A Look Back at the Year's Winners and Losers

The Washington Post

Finally, another branch of the insurance industry -- property and casualty insurers-- managed a little-noticed but significant win. Led by the American Insurance Association, the industry convinced Congress to approve a lengthy extension of the federal backstop to terrorism risk insurance, a program that was once considered temporary after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but now appears nearly permanent.

Losers

Auto companies have spent decades avoiding an increase in fuel-efficiency standards for their fleets. In 2007, their luck finally ran out.

The energy bill that passed last month increased the standards by 40 percent by 2020, and although the carmakers in the end accepted the boost, they had to be dragged to that decision. Their executives argued that, for them, the outcome could have been worse -- but isn't that always the case?

Student lenders dependent on federal subsidies were also pared back significantly in 2007, despite heavy lobbying to avoid the hit. The $85 billion-a-year student loan industry also became a target for the Democratic-led Congress and the subject of a nationwide investigation into questionable business practices. The cutbacks and bad publicity have wreaked havoc on the industry's biggest player, Sallie Mae, and were partly responsible for the scuttling of a $25 billion acquisition of the company.

Thanks to the meltdown of the subprime mortgage industry in 2007, mortgage lenders face new federal restrictions on their lending practices, mostly imposed by the Federal Reserve, and are likely to shoulder even more written by Congress this year.

Drug and oil companies were major targets of Congress's Democratic majority in 2007, but they fended off the strongest assaults. The pharmaceuticals ducked a proposal to force them to negotiate prescription drug prices under Medicare. Oil companies got lawmakers to remove a multibillion-dollar tax increase from the energy bill.

But drug companies did come out on the short end in one legislative skirmish -- the drive to alter the nation's patent laws. An alliance that represents tech companies steered a bill that it likes -- and drug companies oppose -- through the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full House.

Drug companies prefer the existing system, which allows the penalty for patent infringement to go beyond the economic impact of the invention itself and thus broadly discourages copycatting of patents.

Research companies also had a disappointing year. Despite efforts by the R&D Credit Coalition, the federal tax credit for research was not renewed, nor were three dozen other temporary tax breaks known as "extenders." Congress can extend the extenders this year, but until that happens, class those lobbyists among the losers of '07.

Until then, happy new year!

Please send e-mail tokstreet@washpost.com.