Chamber ups lobbying spending

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s most powerful business group, upped its lobbying spending in the first half of 2012.
 
The Chamber and the affiliated Institute for Legal Reform spent $55 million on lobbying in the first half of 2012, compared to approximately $31 million for the same period last year, according to Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) filings released Friday.
 
Lobbying expenses totaled $29 million for the second quarter of the year, which ended June 30, a slight increase over the $26 million spent in the first quarter of 2011.
The Chamber is on pace to exceed its lobbying spending in 2011, but is unlikely to match the furious activity of 2010, when work on the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and healthcare reform dominated Washington.
 

It spent $65.8 million on lobbying last year, according to the LDA reports. That was a significant drop from 2010, when the Chamber and its legal affiliate spent an eye-popping $131.5 million on lobbying.

Last year, a Chamber spokesman told The Hill that declines in the group’s lobbying is typical for off-election years.

The Chamber’s small army of lobbyists has focused on a multitude of issues in 2012, including Dodd-Frank, health reform implementation, replacing the $109 billion spending sequester, the Keystone oil pipeline, reform of sugar quotas, customs facilitation and Environmental Protection Agency rules on natural-gas fracking.
 
The group scored big wins with the passage of Export-Import Bank reauthorization and passage of the National Flood Insurance Program reauthorization, but failed to win the inclusion of user fees in a Food and Drug Administration bill.

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