Companies Start to Lift Veil on Political Spending

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Ever wonder how much companies really spend to influence government through trade associations? Well, a few corporations are coming clean, or at least cleaner.

The Center for Political Accountability, a nonpartisan group that promotes corporate political disclosure, has been gradually persuading companies to disclose more about their political activities. As a result, a few mysteries have been solved.

In 2006, for example, Chevron, the oil company, paid the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Industry PAC (BIPAC) $250,000 each to educate voters. Such spending has traditionally been kept secret because laws do not require disclosure, even though it is an important element in the assault on Washington. Now, shareholder pressure has changed a few minds in corporate boardrooms.

Aetna, the insurance company, has disclosed that it paid trade associations $3.4 million in 2006, the latest year for which information is available. That included $950,000 to America's Health Insurance Plans, $925,000 to the Coalition for Affordable Quality Healthcare, $226,500 to the Business Roundtable and $100,000 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In other words, a ton of dough.

But even with these disclosures, it's still sometimes hard to know how much associations actually receive.

Hewlett-Packard, for instance, lists only the amount of its dues that trade associations put toward lobbying and political activities. The computer maker recently said that it paid the Information Technology Industry Council $73,060. But that is probably a fraction of the company's full payments to those groups.

A survey earlier this year of 255 corporate directors commissioned by the foundation-backed center revealed that directors knew very little about disclosure laws and were not much involved in political advocacy.

In other words, boards may be willing to reveal more but they still have a long way to go before their companies are forthright about political spending. "We're beginning to breach that wall," said Bruce F. Freed, the center's executive director. "But there's much more to do."

Bottom Feeders Win Again

The powerful farm lobby won many battles -- large and small -- in the $300 billion farm bill now pending in Congress. Here's one of the small ones.

The Catfish Farmers of America -- a group you may remember -- got its wish thanks in part to appropriations bigwig Thad Cochran, a Republican senator from the catfish-producing state of Mississippi. The legislation directs the Agriculture Department to inspect and grade farmed catfish, a procedure that will probably make it at least a little harder for catfish imports to grow.

At the same time, the rest of the food industry staved off a proposal from the House that would have required USDA inspections of all seafood. Instead, non-catfish fish will get voluntary grading on a plant-by-plant basis. Score that as a victory for the food lobby.

Gas Prices, and Ads, Rise

Voters are outraged at the high price of gasoline, and the oil industry has ramped up its advertising to protect itself from a backlash. The American Petroleum Institute, the chief oil and gas lobby, is spending tens of millions of dollars a year -- a huge sum for an issue-advertising campaign -- to deflect blame for spiraling prices and to urge Congress to allow more domestic drilling, not less, as many Democrats would prefer.

But oil companies are not alone among energy providers in mounting lobbying blitzes directed at the public. All forms of energy are profiting from the run-up in oil prices, and the lobbies for ethanol, a grain-alcohol additive, and wind power are taking a portion of their newfound prosperity and pouring it into self-promotion -- just like Big Oil.

The wind-power industry has increased its advertising budget several-fold over the past year and a half. It has purchased commercials on television, on radio and in print and has even placed banners in Washington's Metro system.

"We're looking to elevate an awareness of how the wind-power industry has grown and matured," said Gregory S. Wetstone, senior director of government affairs for the American Wind Energy Association. "We're also working hard to elevate the urgency of getting Congress to extend the one major piece of federal policy support we have: a tax credit that expires at the end of this year."

The Renewable Fuels Association, which lobbies for ethanol producers, also is expanding its PR and advertising budget and will concentrate its efforts inside the Beltway. It wants to defend its industry against assertions that the use of corn in ethanol is a major factor in rising food costs.

"That's a hot issue right now," said the association's president, Robert Dinneen. "We have to make sure our small part of the story is told."

It's Easy Being Green

Record gasoline prices have done more than boost advertising budgets for worried energy lobbies. They also have turned long-held positions of significant lobbying groups upside down -- and decidedly pro-environmental.

The American Trucking Associations last week did a 180 (or pretty close to that) on two key issues. In news releases notable for their use of the color green, the truck company lobby said it would accept a fuel tax increase -- once its most hated policy proposal -- if the extra revenue went toward reducing highway congestion. It also suggested tougher fuel economy standards for trucks, another shocker for the trucking industry.

Association President Bill Grav es tacitly acknowledged that the world as we know it has changed. In a video news release on the association's new tree-lined Web site, http://www.trucksdeliver.org, he said his goal is "a cleaner and greener industry." That's right, everything is green these days. Even trucks.

That tree, by the way -- at least as pictured on the Web site -- has leaves (green, of course) and branches. But its roots look like a roadway, complete with double no-passing stripes down the middle.

Hire of the Week

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce under Thomas J. Donohue has grown rapidly in recent years, sticking its nose into almost every domestic issue that corporations care about -- from the proliferation of lawsuits to the sorry state of highways and bridges.

Last week it opened a new front: international terrorism. The Chamber named Frances F. Townsend, 46, the former assistant to President Bush for homeland security and counterterrorism, as a senior adviser and outside consultant.

Townsend joins a rarified group of Chamber consultants. They include Andrew H. Card Jr., Bush's former chief of staff; Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty III, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton; former congressman Michael G. Oxley (R-Ohio); Al From, chief executive of the Democratic Leadership Council; Jim Nicholson, former chairman of the Republican National Committee; and Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, a former Clinton national security adviser.

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