have yet to be combined behind one candidate, while Sen. McCain is marshaling forces across the party. His fund-raising staff is telling prospective donors that Sen. McCain is "better than the alternative," says Rick Hohlt, a longtime Republican fund-raiser.
The candidates haven't yet announced their overall fund-raising figures for March. Details including breakdowns of donations by industry won't be available until April 20.
Sen. McCain's February fund-raising comeback came partly from reaching out to executives who backed other Republicans who left the race. People who raised money for Mr. Giuliani began working with Sen. McCain's fund-raising staff in February. Mr. Romney's fund-raising team began working to raise money for Sen. McCain later that month and Mr. Romney appeared last week at a pair of events in Salt Lake City and Denver. "I'll think you'll find that the Republican Party, like any great family, comes together," Mr. Romney said after the events.
Detroit Chips In
In February, officials at Ford Motor Co. helped raise money for Sen. McCain's presidential bid at an event outside Detroit. Ford's chief Washington lobbyist and general counsel were among the officials who donated the maximum $2,300, though Mr. McCain has worked with Democrats to raise fuel-efficiency standards.
"For me, I like him because he's strong on national security, will keep our taxes low and spending in check," says Ziad Ojakli, the Ford lobbyist.
On a trip this month to the Middle East and Europe, Sen. McCain worked in a private fund-raising event in London. Last week, he raised money at an event hosted by Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, and attended a New York fund-raiser that drew many of Wall Street's titans.
MORE ON ELECTIONS
• McCain Has Yet to Win Over Key Conservatives
• Complete Coverage: Campaign 2008
• Washington Wire: Updates from the campaign trailBut the extent of Democratic inroads in former Republican strongholds is daunting. From the beginning of 2007 through the end of February 2008, the Democratic presidential candidates together won a slight majority of donations from employees in the defense sector, an industry that since 1990 has favored Republicans by a 61%-39% ratio, according to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics for all federal elections.
The Democratic presidential candidates have collected 41% of construction-industry giving and about 43% of agribusiness contributions, both up from their normal share of about a third. Most strikingly, they've won a combined majority of the donations from the health industry and from the combined financial, insurance and real-estate industries, receiving 58% and 53%, respectively. Since 1990, Republicans have taken about 55% of the donations from those sectors.
Individually, Sens. Clinton and Obama haven't just beaten Sen. McCain to business donors. In many areas they bested the top Republican fund-raisers, Messrs. Romney and Giuliani, too.
Sen. Clinton was first among all candidates in raising money through February from financial, defense and health-care firms. She's helped by representing New York in the Senate and by taking a leadership role on health-care issues, even though many firms in the industry oppose aspects of her health-care plans. Sen. Obama, meantime, was the most popular recipient of donations from pharmaceutical manufacturers and electric utilities -- both normally Republican strongholds.
Sen. McCain's rocky relationship with business stems from his evolving regulatory outlook. At his core, he is a conservative inclined to trust free markets to lower prices and produce benefits for consumers. But mainly in the last decade, he has developed what some see as a populist streak, becoming more willing to use his powers in the Senate to help consumers when he thinks the free market isn't working properly. The Club for Growth, a leading advocate for lower taxes and smaller government, released a nine-page report last fall titled: "John McCain's Tenuous Record as an Economic Conservative."
Sen. McCain bucked oil and gas interests by opposing new drilling in Alaska while championing global-warming legislation. He supports the importation of cheap prescription drugs over the opposition of the drug manufacturers. He helped pass a fuel-efficiency increase that was resisted by auto manufacturers. He backed legislation to regulate tobacco. He has spent a decade feuding with cable and broadcast companies. And he has worried defense contractors with demands for stricter oversight, most recently helping to reopen a $23 billion Boeing Co. contract for airborne fuel tankers.
Many of the industries and companies he clashes with nevertheless have been top sources of campaign cash for Sen. McCain, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The oil and gas sector ranks among the top contributors to Sen. McCain over his career. So do people who work in the real-estate, securities, finance and commercial-bank industries, even though he voted against President Bush's tax cuts on investments.
Employees of Miami-based law firm Greenberg Traurig are top contributors to Sen. McCain, even though he led the Senate investigation into the firm's former top lobbyist, Jack Abramoff. Jill Perry, a spokeswoman for Greenberg Traurig, says employees of the firm have been "active givers to all three presidential candidates."
Cable Battles
Sen. McCain's pushes against some businesses also have benefited other firms, which have sometimes donated to his campaigns. His decadelong battle with cable companies and television broadcasters has benefited the satellite-television companies, which have become top backers. Sen. McCain's push for cleaner energy sources has aided the nuclear industry, whose executives have sometimes donated to him. His tussle with Boeing has coincided with $12,000 in donations from employees from a Boeing competitor: European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co.
McCain fund-raiser Kirk Blalock tells corporate executives to "take a leap of faith" on Sen. McCain. Many companies calculate that, on balance, Sen. McCain helps them, even if he tangles with them on some specific priorities. "If someone is going to write a check to McCain, it's on the broader macro issues. I don't think it's because he's for one industry or another because he's not," says Mr. Blalock, who lobbies for a range of industries including insurance and generic pharmaceuticals.
