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Just In | The Hill 

FOOD

Starbucks Corp. hired Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas to lobby on issues related to the company’s reinvention plans, workforce programs, sustainability and economic development. Bruce Mehlman, former general counsel and policy director for the House Republican Conference, will work on the account. Starbucks also contracted with Harbinger Strategies, a firm with close ties to House GOP leaders, to lobby on the same issues. 

Grubhub hired BGR Government Affairs to lobby on food insecurity, privacy and workforce issues. Robin ​Colwell, former chief counsel for Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will work on the account.

TECHNOLOGY

Fintech firm Plaid hired Invariant to lobby on issues related to financial services data networks. Carolyn Coda, former Republican law clerk for the Senate Finance Committee, will work on the account.

The Auto Care Association hired Plurus Strategies to lobby on right to repair legislation that would allow third parties to access vehicle data. David Leiter, former chief of staff to then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), will work on the account.

Voyager Space Holdings hired BGR Government Affairs to lobby on issues related to space station design and innovative systems. Erskine ​Wells, former deputy chief of staff to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), will work on the account.

REFORM

The Coalition Against Unjust Sentencing hired Squire Patton Boggs to lobby for sentencing reform measures. Thomas Andrews, former director of member services for then-Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), will work on the account.

​Lobbying Contracts, Business & Lobbying, hires, lobbying Read More 

Just In | The Hill 

House Republicans are honing in on releases from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the first set of bills that they’re expected to take up once they can start legislating.

While their legislation is unlikely to make it through the Democrat-led Senate and past President Biden, including these bills among the first of the new Congress signals that the nation’s oil reserves will be a key policy priority for the GOP. 

On Friday, Rep. Steve Scalise (La.), a key Republican leader, released a list of “meaningful, ‘ready-to-go'” bills that will be the first that the party takes up, including two bills related to the strategic oil reserves.

“These commonsense measures will address challenges facing hard-working families on issues ranging from energy, inflation, border security, life, taxpayer protection, and more,” he said of the 11 total bills in a dear colleague letter. 

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the nation’s emergency crude oil supply. Last year, the Biden administration executed the largest-ever sell off of oil from the reserve, drawing Republican ire, in an effort to tamp down fuel prices that skyrocketed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Now, the GOP is pushing back. The party is slated to take up two bills aimed at future oil releases: one that would prevent new releases of SPR oil unless there is a plan in place for more energy development on the nation’s public lands and another that would seek to prevent oil from U.S. reserves from ending up in China. 

“We wanted to start with some things on SPRO which we’ve seen President Biden raid to cover for his failed policies,” Scalise told reporters, referring to the strategic reserve. 

Frank Maisano, who represents energy clients at the law and government relations firm Bracewell LLP, told The Hill via email that he would expect Republicans to kick off their term by targeting the SPR.

“I fully expect Republicans to be aggressive in challenging the political nature of the administration’s actions and try and set a standard for future use of the SPR,” Maisano said.

The administration defended its use of the SPR, saying it was used correctly to address supply issues. 

“The Biden administration, like administrations of both parties have historically done, rightly authorized emergency use of the SPR mission to address supply disruptions –providing relief to American families and refineries when needed the most. Treasury estimated that the Biden administration’s releases reduced prices at the pump by up to $0.40/gallon,” said an emailed statement from the Energy Department. 

Scalise added that Republicans will be “doing a lot of bills to lower energy costs and have a good energy strategy that allows us to create our own energy” but said that committees like Energy and Commerce and Natural Resources would have to do work on those. 

A spokesperson for Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who will chair the Energy and Commerce Committee, said via email that the the Biden administration “abused the SPR to coverup its radical anti-fossil fuel agenda” when asked why the SPR was among the first issues that the Republican majority was taking on. 

More broadly, the spokesperson said, “Republicans are focused on making energy more secure and affordable for the American people, and delivering solutions that address these issues will be one of Chair Rodgers’ first priorities on E&C.”

The early focus on the strategic reserve may be a harbinger of some future actions. While the legislation is not likely to make it across the finish line, Republicans could target the oil reserve in other ways, particularly through oversight.

When they were in the minority, Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee sought documents related to the SPR release. With the majority, they’ll have more force to formally request them and further probe the Biden administration’s action.

It’s not clear when the initial bills would come to the floor, as votes are delayed by GOP infighting over who will become speaker of the House. Originally, the China-related bill had been slated for a vote this week. 

When the Biden administration released the oil, a senior administration official described it as a “wartime bridge to additional U.S. production and other production that we expect later this year.”

Even if they would be able to pass, they may not be particularly effective. Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service said the China-related bill sounds “pretty silly.”

Some of the oil that was sold from the strategic reserve ended up in other countries, including China, and some of the countries that were able to buy oil from the release are  U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies. 

But, Kloza said, even if the barrels ended up in China, it would have still had the same impacts on the U.S. economy. 

“It is a world market and it’s like water seeking its own level and when you sold oil on the incremental market whether it moved to domestic sources or whether it moved overseas it did temper the enthusiasm for high-priced oil,” he said. 

