As a percentage of most big high-tech companies earnings, I suppose spending anywhere from $1 million to $10,000 on a lobbyist firm is a drop in the bucket – with the possibility in some cases of a huge return. Still it is interesting to see how much some of these companies are spending to gain influence in a place – the Federal Government — they hold little sway over. For example, here’s a small list of what a few big players paid some lobby firms for a voice in Washington, DC:
· IBM: $260,000
· Google: $580,000
· Microsoft: $45,000
· AT&T: $240,000
· Intel: $100,000
· Sun: $40,000
· Apple: $20,00
· Nortel: $280,000
These numbers are available to all through the Senate’s Office of Public Records. Federal law requires lobbyists to disclose activities that could influence members of the executive and legislative branches. They must register with Congress within 45 days of being hired or engaging in lobbying.
So what are companies lobbying for? Well, Cisco lobbied on several fronts, including cybersecurity, data privacy, patent reform and the digital television transition. Intel has lobbied for the Focus Center Research Program (FCRP), a semiconductor research program that gets $40 million a year from congress and the Department of Defense.
According to the Mercurynews.com site, Google has retained three notable Washington lobbying firms to help push for approval of the DoubleClick merger. The first is Brownstein Hyatt & Farber whose lobbyists include Makan Delrahim, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the anti-trust division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The next is King & Spalding, whose lobbyists include Daniel Coats, a former ambassador to Germany. And the third is Podesta Group, which is also helping the company on a broad range of issues.
A group of 160 companies that calls themselves the Business Roundtable paid Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock $120,000 in the first half of 2007 to lobby the federal government. Chief executives of IBM, Accenture, Alcatel-Lucent, Boeing and ExxonMobile are just a few of the big guns represented by the group that lobbied Congress on a wide array of issues, including port security, immigration and energy, according to an Associated Press report. In addition to Congress, the group lobbied the White House, plus the departments of Commerce, Education, Homeland Security Labor, Health and Human Services and Treasury.
According to the Hill.com site, a coalition of high-tech businesses and academic groups is lobbying the top three presidential candidates in both parties to pledge to increase federal spending for research in the physical sciences and engineering. The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation includes Google, Intel and Microsoft as well as the American Chemical Society, the University of California and the National Association of State Universities. Defense-industry contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are also members. The request from the nonpartisan group is simple: All of the presidential candidates should pledge to double, over 10 years, the research budgets of the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
And last month after a heavy lobby from Apple, Google, Intel, and Microsoft and others, the House of Representatives approved a bipartisan bill that seeks to reinvent patent litigation.
Of course some lobbying efforts have lead to court. For example, The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) believes telecommunications carriers are lobbying for an amnesty to protect them from lawsuits over alleged illegal wiretapping, and it is suing for the evidence. The EFF sued AT&T last year, alleging the carrier cooperated with a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) wiretapping project that the EFF believes to be illegal. The case, Hepting v. AT&T, has been consolidated in a U.S. District Court in San Francisco with nearly 50 similar lawsuits. The Department of Justice has tried to have the case thrown out on the grounds that hearing it would reveal state secrets. With lobbying from carriers, the George Bush administration now is trying to pass laws that excuse the carriers, EFF alleges.
Meanwhile Frontline Wireless says Verizon’s lobbying should get the company sanctioned and possibly barred from bidding in an upcoming spectrum auction for a violation of U.S. Federal Communications Commission lobbying rules. Verizon has attempted to circumvent rules prohibiting it from lobbying the FCC behind the scenes to change conditions on the upcoming 700MHz auction, while, at the same time, challenging the conditions in court, alleged Frontline Wireless LLC, a likely competing bidder in the auction. Verizon Wireless violated the FCC’s rules requiring public disclosure of communications with FCC staff on the January auction, alleged Frontline.
This just in: GAO says FCC a little too chummy with lobbyists
The Government Accountability Office today said the FCC is a little too buddy buddy with lobbyists saying the agency tips off some people with business before the commission in advance about what items are coming up for a vote, usually before the public is notified.
The GAO report concluded: As a regulatory agency, FCC is routinely lobbied by stakeholders with a vested interest in the issues FCC regulates. It is critical that FCC maintain an environment in which all stakeholders have an equal opportunity to participate in the rulemaking process and that the process is perceived as fair and transparent. Situations where some, but not all, stakeholders know what FCC is considering for an upcoming vote undermine the fairness and transparency of the process and constitute a violation of FCC’s rules.
Since the success of lobbying for a particular issue can be highly dependent on whether an issue is being actively considered, FCC staff who disclose nonpublic information about when an issue will be considered could be providing an advantage to some stakeholders, allowing them to time their lobbying efforts to maximize their impact. As a result, FCC may not hear from all sides of the issue during an important part of the rulemaking process.
This imbalance of information is not the intended result of the Communications Act, and it runs contrary to the principles of transparency and equal opportunity for participation established by law and to FCC’s own rules that govern rulemaking.