Sen. McCain supports free-trade agreements and, in a reversal of an earlier position, now backs extending President Bush's lower tax rates on individuals and investments, currently set to expire at the end of 2010. Neither Sen. Clinton nor Sen. Obama wants the tax cuts to become permanent, and both have become increasingly harsh about free trade on the campaign trail. Both vote with business interests just under half the time, according to the Chamber of Commerce ratings, despite their success at business-sector fund raising.
Perhaps no industry better shows Sen. McCain's approach to industry regulation than cable. In the early 1990s, Sen. McCain helped cable companies win deregulation. But when cable rates spiked up, Sen. McCain stepped in. Unwilling to impose regulations, he backed injecting competition into the marketplace by beefing up satellite-television companies, such as DirecTV and EchoStar, to create marketplace pressure to hold down rates. (News Corp., the owner of this newspaper, owned DirecTV for a period during that time.)
Recently, Sen. McCain has tried to lower cable prices by forcing the industry to allow consumers to purchase only the channels they want, without having to pay higher prices for packages of channels. The cable industry opposes the plan.
"Lord knows the guy has a track record of not helping us," says Kyle McSlarrow, the head of the cable industry's Washington lobbying association. But Mr. McSlarrow serves as a volunteer fund-raiser for Sen. McCain, because "there are big-time issues I agree with him on, even though there are smaller issues that we agree to disagree on."
Cable executives and employees have donated $161,000 to Sen. McCain's presidential campaign -- a sizable amount, but far behind the $561,000 and $249,000 they have given to Sens. Clinton and Obama, respectively, neither of whom has been involved in cable issues.
--Elizabeth Holmes contributed to this article.
Write to Brody Mullins at brody.mullins@wsj.com
¿Why big banks do not need to lobby the Fed?
Because they own it. So, they are the one that make the decisions. You do not need to lobby your selves.
Yeah, the Federal Reserve Bank of United States is a private entity, and the shareholders are the private banks. They even receive profit (6 percent). Your hear right. The power to decide the interest rates and the money supply in the US is taken by the baking corporations, not by a federal agency.
They call it "cuasi-federal", bullshit. It was created long time ago, in 1913, not by elected politicians, not by independent policymakers, but by a bunch of powerful bankers. The law that created it was conceived in a way that assures that the power to control money stays always in their hands.
Why did the Fed acted in such a irrational way as it did during the Great Depression? Because the people behind it want it a financial crisis to expand the power of the biggest banks such a JP Morgan and others. ¿Why did the Fed abandon the gold standard? Invest taxpayers money to save Bear Stearns, who was a bad financial citizen for a long time in which noboday says nothing, sell it at sale price to JP Morgan, and they tell the people that works in their interesting. Something is missing here..... ¿Want to learn more? Check the documentary: ZEITGEIST EPISODE 3: DON'T MIND THE MEN BEHIND THE CURTAIN in Freedocumentaries.org.
Yeah, the Federal Reserve Bank of United States is a private entity, and the shareholders are the private banks. They even receive profit (6 percent). Your hear right. The power to decide the interest rates and the money supply in the US is taken by the baking corporations, not by a federal agency.
They call it "cuasi-federal", bullshit. It was created long time ago, in 1913, not by elected politicians, not by independent policymakers, but by a bunch of powerful bankers. The law that created it was conceived in a way that assures that the power to control money stays always in their hands.
Why did the Fed acted in such a irrational way as it did during the Great Depression? Because the people behind it want it a financial crisis to expand the power of the biggest banks such a JP Morgan and others. ¿Why did the Fed abandon the gold standard? Invest taxpayers money to save Bear Stearns, who was a bad financial citizen for a long time in which noboday says nothing, sell it at sale price to JP Morgan, and they tell the people that works in their interesting. Something is missing here..... ¿Want to learn more? Check the documentary: ZEITGEIST EPISODE 3: DON'T MIND THE MEN BEHIND THE CURTAIN in Freedocumentaries.org.
martes, 1 de abril de 2008
lunes, 31 de marzo de 2008
Documentary about the Israeli Lobby
Here you have the complete documentary on one of the most powerful interest groups on earth. You can see how the israeli lobby owns Washington, specially in what concerns to the foreign policy. Mr McCain is one of the best friends of this group, but in the videos you may see also good old Obama in the AIPACs parties, watch it...
Israeli Lobby 1/5
Israeli Lobby 2/5
Israeli Lobby 3/5
Israeli Lobby 4/5
Israeli Lobby 5/5
Israeli Lobby 1/5
Israeli Lobby 2/5
Israeli Lobby 3/5
Israeli Lobby 4/5
Israeli Lobby 5/5
European policy-makers know how to do it
Brussels looks more like Washington everyday. Just like former law makers in US go from public service to the corporate world in reward to their loyal service to special interest, comunitarian authorities find really profitable to favor corporate lobby....
Examples brought by Alter EU:
Jean-Paul Mingasson, former Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate General (DG) for Enterprise and Industry (2002 – 2004) and for Budget (1989 – 2002) left the European Commission in 2004 to work as General Adviser to BusinessEurope (former UNICE), the confederations of European industrialists. During his office at the EC, Mr Mingasson was personally involved in the EU’s revised legislation for the regulation of chemicals in Europe: REACH, against which he begun lobbying as General Adviser to BusinessEurope.
James Currie, Former Director of DG Environment and responsible for Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection (1997-2001) has become, since then, a paid Non-Executive Director of British
Nuclear Fuels;
Leon Brittan, former EU Trade Commissioner, became a consultant on World Trade Organisation (WTO) issues at the law firm Herbert Smith, vice-chairman of the investment bank UBS Warburg and advisory director at Unilever just a year after leaving the European
Commission.