“There’s no question that SPR sales mitigated the price impact for crude last year,” he added. 

Kloza was also somewhat critical of the bill requiring a plan to produce more oil and gas on federal lands, saying that he “understand[s] the point they’re trying to make” but also said he believes there are “plenty of leases out there.”

​Energy & Environment, House, oil prices, strategic petroleum reserve Read More 

Just In | The Hill 

Former Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) joined K&L Gates as a government affairs counselor shortly after retiring from Congress. Doyle, who served 14 terms, was a member of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, where he chaired the communications and technology subcommittee. Doyle will work with the firm’s Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., offices on behalf of lobbying clients.

Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck announced that Nadeam Elshami and Will Moschella will co-chair the firm’s government relations practice going forward. They will take over for longtime managing partner Marc Lampkin, who will focus on client service and business development. Elshami previously served as chief of staff to outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), while Moschella served as principal associate attorney general in the Justice Department under former President George W. Bush.

Sinéad McSweeney, Twitter’s vice president of public policy and philanthropy, has left the company as Elon Musk continues to cut staff. McSweeney joined Twitter in 2012 as a senior director for public policy. The company promoted Nick Pickles to head of global government affairs. He joined Twitter in 2014 as a senior public policy manager in the U.K.

Erin Perrine joined strategy and consulting firm Clout Public Affairs as communications director. Perrine previously did comms work for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and former President Trump’s 2020 campaign. She most recently was vice president of communications at TAG Strategies. 

Karlee Popken joined SMI as a director. Popken most recently served as a legislative assistant to Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), where she led the appropriations process. 

Advanced Energy Economy, a trade association representing clean energy firms and tech giants, rebranded as Advanced Energy United. The group said that it will focus on implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure bill and boost its advocacy efforts at the state level.

​Lobbying Hires, Business & Lobbying, hires, K Street, lobbying Read More 

Just In | The Hill 

The White House is looking to rise above the fray of a divided Congress engulfed in drama as a new House GOP majority was sworn in on Tuesday.

With Washington set to be defined by divided government for the next two years and House Republicans already beset by infighting, President Biden and his team are hoping to focus on outreach to moderate GOP lawmakers and highlight bipartisan achievements from the past two years as they gear up for a possible 2024 campaign.

The strategy will be on display on Wednesday, when Biden makes his first trip on the first full day of the new Congress to Kentucky to tout infrastructure investments alongside Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other lawmakers from both parties.

“The president has always been very clear … that he’s willing to work with Republicans who are willing to continue to deliver for the American people,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. “And it’s not just him. This is what the American public said very loudly and clearly after the midterms. They want us to deliver on a common ground, to deliver on the needs of what’s important for them.”

The White House enters a new year facing a divided Congress following two years of Democrats holding narrow majorities in both chambers, which allowed Biden to pass key priorities on climate change, health care and the economy via the reconciliation process without Republican votes.

Democrats still hold a two-seat majority in the Senate, but Republicans now hold a 10-seat majority in the House. Even as the House GOP struggles to unify, the split Congress is likely to result in gridlock that will leave most of Biden’s remaining legislative priorities languishing.

Biden has said he views the midterm election results as a message from the American public for lawmakers to work together. A House GOP majority intent on investigating Biden and positioning their party for a 2024 White House win is unlikely to provide much help, even on key issues like raising the debt ceiling to avoid a government default.

But aides say Biden is clear-eyed about the challenges ahead in the next two years and is ready to build on his record of bipartisan wins from the past two years and bolster his reputation as someone willing to reach across the aisle.

“Thanks to his experience and judgment, the President has gone beyond his promise to find consensus across the aisle, bringing Republicans and Democrats together to realize some of his top campaign platforms and move the country forward,” deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates said in a memo to reporters before the new year.

“And he has been explicit at every turn before and after the midterms that he’s eager to keep working with his Republican colleagues, noting that American voters made clear that they expect the parties to work together when they rallied around his agenda and grew Democrats’ numbers in the Senate,” Bates added.

Biden’s first two years saw him sign off on more than 200 bipartisan bills, according to the White House, including a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that will be a focus of Biden’s travels in 2023. Other bipartisan legislation included investments in semiconductor chip manufacturing, strengthened gun safety laws, protections for same-sex marriages and increased assistance for veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits.

The president is expected to sell those accomplishments and his broader economic agenda in the run up to a possible 2024 campaign launch in the first half of the year.

White House officials, particularly in the legislative affairs office, are likely to continue reaching out to senators they’ve had success working with previously. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) are among those they’ve had success negotiating with in the past.

On the House side, some Biden administration officials believe there will be opportunities to forge relationships with some moderate Republicans. In particular, the White House will be testing the waters with first-term GOP lawmakers who represent districts that Biden carried in 2020, believing those representatives will need some policy wins to sell to their constituents back home for reelection in two years.

