The Cold Calls Behind Those Personal Letters to Congress

Still, letters from individuals make up a small fraction of the communications to lawmakers. Many, many more contacts are done by e-mail, through millions of messages generated by interest-group Web sites.

DDC will not say who its clients are. But it must have a lot of them. Last year it had 39 projects of this kind. This year, in anticipation of a busy time for advocates from the grass roots in 2009, its pace is even faster.

Ecuador Duel

Two Washington heavyweights have been brought into the fight over how to pay for the repair of an environmental mess in, of all places, Ecuador.

Democratic lobbyist Ben Barnes has been hired by Kohn Swift & Graf, a Philadelphia law firm that's bankrolling a lawsuit in Ecuador to force Chevron to pay potentially billions of dollars to clean up some oil fields and their environs down there -- a controversy that's been simmering for years.

Barnes said he is hoping to raise the dispute's profile in Congress and elsewhere in Washington. He wants to put heat on the company to acknowledge the contamination and agree to fix it.

Chevron says that the suit is without merit and that the company and its predecessor in Ecuador did the required remediation long ago. It has been using McLarty Associates, headed by former Clinton White House chief of staff Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty III, to help it deal with the government of Ecuador, a spokesman for McLarty said.

Hire of the Week

A well-known Washington pilot is about to take the controls of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

Craig L. Fuller, 57, a former vice presidential chief of staff to George H.W. Bush, has been named the organization's new president, replacing Phil Boyer, who is slated to retire at the end of the year.

Fuller has held a variety of jobs since leaving the White House. He was president of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and led the board of directors practice for Korn/Ferry International, an executive search firm.

Through it all, he has been a pilot, which makes his fit in the new position much easier. Fuller learned to fly when he was in high school and still logs at least 200 hours a year in his Beech Bonanza A36.

"Craig is a committed 40-year pilot, aircraft owner and AOPA member," said William C. Trimble III, the association's chairman. "He is as comfortable with fellow pilots and 'hangar talk' as he is facing a congressional committee."