Info available at ater eu brouchure: here
Examples brought by Alter EU:
Jean-Paul Mingasson, former Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate General (DG) for Enterprise and Industry (2002 – 2004) and for Budget (1989 – 2002) left the European Commission in 2004 to work as General Adviser to BusinessEurope (former UNICE), the confederations of European industrialists. During his office at the EC, Mr Mingasson was personally involved in the EU’s revised legislation for the regulation of chemicals in Europe: REACH, against which he begun lobbying as General Adviser to BusinessEurope.
James Currie, Former Director of DG Environment and responsible for Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection (1997-2001) has become, since then, a paid Non-Executive Director of British
Nuclear Fuels;
Leon Brittan, former EU Trade Commissioner, became a consultant on World Trade Organisation (WTO) issues at the law firm Herbert Smith, vice-chairman of the investment bank UBS Warburg and advisory director at Unilever just a year after leaving the European
Commission.
Info available at ater eu brouchure: here
domingo, 30 de marzo de 2008
The Buying of the President 2008
I really recommend you to check out this new project of the Center for Public Integrity, it is amazing. It has detailed information on the campaign contributions, the donors, the candidates, everything. Every report, on its original version, interesting links, bio, etc. It is really complete. What really called my attention was the Hanna Project, a really graphic history of the relations between campaigns and money in US history. Check it out
Politico.com: McCain ties with Banking Lobby
Not only that his campaign staff include former lobbyist from the aeronautical world, now we know that one of the most important persons of Mr. McCain´s campaign team is a former lobbyist that advocated against legislation that could have prevented the current financial crisis.
Politico.com has released an interesting note ("McCain guru linked to subprime crisis") about McCain´s friend and his ties with Banking Lobby:
The general co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign, former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), led the charge in 1999 to repeal a Depression-era
banking regulation law that Democrat Barack Obama claimed on Thursday contributed significantly to today’s economic turmoil.
“A regulatory structure set up for banks in the 1930s needed to change because the nature of business had changed,” the Illinois senator running for president said in a New York economic speech. “But by the time [it] was repealed in 1999, the $300 million lobbying effort that drove deregulation was more about facilitating mergers than creating an efficient regulatory framework.”
Gramm’s role in the swift and dramatic recent restructuring of the nation’s investment houses and practices didn’t stop there.
A year after the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed the old regulations, Swiss Bank UBS gobbled up brokerage house Paine Weber. Two years later, Gramm settled in as a vice chairman of UBS’s new investment banking arm.
Later, he became a major player in its government affairs operation. According to federal lobbying disclosure records, Gramm lobbied Congress, the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department about banking and mortgage issues in 2005 and 2006.
During those years, the mortgage industry pressed Congress to roll back strong state rules that sought to stem the rise of predatory tactics used by lenders and brokers to place homeowners in high-cost mortgages.
For his work, Gramm and two other lobbyists collected $750,000 in fees from UBS’s American subsidiary. In the past year, UBS has written down more then $18 billion in exposure to subprime loans and other risky securities and is considering cutting as many as 8,000 jobs..... (See more)
Politico.com has released an interesting note ("McCain guru linked to subprime crisis") about McCain´s friend and his ties with Banking Lobby:
The general co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign, former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), led the charge in 1999 to repeal a Depression-era
banking regulation law that Democrat Barack Obama claimed on Thursday contributed significantly to today’s economic turmoil.“A regulatory structure set up for banks in the 1930s needed to change because the nature of business had changed,” the Illinois senator running for president said in a New York economic speech. “But by the time [it] was repealed in 1999, the $300 million lobbying effort that drove deregulation was more about facilitating mergers than creating an efficient regulatory framework.”
Gramm’s role in the swift and dramatic recent restructuring of the nation’s investment houses and practices didn’t stop there.
A year after the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed the old regulations, Swiss Bank UBS gobbled up brokerage house Paine Weber. Two years later, Gramm settled in as a vice chairman of UBS’s new investment banking arm.
Later, he became a major player in its government affairs operation. According to federal lobbying disclosure records, Gramm lobbied Congress, the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department about banking and mortgage issues in 2005 and 2006.
During those years, the mortgage industry pressed Congress to roll back strong state rules that sought to stem the rise of predatory tactics used by lenders and brokers to place homeowners in high-cost mortgages.
For his work, Gramm and two other lobbyists collected $750,000 in fees from UBS’s American subsidiary. In the past year, UBS has written down more then $18 billion in exposure to subprime loans and other risky securities and is considering cutting as many as 8,000 jobs..... (See more)
jueves, 27 de marzo de 2008
Alter-EU warns on european rule-making process.
The european lobbyist resist themselves to public exposure. Alter-EU, the european watchdog for lobbying activities, is calling the attention on the current process of creating norms to control de lobby in Brussels
Commission’s Expert Groups dominated by industry
ALTER-EU – a coalition of 160 organisations concerned with transparency within Europe – is calling on the European Commission to dissolve some of its Expert Groups because of the dominance of industry lobbyists.
Its report "Secrecy and corporate dominance - a study on the composition and transparency of European Commission Expert Groups" reveals that industry controls a number of the Commission’s most controversial Expert Groups, including advisory groups on issues such as “biotechnology”, “clean coal” and “car emissions”.
