04-28-2001
LOBBYING: K Street For April 28, 2001
Roundtable Taps New Prez, and Chair
The Business Roundtable has tapped veteran Washington lobbyist John J.
Castellani as its new president, according to lobbying sources, who say
that Castellani will take over on May 1. He succeeds Sam Maury as head of
the corporate lobbying powerhouse whose membership is made up of about 200
of the nation's top chief executive officers. Castellani ran the
Washington office of Tenneco for several years in the mid-1990s and then
went to its corporate offices in Connecticut. He is a familiar face to BRT
leaders. At Tenneco, Castellani worked with company CEO Dana Mead, who
chaired the BRT in 1998. "Castellani has the confidence of the CEO
community and is highly regarded on Capitol Hill," says one lobbyist
for a leading Roundtable company. Most recently, Castellani was an
executive at Burson-Marsteller, the New York-based public relations
behemoth. Over the years, he also held posts at General Electric Co. and
TRW. Meanwhile, the Roundtable elected International Paper's CEO, John
Dillon, as chairman, according to lobbying sources, and he will assume his
duties in June.
Steeling Up for a Trade Fight
An industry-labor steel coalition has hired two heavy-hitting K Street
firms-Clark & Weinstock and Quinn Gillespie & Associates-to come
up with a lobbying strategy for fighting the dumping of foreign steel and
for winning relief for the beleaguered U.S. industry. Stand Up for
Steel-formed by Bethlehem Steel Corp., U.S. Steel (and other steel
giants), and the United Steelworkers of America-hopes to expand the
industry's muscle after years of being hit by Japanese and other foreign
imports. News reports and some political signals suggest that the Bush
Administration might support new protections for the steel industry in
exchange for the industry's support in Congress for Bush's fast-track
trade legislation. "The goal here is to accomplish something for the
industry that's not perceived as contrary to the Administration's trade
policies," says one lobbyist involved in the new lobbying
effort.
Cease Fire! Lobbyists Say
Tired of the shooting match between gun control groups and the National
Rifle Association? Americans for Gun Safety is promoting a "third
way." The group's principal financial backer is Andy McKelvey, the
chairman and CEO of TMP Worldwide, the parent company of the job-search
Web site monster.com. The gun safety group has hired a bipartisan team of
lobbyists from Griffin, Johnson, Dover & Stewart and promises to spend
"millions" to push gun show legislation that Sens. John McCain,
R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., are expected to introduce later this
year. (The McCain-Lieberman plan includes looser restrictions on firearms
sales at gun shows than those contained in a previously passed Senate bill
that failed in the House.) The two principal lobbyists on the account are
name partner Patrick J. Griffin, a veteran Democrat, and Leonard
Swinehart, who was a key aide to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.
"We wanted a firm with bipartisan contacts," says Matt Bennett,
Americans for Gun Safety spokesman. Last fall, the group spent $3 million
on television ads promoting successful ballot initiatives on gun show
sales in Colorado and Oregon. "You have a right to own a gun, but
with that comes the responsibility to keep guns away from criminals and
children, and to keep guns safe," Bennett says. The group ran ads in
February that were pegged to the McCain-Lieberman plan. One activist says
that the gun control community is split on Americans for Gun Safety, with
some seeing it as a constructive ally and others complaining that it has
compromised too many gun control principles. Either way, Bennett says that
CEO McKelvey is "committed to spending what it takes to get the job
done."
Latest Rum War Saga
The U.S. Rum War lives on-even though its combatants are two foreign
companies. France-based Pernod Ricard and Bermuda-based Bacardi & Co.
have been fighting over the "Havana Club" label. Now Pernod
Ricard has added Fierce & Isakowitz to its lobbying arsenal, hoping
that the K Street veteran and GOP-insider Mark W. Isakowitz will help the
company win on Capitol Hill. Isakowitz will join forces with Pernod
Ricard's in-house Washington representative, Mark Orr; lobbyists John
Green, Stewart Hall, and Timothy Rupli at Hall, Green and Rupli; and a
public relations team at the Dittus Group.
The lobbyists expect that by May 15, the World Trade Organization will
issue a favorable ruling for Pernod Ricard that will reject an obscure
provision of U.S. law dubbed Section 211. During the jockeying over the
Havana Club label, Bacardi dreamed up Section 211 and persuaded then-Sen.
Connie Mack, R-Fla., to include it in a 1998 appropriations bill. Section
211 bars companies that use disputed trademarks with Cuban origins from
filing suit in U.S. courts, and it prevents companies using the disputed
labels from renewing them in the United States. Undaunted, Pernod Ricard
filed a trademark infringement suit in the United States, but it was
nullified by Section 211. The European Union then filed a complaint with
the WTO, accusing the United States of violating international agreements
on trademark protection. If the WTO rules in the EU's favor, Congress must
repeal Section 211 or face possible European trade retaliation.
Got that? Lobbyist Orr hopes that Congress will look at the issue as an
intellectual-property matter, not a Cuba issue. If so, Pernod Ricard could
gain the right to move forward with litigation in the United States. But
Pernod Ricard may face tough sledding with the Bush Administration.
President Bush has already signaled that he will toe a hard line on Cuba
policy, and has notified Congress of his intention to nominate Otto Reich,
a former Bacardi lobbyist, as the assistant secretary of State for Latin
America.
Peter H. Stone, Louis Jacobson, Shawn Zeller
National Journal
