07-21-2001
LOBBYING: K Street For July 21, 2001
DeLay Speaks, Auto Folks Listen
When House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, talks, his friends in
corporate America usually listen. Case in point: This month, the Alliance
of Automobile Manufacturers Inc. hired Tony Rudy, a former top aide to
DeLay who is now a lobbyist at Greenberg Traurig. Rudy's mission is to
help Detroit fend off bills that would hike the federal corporate average
fuel economy (CAFE) standard. Rudy was hired just a few weeks after DeLay
bluntly told auto lobbyists that if they want to stop congressional
legislation mandating CAFE increases, they'd better get their lobbying act
together.
Because Rudy left DeLay's staff late last year, he has to wait another six
months before he can lobby the whip's office. But he's free to lobby old
buddies in the House, and he's reportedly hard at work. Rudy and other
auto industry advocates have a tough job. There's emerging bipartisan
support in Congress for bills that would hike CAFE limits, and the Bush
Administration has indicated it may act on its own this fall when the
current ban expires on raising the CAFE standard. A study coming soon from
the National Academy of Sciences, which Detroit was counting on to back up
its position, is expected to say that auto companies could meet tougher
CAFE standards over 10 years without hurting their bottom lines or eroding
auto safety.
White House to Druggists: `Stop Calling'
At least one very vocal group is none too pleased with President Bush's
recently announced plan to give all seniors a prescription drug discount
card: the National Association of Chain Drug Stores Inc. The White House
Office of Public Liaison has asked the group's lobbyists to get their
members to stop phoning the White House with negative comments. The
association represents 181 retail chains that operate 33,000 pharmacies.
Craig L. Fuller, the president of the NACDS, says that "the White
House has asked us to stop" because the calls are clogging up the
voice-mail system. On July 17, Fuller's group and another big trade group,
the National Community Pharmacists Association, filed lawsuits to block
the Bush plan, alleging that it was created in "secret meetings"
and that the Administration didn't follow normal procedures for issuing
new regulations.
They're Betting on Swidler Berlin
Some card rooms and bingo halls in California are hoping that
lawyer-lobbyists James Hamilton and Barry Direnfeld of Swidler Berlin
Shereff Friedman can slip them an ace in their campaign against Indian
casinos in the state. Direnfeld was chief legislative counsel to then-Sen.
Howard M. Metzenbaum, D-Ohio; Hamilton is a longtime Washington hand,
having served as an adviser to President Clinton and as the assistant
chief counsel on the Senate Watergate Committee. Hamilton says that his
clients "would lose a lot of business if full-blown casinos are
allowed" in the state. To prove it, Swidler Berlin has hired William
Eadington, the director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and
Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada (Reno), to testify on the
negative economic impact. Eadington has already filed an affidavit in a
federal lawsuit that the firm is handling. The suit seeks to block a
voter-approved referendum question allowing California Indian tribes to
become the sole operators of full-service casinos in the state.
Swidler Berlin's lobbying effort, however, focuses mostly on rescinding a
congressional directive that allowed the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians to
bypass the normal vetting process for Indian casinos and begin
construction of a gambling facility near San Francisco. Rep. George
Miller, D-Calif., had successfully attached the provision to an
appropriations bill. But this year, Swidler Berlin worked with Sen. Harry
Reid, D-Nev., who represents Las Vegas's casino industry, on a provision
in the Interior Department appropriations bill that would rescind Miller's
rider. Reid's provision has passed the Senate, but it has to be reconciled
with a House version.
Bridge-Building, Manatt, Phelps-Style
Two and a half years after they began, lobbyists at Manatt, Phelps &
Phillips are working to wrap up the complicated federal permitting process
for a distinctive new pedestrian-only bridge between downtown Tijuana,
Mexico, and a planned 66-acre retail-and-office complex on the San Diego
side of the border. The International Gateway of the Americas, which is
being built by LandGrant Development, requires a "presidential
permit" that must be approved by about two dozen federal agencies.
Backers say that the new bridge is needed because the nearby San Ysidro
crossing is clogged with 86 million pedestrian and vehicular travelers
annually. The proposed bridge would provide a direct link between
Tijuana's main tourist street, Avenida Revolucion, and a snazzy,
655,000-square-foot shopping mall that features such retailers as Nike,
Tommy Hilfiger, the Gap, Polo, and Levi's.
The team at Manatt, Phelps-a Los Angeles-based firm with strong ties to
Mexico's government and business sector-is being led by Robert J. Kabel, a
former special assistant to President Reagan and an aide to Sen. Richard
G. Lugar, R-Ind. It includes Eric Farnsworth, who was policy director to
Mack McLarty, President Clinton's special envoy to the Americas.
Farnsworth was also a staff member for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere
Affairs at the State Department from 1990-95. Historically, presidential
permits have taken seven to 10 years to be finalized, Kabel says, but
"our objective is to have it acted on before" Mexican President
Vicente Fox is scheduled to meet President Bush at the White House in
early September.
Peter H. Stone, Shawn Zeller, Louis Jacobson
National Journal