Expert Groups are established by the Commission to provide advice on the development of new laws and policies, giving group members considerable power over EU policies and legislation, the report says.
ALTER-EU warns that public interest may be at risk given the predominance of industry representatives on some Expert Groups. In a study of Expert Groups advising on some of the most controversial issues, it found that industry representatives made up more than 50% of the membership of one in four of the groups surveyed. Almost two thirds of the groups were unbalanced and just 32% of the groups were composed of members representing a wide range of interests.
Report author Yiorgos Vassalos of Corporate Europe Observatory said:
“Expert Groups are responsible for shaping policies on some of the most controversial issues being dealt with by the European Commission. Information about who has access in this crucial initial stage of decision making is not made public, but our research shows that industry representatives are playing an important role. These groups should act in the public interest, but it appears that some are being allowed to further their own commercial interests.”
Information about the make-up and work of the different Expert Groups is not currently published by the Commission, with an online register only including very limited information as to who is represented on the groups.
Using the “access-to-documents” directive, researchers were able to obtain more details, but crucial information was still refused for commercial, security or ‘privacy’ reasons.
The survey shows that the Commission failed to provide necessary information. In 34% of all cases, there was no reply at all to the information request while in another 34% the Commission only provided partial information.
Paul de Clerck of Friends of the Earth Europe said:
“The Commission seems unwilling to provide information about who is on its Expert Groups, and in some cases does not even appear to know whether groups exist or not. This reveals an appalling attitude to transparency and public accountability in the law-making process.”
The EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso promised last year to make information available on Expert Group membership, following pressure from the European Parliament. In February this year the European Parliament stepped up pressure and called for an investigation into the composition of Expert Groups following further concerns about the lack of transparency.
ALTER-EU says that Expert Groups dominated by industry should be dissolved and methods must be found to prevent privileged access of Expert Groups. The Coalition is also demanding immediate disclosure of Expert Group membership, as promised by the Commission for this year..
ENDS
Contact:
Paul de Clerck, Friends of the Earth Europe, ph: 32-494380959, email: paul@milieudefensie.nl
Yiorgos Vassalos, Corporate Europe Observatory, ph: 30-6973524282, email: yiorgos@corporateeurope.org
For the full report: http://www.alter-eu.org/en/publications/secrecy-and-corporate-dominance-...
Notes:
(1) The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) is a coalition of over 160 civil society groups, trade unions, academics and public affairs firms concerned with the increasing influence exerted by corporate lobbyists on the political agenda in Europe and the resulting loss of democracy in EU decision-making.
(2) For more details on the role of Expert Groups and the online register of groups see: http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert/
(3) The European Parliament called for an investigation by the Commission in its "Report on transparency in financial matters" (2007/2141(INI))
(4) Summary findings from the report:
Access to Documents:
- In 34% of the cases, the European Commission failed to provide any information about the Expert Groups;
- In a further 34% of all cases the European Commission only provided partial information.
- The Commission only provided a complete and satisfactory response
in 32% of the cases. - In just 36% of the cases the European Commission provided information
within the prescribed 15 working days. - In only 43% of the cases the European Commission provided names
of organisations and individuals that were represented in Expert Groups.
Membership of the Expert Groups:
- Over 25% of the Expert Groups surveyed appear to be controlled by corporate interests: more than half of all their members (including governments) are industry representatives.
- In 64% of the Expert Groups studied, business interests appear to be over-represented: industry representatives make up more than 50% of the non-Commission and non-government members.
- Only 32% of the Expert Groups sampled appear to have a more balanced allocation of stakeholders.
- One Expert Group (4%) was unbalanced in favour of NGOs.
The report was based on a survey of 44 (out of more than 1200) Expert Groups that were chosen from a number of key policy areas that are particularly important both to the EU’s legislative role and the need for the wider public interest to be reflected in policy-making: environment, energy, agriculture, consumers, health, water and biotechnology.
The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation in the European Union, www.alter-eu.org
WSJ: The Farm Lobby strikes back
BOUNTIFUL HARVEST
Farm Lobby Beats Back
Assault On Subsidies
By LAUREN ETTER and GREG HITT
March 27, 2008; Page A1
With grain prices soaring, farm income at record highs and the federal budget deficit widening, the subsidies and handouts given to American farmers would seem vulnerable to a serious pruning.
But it appears that farmers, at least so far, have succeeded in stopping the strongest effort in years to shrink the government safety net that doles out billions of dollars to them each year.
[go to interactive]
"At some point, you have to step back and ask, 'Does this make sense for the American taxpayer?'" says Rep. Ron Kind. The Democrat from Wisconsin sponsored a measure that would have slashed about $10 billion over five years in subsidies -- and saw it get crushed on the House floor.
Grain prices are on a tear this year. On Wednesday, corn prices closed at $5.52 a bushel, up from about $2.20 in 2006, and near the all-time high of $5.70 set earlier this month. U.S. farm income, buoyed by demand for grain from rising middle classes around the globe and the biofuels industry, is projected to reach a record $92.3 billion this year. Still, farmers are expected to collect $13 billion in federal subsidies this year, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department, including payments for commodities, land conservation and emergency assistance.
A little more than a year ago, the stars appeared to be aligned for significant changes to the complex piece of legislation known as the farm bill, which allots billions of dollars to farmers and landowners to help stabilize grain prices, make products more competitive abroad and provide a plentiful food supply.