The White House’s strategy will be put into action on the second day of the new Congress, when Biden travels to Kentucky to speak about a major investment in a bridge that connects Kentucky and Ohio. The project is being funded through the bipartisan infrastructure law that Biden signed in late 2021. Other officials will fan out around the country on Wednesday to tout the administration’s economic agenda.

McConnell will be in attendance in his home state of Kentucky, as will Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D), among other officials. 

“We’ve been friends a long time,” Biden said of McConnell on Monday upon returning to the White House from a holiday vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  “Everybody is talking about how significant it is. It has nothing to do about our relationship. … It’s a giant bridge, man. It’s a lot of money. It’s important.”

The visit will be in stark contrast to the chaos that unfolded Tuesday in the House, where Republicans could not come to consensus on a lawmaker to back for Speaker.

“It can highlight that we do big profound things for the country when we work together,” Jean-Pierre said. “And I think that’s an important message to send to the American people, especially after the midterms.”

​Administration Read More 

Just In | The Hill 

Much of the U.S. is in the throes of a winter COVID-19 surge with cases poised to eclipse last year’s summer peak, driven by new variants, waning immunity and holiday gatherings.  

The country has come a long way from the worst days of the pandemic. But vaccinations have stalled out amid fatigue, and new variants have neutered almost all monoclonal antibody treatments. Antiviral drugs such as Paxlovid still work, but they’re not safe for some immunocompromised patients. 

Last week, the U.S. surpassed 100 million total cases since the start of the pandemic, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The actual totals are likely much higher because of infected people who never got tested or those who tested positive at home and never reported the result.

The omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 has rapidly spread to become the dominant COVID-19 mutation in the U.S., likely fueling the increase in cases.

Hospitalizations are also rising quickly, especially amid the vulnerable population over age 60, though the average weekly admissions of 5,600 for the general population are about 74 percent lower than the worst of last winter’s omicron surge, which peaked at more than 21,000 a week.

But public health experts are expressing frustration that instead of focusing on mitigation measures including masking and improved ventilation, U.S. officials have turned their attention towards China.

Beginning Thursday, all incoming travelers from China, including Hong Kong and Macau, will need to present negative COVID-19 tests before entering the United States regardless of vaccination status. 

“If I saw any public health utility in this, I would strongly support it. I don’t see any public health utility,” said Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

“We should probably look at ourselves first. Any country ought to be testing people from the United States,” Osterholm said, noting the “atrocious” levels of booster shot uptake and the rapid rise of the XBB variant, particularly in the Northeast. 

“We’ve had no evidence XBB is in China,” Osterholm said.

The return of the testing requirement comes amid China’s rapid dismantling of its “zero COVID” strategy, which has resulted in infections running wild without an adequate health infrastructure or enough vaccinations in place. 

Biden administration officials said the enhanced testing is meant to decrease the number of infected passengers boarding airplanes and could give public health authorities time to identify and understand any potential new variants that may emerge. 

They argue China has virtually stopped reporting any outbreak data, and officials said they are concerned about potential new variants circulating without their knowledge.

But infectious disease experts said new variants are much more likely to arise domestically than to come from China. The virus mutates to escape immunity, whether from prior infection or from vaccination. The U.S. currently has much higher levels of both compared to China. 

“We’ve theoretically beefed up our surveillance system, but if they focus only on China, we will miss the [variant] that shows up in Seattle or New York City or Austin, Texas, or wherever,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “We shouldn’t put all of our eggs in the basket of thinking that it’s only going to come from China. I think that’d be a terrible mistake.”

Rick Bright, an immunologist and former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), said it appears that the viruses circulating in China are similar to those that circulated in the U.S. last summer and never gained a foothold. 

“This is another missed opportunity to educate the public on effective mask wearing, testing, and the importance of getting a recent vaccine boost. And a huge missed opportunity to gain valuable knowledge from genomic surveillance,” Bright said in a direct message to The Hill.

Federal health officials are asking people to wear masks in areas of high community transmission, as are some state officials. But there is no political appetite for mask requirements, as much of the public has moved on from worrying about the virus. 

In his final White House appearance in November, top medical adviser Anthony Fauci emphasized the need for people to get the updated shot, even if they’ve previously been vaccinated. 

The country can get to a point where there’s a minimal background level of infections and very few deaths, he said, but only if people protect themselves. Despite the availability of vaccines and treatments, hundreds of people are still dying of COVID-19 every day.

“We’re gonna get there. We can get there with less suffering if we use the interventions that we have,” Fauci said. “If you want to let nature take its course, we’re ultimately going to get there, but we’re going to lose a lot more people than we need to.”

The Biden administration continues to encourage vaccination and last month restarted its program of offering free at-home COVID-19 tests through the mail. But federal funding for testing, vaccines and other pandemic measures has dried up, with Congress unwilling to appropriate more money.

“Instead of talk about stopping funding for tests, masks, vaccines and drugs, along with chatter about lifting the public health emergency, all energy should be focused on ramping up to weather the last major surges of this virus,” Bright said. “We have the ability to predict these surges now and the tools to block them.”

​Healthcare, Transportation Read More