FARM FIGHT
• Tilling the Ground: As farm income is rising, Congress is finishing a bill that will provide farmers billions in subsidies.
• Sowing Seeds: Critics want major changes in the decades-old safety net. But they've seen powerful push-back from farmers and allies who say measures are needed to protect during cyclical downturns.
• The Harvest: Absent scaling back of support, farm subsidies will add to budget deficit and hinder trade talks.
President Bush wanted to cut subsidies. California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who had backed a high-profile effort to reshape the system in 2002, had become House Speaker. And a broad coalition of advocacy groups was assembling to press lawmakers.
But now serious reform is likely to be left behind like corn husks flung from a combine. As Congress tries to finish writing the new farm bill, the final tab is likely to be larger than the 2002 bill, which totaled more than $260 billion.
How did it happen?
Influential interest groups -- which had toyed with supporting changes -- cut deals to get their own piece of the action. Lawmakers who supported an overhaul peeled off as the debate moved into the election year. Historical alliances between rural and urban lawmakers proved difficult to untie.
[chart]
The agribusiness industry plowed more than $80 million into lobbying last year, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks spending on lobbying. Much of that was focused on the farm bill.
"We got rolled," says Rep. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who worked closely with Rep. Kind. "The agriculture community circled the wagons."
Farmers and their allies in Congress say a victory is all to the good because the bill, which is typically renewed every five years, is designed to provide farmers with a safety net through cycles of boom and bust. The heady times of the 1970s, when crop prices soared as the Soviet Union gobbled up American grain, devolved into the farm crisis of the 1980s, leaving farmers buried in debt.
"We all know with the good times will come times that are less fortunate than now," says Dale Hadden, a grain farmer in Jacksonville, Ill., who recently traveled to Washington to talk with lawmakers about farm policy.
The farm bill has its roots in the Great Depression, when about a quarter of the U.S. population lived on farms and endured extraordinary economic hardship. As first conceived in the 1930s, the bill was designed to be a temporary boost to farm income.
It has since evolved into a thicket of hard-to-cut programs, providing payments and special loans to farmers to counteract swings in commodity prices and ensure market stability, as well as income. Subsidies flow to growers of corn, wheat and cotton, among other commodities. The legislation has also become a vehicle for funding food stamps, land conservation and school lunches, to name a few things, attracting supporters whose constituents have little or nothing to do with farms.
[photo]
Minnesota Corn Growers Association
Collin Peterson (D., Minn.) and Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) in August 2006 with Curt Watson, the former president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association.
That has helped create a powerful alliance that makes the farm bill difficult to challenge. The bloc helps ensure all programs in the legislation live on, when they might be vulnerable if considered separately. The 2002 farm bill tab was one of the most expensive ever, with a yearly payout that roughly totaled what the federal government appropriates annually for the Education Department.
Today, farmers make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, and agriculture production is dominated by large, industrial farms that have annual sales of $1 million or more. In 2006, average farm household income was $77,654, or about 17% more than average U.S. household income, according to the Department of Agriculture. Average farm household income is expected to be about $90,000 this year. Current law allows subsidies to farmers with annual adjusted gross income of as much as $2.5 million.
"If you're providing benefits to the wealthiest Americans, that's not a safety net," said Chuck Connor, deputy agriculture secretary and the Bush administration's lead farm-bill negotiator. "We felt that was fundamentally wrong."
Farmers argue that it's worth supporting a vital part of the U.S. economy. "What's important for the overall economy, and our piece of it in America, is maintaining strong production agriculture," says Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Costly Combines
Agriculture and related industries, including processed food and beverages, contribute about 5% of America's annual gross domestic product, according to the Agriculture Department. Farmers say critics who focus on millionaire growers don't account for how difficult farming can be, with unpredictable weather, foreign competitors who get government support and the large amount of money it takes to farm.
The price of a new combine, for example, can exceed $300,000. Costs for seed, land rent and fertilizer have been rising swiftly along with prices of wheat, corn and soybeans.
[chart]
"There's a lot of goodwill in the American public for the American farmer," says Ralph Grossi, president of the American Farmland Trust, a land conservation organization that has worked with the farm lobby on the farm bill. Farmers are seen as a "hard-working, salt-of-the-earth, core part of our culture."
An effort was made to overhaul farm programs in 1996, when grain prices were high. That year, Congress enacted the Freedom to Farm Act, which was supposed to give farmers more control over production and planting decisions, while moving away from federal support.
Those efforts were largely abandoned soon after the bill became law, when a downturn in the farm economy prompted lawmakers to pass emergency-relief bills. By 2002, when the next farm bill was being written, big changes were off the agenda.
At the time, President Bush, in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attack, applauded the "generous" bill. He said "the success of America's farmers and ranchers is essential to the success of the American economy."
Mr. Bush would later rue signing the 2002 bill, which hampered efforts to reach a deal in long-running global trade talks launched in Doha, Qatar, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. In those still ongoing negotiations, poor countries -- whose economies are often dominated by agriculture -- are complaining U.S. subsidies give American farmers unfair advantages in the global marketplace.
In January 2007, as Democrats took power on Capitol Hill, the administration proposed a sharp break with past farm bills. The plan emphasized the need for spending on ethanol and other biofuels, conservation and rural development. Most important, it proposed big cutbacks in farm subsidies.
The goal was to target more benefits at farmers who work the land and need financial assistance, while weaning benefits away from the well-to-do. Recent recipients include 92-year-old David Rockefeller Sr., heir to oil-baron John D. Rockefeller. He received $554,000 in subsidies from 1995 to 2005 for farm operations and land conservation in New York, according to a spokesman for Mr. Rockefeller and government data compiled by the Environmental Working Group, which is lobbying for an overhaul of farm programs. The spokesman says Mr. Rockefeller has reinvested about $600,000 into the community where his farm is located, and that his late wife, Peggy, loved to farm and raised cattle. "She was on the tractor and everything," he says.
Among other things, Mr. Bush proposed to end payments to producers with adjusted gross incomes greater than $200,000, instead of the $2.5 million under current law.
At the same time, disparate advocacy groups came together and began pressing for change. The loose-knit alliance included the National Black Farmers Association, which felt the subsidy system had ignored black farmers; the faith-based Bread for the World; and Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group advocating fiscal responsibility. "We decided to put on a game," says Washington lobbyist Rick Swartz, who organized the alliance.
Some groups argued that farm subsidies hurt poor, unsubsidized farmers in the developing world. Others argued the programs can't be justified with the federal budget deficit as large as it is. Still others blamed the commodities subsidized in the farm bill for contributing to obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
Antipoverty group Oxfam America tapped into a grass-roots network around the country to raise awareness of the issue. It paid for television ads that ran in the nation's capital and in targeted states, including Minnesota, home to Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.
The farm lobby already was fighting back. Led by the American Farm Bureau Federation, with more than six million members nationwide, the pro-subsidy force includes trade associations representing farmers of corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans, sugar, rice and peanuts. Many of these groups have their own lobbyists and entire teams devoted to farm-bill strategy.
Equally important are the thousands of smaller farmers who take time off to travel to Capitol Hill to lobby.
Through the spring of 2007, roughly 3,000 Farm Bureau members came to Washington to lobby lawmakers as part of a well-organized "fly in." The farmers found receptive ears on the House and Senate agriculture committees that write the farm bill.
Soon after the Bush proposal was unveiled, Mr. Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, vowed "to make sure that we protect the safety net." His committee proposed to lower the income limit on payments to $1 million from $2.5 million, and to $500,000 for beneficiaries who don't earn at least two-thirds of their income from farming. He agreed to additional changes, including one that would bar farmers from collecting multiple payments by setting up affiliate corporate entities.
The safety net was essentially left intact. Basic support for commodity programs remained.
'Good First Step'
As the measure headed to the House floor in July, advocates of reform made a last-ditch bid for support, appealing to Speaker Pelosi. But the California Democrat sided with Mr. Peterson of the House Agriculture Committee. The year before, he'd ushered Mrs. Pelosi around a popular farm festival in Minnesota, where she mingled with farmers and ate pork chops on a stick.
To shore up support for the bill, especially among urban lawmakers, Chairman Peterson -- with the speaker's blessing -- made sure more money was added for nutrition and conservation, among other things. A Pelosi spokesman described the House bill as a "good first step toward reforming the farm bill."
As it became clearer the farm lobby wasn't going to be stopped, groups that had considered pushing for change focused on getting a piece of the pie. One such group is the United Fresh Produce Association, which, along with other fruit and vegetable groups, is likely to win specialty-crop producers up to $2.2 billion in aid for the first time.
"We were pulled in a lot of directions," says Robert Guenther, senior vice president for public policy at the United Fresh Produce Association. But at the end of the day, "we were most concerned about getting a foothold in the farm bill."
The National Black Farmers Association agreed to support the overall bill in return for language that would help members receive settlement money from the Agriculture Department in a discrimination lawsuit.
"We are upbeat about that," says the association's president, John Boyd, who once traveled about 200 miles in a wagon pulled by two mules from Baskerville, Va., to Washington to raise awareness about farm policy. "But we lost the bigger fight, which is the subsidy fight."
The House bill passed by a vote of 231-191 in July. The Senate bill, passed in December, would eventually ratchet down the income cap to $750,000. Like the House bill, it proposes to bar farmers from collecting multiple payments, among other changes. Key members of the House and Senate are hoping to negotiate a compromise package by mid-April.
Mr. Bush has vowed to veto both bills, a threat that gives him leverage in negotiations to wring concessions on reform. At the same time, Mr. Bush is dangling the prospect of $10 billion in new spending, in return for congressional support for more aggressive changes. As an inducement, the White House has suggested it could raise its proposed income cap to $500,000 from $200,000.
But farmers are standing fast. A group of Farm Bureau members from Iowa traveled to Washington earlier this month to give lawmakers "a dose of in-your-face reality," says a spokeswoman.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120657645419967077.html?mod=hps_us_pageone
Farm Lobby Beats Back
Assault On Subsidies
By LAUREN ETTER and GREG HITT
March 27, 2008; Page A1
With grain prices soaring, farm income at record highs and the federal budget deficit widening, the subsidies and handouts given to American farmers would seem vulnerable to a serious pruning.
But it appears that farmers, at least so far, have succeeded in stopping the strongest effort in years to shrink the government safety net that doles out billions of dollars to them each year.
[go to interactive]
"At some point, you have to step back and ask, 'Does this make sense for the American taxpayer?'" says Rep. Ron Kind. The Democrat from Wisconsin sponsored a measure that would have slashed about $10 billion over five years in subsidies -- and saw it get crushed on the House floor.
Grain prices are on a tear this year. On Wednesday, corn prices closed at $5.52 a bushel, up from about $2.20 in 2006, and near the all-time high of $5.70 set earlier this month. U.S. farm income, buoyed by demand for grain from rising middle classes around the globe and the biofuels industry, is projected to reach a record $92.3 billion this year. Still, farmers are expected to collect $13 billion in federal subsidies this year, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department, including payments for commodities, land conservation and emergency assistance.
A little more than a year ago, the stars appeared to be aligned for significant changes to the complex piece of legislation known as the farm bill, which allots billions of dollars to farmers and landowners to help stabilize grain prices, make products more competitive abroad and provide a plentiful food supply.
FARM FIGHT
• Tilling the Ground: As farm income is rising, Congress is finishing a bill that will provide farmers billions in subsidies.
• Sowing Seeds: Critics want major changes in the decades-old safety net. But they've seen powerful push-back from farmers and allies who say measures are needed to protect during cyclical downturns.
• The Harvest: Absent scaling back of support, farm subsidies will add to budget deficit and hinder trade talks.
President Bush wanted to cut subsidies. California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who had backed a high-profile effort to reshape the system in 2002, had become House Speaker. And a broad coalition of advocacy groups was assembling to press lawmakers.
But now serious reform is likely to be left behind like corn husks flung from a combine. As Congress tries to finish writing the new farm bill, the final tab is likely to be larger than the 2002 bill, which totaled more than $260 billion.
How did it happen?
Influential interest groups -- which had toyed with supporting changes -- cut deals to get their own piece of the action. Lawmakers who supported an overhaul peeled off as the debate moved into the election year. Historical alliances between rural and urban lawmakers proved difficult to untie.
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The agribusiness industry plowed more than $80 million into lobbying last year, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks spending on lobbying. Much of that was focused on the farm bill.
"We got rolled," says Rep. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who worked closely with Rep. Kind. "The agriculture community circled the wagons."
Farmers and their allies in Congress say a victory is all to the good because the bill, which is typically renewed every five years, is designed to provide farmers with a safety net through cycles of boom and bust. The heady times of the 1970s, when crop prices soared as the Soviet Union gobbled up American grain, devolved into the farm crisis of the 1980s, leaving farmers buried in debt.
"We all know with the good times will come times that are less fortunate than now," says Dale Hadden, a grain farmer in Jacksonville, Ill., who recently traveled to Washington to talk with lawmakers about farm policy.
The farm bill has its roots in the Great Depression, when about a quarter of the U.S. population lived on farms and endured extraordinary economic hardship. As first conceived in the 1930s, the bill was designed to be a temporary boost to farm income.
It has since evolved into a thicket of hard-to-cut programs, providing payments and special loans to farmers to counteract swings in commodity prices and ensure market stability, as well as income. Subsidies flow to growers of corn, wheat and cotton, among other commodities. The legislation has also become a vehicle for funding food stamps, land conservation and school lunches, to name a few things, attracting supporters whose constituents have little or nothing to do with farms.
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Minnesota Corn Growers Association
Collin Peterson (D., Minn.) and Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) in August 2006 with Curt Watson, the former president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association.
That has helped create a powerful alliance that makes the farm bill difficult to challenge. The bloc helps ensure all programs in the legislation live on, when they might be vulnerable if considered separately. The 2002 farm bill tab was one of the most expensive ever, with a yearly payout that roughly totaled what the federal government appropriates annually for the Education Department.
Today, farmers make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, and agriculture production is dominated by large, industrial farms that have annual sales of $1 million or more. In 2006, average farm household income was $77,654, or about 17% more than average U.S. household income, according to the Department of Agriculture. Average farm household income is expected to be about $90,000 this year. Current law allows subsidies to farmers with annual adjusted gross income of as much as $2.5 million.
"If you're providing benefits to the wealthiest Americans, that's not a safety net," said Chuck Connor, deputy agriculture secretary and the Bush administration's lead farm-bill negotiator. "We felt that was fundamentally wrong."
Farmers argue that it's worth supporting a vital part of the U.S. economy. "What's important for the overall economy, and our piece of it in America, is maintaining strong production agriculture," says Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Costly Combines
Agriculture and related industries, including processed food and beverages, contribute about 5% of America's annual gross domestic product, according to the Agriculture Department. Farmers say critics who focus on millionaire growers don't account for how difficult farming can be, with unpredictable weather, foreign competitors who get government support and the large amount of money it takes to farm.
The price of a new combine, for example, can exceed $300,000. Costs for seed, land rent and fertilizer have been rising swiftly along with prices of wheat, corn and soybeans.
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"There's a lot of goodwill in the American public for the American farmer," says Ralph Grossi, president of the American Farmland Trust, a land conservation organization that has worked with the farm lobby on the farm bill. Farmers are seen as a "hard-working, salt-of-the-earth, core part of our culture."
An effort was made to overhaul farm programs in 1996, when grain prices were high. That year, Congress enacted the Freedom to Farm Act, which was supposed to give farmers more control over production and planting decisions, while moving away from federal support.
Those efforts were largely abandoned soon after the bill became law, when a downturn in the farm economy prompted lawmakers to pass emergency-relief bills. By 2002, when the next farm bill was being written, big changes were off the agenda.
At the time, President Bush, in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attack, applauded the "generous" bill. He said "the success of America's farmers and ranchers is essential to the success of the American economy."
Mr. Bush would later rue signing the 2002 bill, which hampered efforts to reach a deal in long-running global trade talks launched in Doha, Qatar, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. In those still ongoing negotiations, poor countries -- whose economies are often dominated by agriculture -- are complaining U.S. subsidies give American farmers unfair advantages in the global marketplace.
In January 2007, as Democrats took power on Capitol Hill, the administration proposed a sharp break with past farm bills. The plan emphasized the need for spending on ethanol and other biofuels, conservation and rural development. Most important, it proposed big cutbacks in farm subsidies.
The goal was to target more benefits at farmers who work the land and need financial assistance, while weaning benefits away from the well-to-do. Recent recipients include 92-year-old David Rockefeller Sr., heir to oil-baron John D. Rockefeller. He received $554,000 in subsidies from 1995 to 2005 for farm operations and land conservation in New York, according to a spokesman for Mr. Rockefeller and government data compiled by the Environmental Working Group, which is lobbying for an overhaul of farm programs. The spokesman says Mr. Rockefeller has reinvested about $600,000 into the community where his farm is located, and that his late wife, Peggy, loved to farm and raised cattle. "She was on the tractor and everything," he says.
Among other things, Mr. Bush proposed to end payments to producers with adjusted gross incomes greater than $200,000, instead of the $2.5 million under current law.
At the same time, disparate advocacy groups came together and began pressing for change. The loose-knit alliance included the National Black Farmers Association, which felt the subsidy system had ignored black farmers; the faith-based Bread for the World; and Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group advocating fiscal responsibility. "We decided to put on a game," says Washington lobbyist Rick Swartz, who organized the alliance.
Some groups argued that farm subsidies hurt poor, unsubsidized farmers in the developing world. Others argued the programs can't be justified with the federal budget deficit as large as it is. Still others blamed the commodities subsidized in the farm bill for contributing to obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
Antipoverty group Oxfam America tapped into a grass-roots network around the country to raise awareness of the issue. It paid for television ads that ran in the nation's capital and in targeted states, including Minnesota, home to Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.
The farm lobby already was fighting back. Led by the American Farm Bureau Federation, with more than six million members nationwide, the pro-subsidy force includes trade associations representing farmers of corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans, sugar, rice and peanuts. Many of these groups have their own lobbyists and entire teams devoted to farm-bill strategy.
Equally important are the thousands of smaller farmers who take time off to travel to Capitol Hill to lobby.
Through the spring of 2007, roughly 3,000 Farm Bureau members came to Washington to lobby lawmakers as part of a well-organized "fly in." The farmers found receptive ears on the House and Senate agriculture committees that write the farm bill.
Soon after the Bush proposal was unveiled, Mr. Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, vowed "to make sure that we protect the safety net." His committee proposed to lower the income limit on payments to $1 million from $2.5 million, and to $500,000 for beneficiaries who don't earn at least two-thirds of their income from farming. He agreed to additional changes, including one that would bar farmers from collecting multiple payments by setting up affiliate corporate entities.
The safety net was essentially left intact. Basic support for commodity programs remained.
'Good First Step'
As the measure headed to the House floor in July, advocates of reform made a last-ditch bid for support, appealing to Speaker Pelosi. But the California Democrat sided with Mr. Peterson of the House Agriculture Committee. The year before, he'd ushered Mrs. Pelosi around a popular farm festival in Minnesota, where she mingled with farmers and ate pork chops on a stick.
To shore up support for the bill, especially among urban lawmakers, Chairman Peterson -- with the speaker's blessing -- made sure more money was added for nutrition and conservation, among other things. A Pelosi spokesman described the House bill as a "good first step toward reforming the farm bill."
As it became clearer the farm lobby wasn't going to be stopped, groups that had considered pushing for change focused on getting a piece of the pie. One such group is the United Fresh Produce Association, which, along with other fruit and vegetable groups, is likely to win specialty-crop producers up to $2.2 billion in aid for the first time.
"We were pulled in a lot of directions," says Robert Guenther, senior vice president for public policy at the United Fresh Produce Association. But at the end of the day, "we were most concerned about getting a foothold in the farm bill."
The National Black Farmers Association agreed to support the overall bill in return for language that would help members receive settlement money from the Agriculture Department in a discrimination lawsuit.
"We are upbeat about that," says the association's president, John Boyd, who once traveled about 200 miles in a wagon pulled by two mules from Baskerville, Va., to Washington to raise awareness about farm policy. "But we lost the bigger fight, which is the subsidy fight."
The House bill passed by a vote of 231-191 in July. The Senate bill, passed in December, would eventually ratchet down the income cap to $750,000. Like the House bill, it proposes to bar farmers from collecting multiple payments, among other changes. Key members of the House and Senate are hoping to negotiate a compromise package by mid-April.
Mr. Bush has vowed to veto both bills, a threat that gives him leverage in negotiations to wring concessions on reform. At the same time, Mr. Bush is dangling the prospect of $10 billion in new spending, in return for congressional support for more aggressive changes. As an inducement, the White House has suggested it could raise its proposed income cap to $500,000 from $200,000.
But farmers are standing fast. A group of Farm Bureau members from Iowa traveled to Washington earlier this month to give lawmakers "a dose of in-your-face reality," says a spokeswoman.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120657645419967077.html?mod=hps_us_pageone
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